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Growing up in Brazil I was always very fit. I never really worked out, but I was always highly active and had a healthy diet. As a young mother I moved to the U.K., and after six months married my second husband.
Quickly, my lifestyle changed dramatically. I was working full-time and found myself eating fast and convenient foods, without exercising much.
At the time I worked at a hotel and the food they served wasn't very healthy—spaghetti bolognese, meatballs, or burgers. My ex-husband loved to cook, so in the evenings made traditional English dishes like shepherd's pie. We often ordered fish and chips or Indian takeout.
On the weekends we drank a lot of alcohol, and sometimes I smoked if I felt like it. We occasionally ate ice cream, sweets, and biscuits. It wasn't all the time, but everything added up. I didn't realize that I was slowly putting on weight.
After seven years of living in the U.K. I had gained 30 kilos and was wearing a U.K. size 20 (U.S. size 16). I do care about my appearance, and about my health, so that slowly started to bother me.
Deep inside I thought: "This is not the real Angela. This is not who I am."
The moment I decided to really make a change was when I saw my hairdresser after she had lost a lot of weight. "Wow, what have you been doing?" I asked. She told me that she had totally changed how she ate.
At that time I didn't really believe the saying: "You are what you eat" but after speaking with her, something changed inside me. "If she can do it, so can I," I thought.
I started cooking my own meals and usually stuck to eating the same things daily. The only exercise I did was walking around the park for one hour every single day.
In the mornings I had porridge with berries and a small amount of honey. For lunch, I had grilled chicken or fish with a small portion of salad, brown rice, or sweet potato and vegetables. As a snack, I might have a rice cake, an apple with peanut butter, or plain yogurt with nuts. For dinner, I had another portion of chicken or fish.
I started to see results quickly; within one or two weeks. I was determined to carry on.
As I lost weight and felt happier with myself, I grew more selfish so I could achieve my goal. I had to forget about everything around me and focus on myself. Throughout this process, my husband and I grew apart.
We both found it difficult to deal with the change. I was no longer cooking meals he enjoyed and on Saturdays I didn't want to sit on the sofa together and eat takeout, or go to the pub.
I wanted to go for a long walk or take a caravan away for the weekend and explore. It felt like I had too much energy. We wanted different things and I think we began to resent each other.
Slowly, we drifted further and further apart. Toward the end of the year, I joined a gym and started to meet other people with the same mindset as me.
I thought: "Okay, maybe I don't want to be in this relationship anymore. I would like to be with someone who I can explore these things with."
It seems he felt the same way. Shortly afterward, he ended the relationship. He told me I wasn't the same Angela he had met and he didn't think we could be together. For one or two months he stayed at home while he found a place of his own, and that was the end.
I think the split impacted me more than I knew. At the time I didn't realize why, but I began to have panic attacks. We had been married for nearly a decade and my son was 10 years old.
Would I be able to pay my rent and afford everything on my own? I did not know what to do.
I had panic attacks on the bus or the train to work, but I didn't know what they were. Eventually, I went to the doctor and they explained what was happening. Initially, I didn't accept that explanation, but as I started doing the breathing exercises they gave me, the attacks slowly started to disappear.
Fortunately, my period of anxiety didn't last very long and a few months after we separated I started talking to other people at the gym. I am a confident and friendly person, so I found it easy to connect with people.
Soon I began posting on social media about my body transformation and gained a large following of women. I soon left the corporate world and became a personal trainer for around a year.
As time went on I started doing photoshoots and collaborations with photographers, and six years ago I met my current partner when he reached out through Instagram to ask me to train him.
We built careers in the fitness world together and I moved in with him. Gradually, my content became a little bit more glamorous, and I stepped away from the fitness side of things, which I think my new partner found tough to deal with.
Though my followers and partner didn't seem happy with the direction my content was going in, I loved taking artistic pictures of my body. I felt like a sensual and feminine woman.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I joined an adult online subscription service, which I don't think my partner agreed with. I believe it made it harder for us to connect with one another, particularly when it came to intimacy.
Now, we have a very healthy relationship; we're best friends and understand each other completely. Everything is perfect—the only thing I feel we struggle with is intimacy. His dream is for me to quit glamor modeling and go back to fitness, but I don't plan to do that anytime soon.
Eventually, I would like to start my own fitness business in Bali or Spain, but right now my passion is for creating online content. I enjoy dressing up and feeling my full femininity.
Though my weight loss has changed my life dramatically, I do not regret anything. Without losing weight I would not be where I am now, which is focusing on connecting to my more feminine side.
I always feel powerful, but doing this allows me to feel beautiful.
Angela Crickmore is a social media model from Brazil who lives in London, England. You can find her on Instagram @angelcrickmore.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
As told to Newsweek's My Turn associate editor, Monica Greep.
Do you have a unique experience or personal story to share? Email the My Turn team at myturn@newsweek.com
