Shantal and Mateus Verdelho: marriage between personal and professional –

SELF-IMAGE AND WELL-BEING

Taking the hook of the photos, how is your relationship with the mirror today?

Shantal: I am in a more delicate phase, postpartum. After my first pregnancy, I only felt back in my body when my son turned 2 years old. That’s when I looked in the mirror and said “I’m back”. now my little it is at seven months, there’s still a way to go if it’s like the first. I look in the mirror and my hips are wider, my body shape is different, the skin feels different. You see a body for years in the mirror and suddenly it looks different… Then, I look and say “Wow, how strange!”. I don’t feel super comfortable, but at the same time I’m not worried.

Mateus: I always liked being very dry… I was a model many years ago, this was already required in the profession, even more so in my time – it was totally different from how it is today. But, for the sports I play, being thin is better. And I never liked being muscular. What I like to do most is run. And the first purpose for running is not for the body, it’s for my head. If I do sport, I can produce more, de-stress, I feel better about myself, my thoughts flow more, and I have what I want in this relationship with the mirror – it is a consequence, and it is not the foreground. But I like to be light. I also have several injuries, and two, three kilos less makes a lot of difference to that. Putting it all together.

– (Breno da Matta/)

What sports and physical practices do you like to do?

Mateus: I’ve always skated, played soccer, but lately, because of my injuries, I’ve limited myself a little. I can run, but at the same time I do a lot of strength training and physical therapy. Last year I started doing triathlons, cycling and swimming, and, at the same time, I haven’t played for a while, but I like to play tennis, now I play beach tennis with Shan… but I do all kinds of sports. From playing ball to skydiving! I went back to judo too.

Shantal: I’m really addicted to beach tennis, any spare time I have I want to play! I’m in that vibe, but I do weight training too, which I don’t love, but I stayed in bed for three months during pregnancy and I lost a lot of support muscle – I had back pain from wearing heels, something I’ve never had! But precisely because I lost these muscles. I’m doing strength training a couple of times a week to see if I can get it back. But Mateus does it all! Any sport, he does!

– (Breno da Matta/)

Nowadays, how do you define well-being?

Shantal: I define it as getting a full night’s sleep, resting 8 hours and having time for ourselves. That’s where the cat jump: as our life is very intertwined with work, we end up working 24 hours a day, being able to take a break… Sometimes, we arrive at night, at dinner time, and there are the two solving things that we couldn’t solve during the day. And then we pick it up, wake up and say “Oops, let’s put the cell phone aside now and have this time of our own?”. Well-being is being able to understand the moments when we need this time for ourselves, for the familywithout reconciling the two things.

Mateus: many people say “well-being would be a trip, a party, Carnival”… Of course, we went to Rio de Janeiro at a party that would be an escape to enjoy it, but we worked and tried to unite the useful with the pleasant. In the moments that we have to take care of our well-being, we try to do nothing, just to relax, not to worry about anything. For me, if I have time, I want to stay at home, stay here.