This model went from a size 36 to a size 42 and found happiness –

Thirty-six: that was the mannequin number I always dreamed of. And what disturbed me the most. Since I was a child, I went on diets to get into that perfect measure. When I started modeling, aged 19, the agency was clear: I was beautiful, but to pursue a career I would have to lose weight.

Deep down, the insults I received from the team – including the “whale” one, for wearing a size 42 – just meant that if I wasn’t thin, I wouldn’t have value. The certainty that my body was wrong came as quickly as it went unnoticed. It was seven years struggling (and suffering) to fit the standards until a strict diet made me reach the long-awaited 36. I started pumping! I lived in Europe, graced the cover of countless fashion magazines.

Staying at that number, though, wasn’t easy. I bet on crazy methods and starved to the point of not sleeping because of so much pain in an empty stomach. In the worst phase, I ate uncontrollably and then fasted – not infrequently, for more than a day.

In the pictures, I was always smiling, playing Wonder Woman. But at home I saw myself fat and blamed myself for missing training. The weekends were the most tense. I stopped wearing a skirt because I thought my thighs were huge – even though I was a size 34 – and I avoided dinners with friends so as not to eat a hamburger (if I indulged in a snack, I would get disapproving looks at work). To avoid it, I stayed in bed – hating myself.

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Few people noticed that I suffered from an eating disorder. After all, society is molded to always validate women’s obsession with the search for the perfect body. But deep down I knew I wasn’t living my truth. So I decided to talk to other colleagues, and that’s when my penny dropped: I wasn’t fine, but most were much worse. I sought therapy. It took me a year and a half to accept that, more than a model, I was Nathalia.

The big dilemma: as I got better (and fatter), my career went downhill. It was months without a single job. I got tired of hearing people saying that I was throwing my profession in the trash. Only I know how many hours I wasted crying on the couch, thinking my world was over.

– (Rodrigo Marques/)

I was already resigned that, in order to survive, I would need to find another profession. Until I found out that there was a category called curvy: for women with a shape between traditional model and plus size. I went to a specialized agency and I remember, as if it were yesterday, the first measurements they took there. I was 107 centimeters across my hips – that’s stratospheric for the fashion world – and I was told, ‘It looks great. Perfect!’

Don’t think it was a smooth transition. At the same time, Luma Grothe, my friend and top model, was taking off internationally. And me, on the couch, waiting for my first curvy job. I confess that I got a little jealous. After all, a year ago, I took the same jobs as her.

Almost like regret, I heard an inner voice: ‘Instead of being a pain in the ass, be happy to see a woman who worked so hard achieve her goals.’ Then a snap came to me. Neither of us should feel better or worse than the other. They all deserved to think they were beautiful, each in their own way. I picked up the phone and called Luma, who I knew had been bullied at school for being considered weird: ‘I have a project idea. Face me?’ She got it! Fabiana Saba, who also reinvented herself as a curvy model, but at the age of 38 she also got into it.

Read also: How Spice Girl Geri Halliwell beat bulimia

All Together is a web channel that emphasizes the importance of women’s union and proposes to break labels. Every week, we interview women who don’t feel represented by an imposed standard and face, with great determination and resilience, the most different types of prejudice, from racism to homophobia. On the 8th – on International Women’s Day –, the program premiered on YouTube!

– (Rodrigo Marques/)

Coincidence or not, shortly after that idea, I got my first photoshoot wearing a size 42! And I didn’t need the same old poses, which were precisely the ones that made me even thinner. In the past, I was asked to show my personality in the photos, but I just didn’t feel like myself. I finally found myself! A year later, I’m already working as much as I used to and, I confess, I’m very proud to look at myself in the mirror. I feel good about my own body, and as hard as it has been, it shows me that I’ve endured the journey. I turned into someone healthy, above all impositions.

Of course, I don’t give up whole foods, fruits and salads on a daily basis. But I’m also not ashamed to admit that if I really want a brownie, for example, I go there and eat it, without any guilt. Even pizza on weekends is free. I believe that, more than good or bad foods, there is our relationship with them. Yes, sometimes the best meal will be a sandwich, only at a party with the gang instead of dinner on a Wednesday.

The motivation to engage in physical activity is no longer about maintaining a super-skinny body. On the contrary, I do it because I found pleasure in exercise – especially in my beloved trio of yoga, cycling and functional training. But most of all, I found a lifestyle that gives me the health and freedom to be the best version of myself.”