A woman who turned to power-lifting after she endured a messy divorce reveals how weights have transformed her love life and her body. 56-year-old Bibi Britt Johannesen, from Copenhagen, Denmark, first started weight-lifting in her twenties after she was unhappy with her physique.
However, as the decades passed, she piled the weight back on, reaching 18 stone 2lbs eight years ago – when she was consuming around 4,000 to 5,000 calories a day.
When her marriage faltered, Bibi, a day care manager, decided to hit the gym once more and has seen her physique transformed.
She’s lost seven stone and cultivated a muscular body which she describes as ‘the best medicine’ for overcoming her painful divorce.
Last year, her confidence was boosted so much, she decided to enter a national competition, coming third – and now weighs just 11st 5Ibs.
Bibi says the gym has become therapy for her: ‘When in emotional turmoil, lifting weights is therapeutic for me; I feel grounded and it’s something I can do physically that doesn’t require thinking. It’s a break and I’m in control.”
And she adds that the work-outs have also boosted her libido after decades of feeling uncomfortable in her body: ‘The physical aspects have definitely changed – it’s never been better; again the whole body and self-awareness does magic.’
She says the pain of her divorce in 2011 was healed by the ‘medicine’ of working out and she was soon addicted to further honing her physique.
