Plus size pole dancer finds empowerment

Dubbed the “pleasantly plump friend” at school, a size 18 professional told how she feels sexy for the first time, after taking up pole dancing.

Embracing her curves, tech developer Nicola Martin, 32, who has see-sawed between a size 12 at her slimmest to a size 18 now, confessed to “eating on depression,” especially when a significant relationship ended in 2016.

Struggling for years with binge eating, then purging, as well as being diagnosed with the hormonal condition, polycystic ovary syndrome in 2012, which can cause weight gain, Nicola’s salvation came in 2017, after a counsellor suggested she tried pole dancing.

The singleton, of Kineton, Warwickshire, who dances twice a week at Pole Sensations in her village, said: “I had just come to the end of a horrific relationship and I felt really bad about myself.

“Then a counsellor I was seeing suggested pole dancing to see how it made me feel.

“It’s something I had thought about for quite some time, but lacked the confidence in myself to do it.”