Kiwi mum's transformation ‘JULES FROM MAFS CHANGED MY LIFE!'

Tauranga woman Larissa tells how the beloved reality star has inspired her

- Annemarie Quill

The morning after her husband left, Larissa Downey wondered if this was as bad as it gets. Not only did her heart feel heavy, but the Tauranga mum was also struggling with her body image, having “doubled in size” since she was a runner-up in Miss Universe New Zealand five years earlier.

And just to make things worse, the 30-year-old was only just emerging from the “deep dark hole” of the postnatal depression that had engulfed her since the birth of her son Carter, now two.

Too “ashamed” to admit she wasn’t coping, overwhelmed with tiredness, working full-time and unable to see “a light at the end of the tunnel”, Larissa recalls her worst moment when one morning driving to work, she toyed with the idea of driving her car into a concrete barrier.

Although now recovering with counselling, her relationship was a casualty. “It’s difficult to live with a person with mental illness,” she confesses. “I wasn’t the same person.”

As she pondered her future on her first day as a single mum, Larissa’s phone suddenly rang. The caller was none other than Jules Robinson, the biggest success story of Married at First Sight Australia, who now has an eight-month-old son named Oliver with the husband she met on the show, former Kiwi cricketer Cam Merchant.

Jules, 38, now runs successful shapewear company Figur, inspired by her experience of being trolled on the show for being “fat” because she wasn’t a size 10. Shocked by the body-shaming, she wants to help women feel confident in clothes and to love their curves, telling Woman’s Day, “Sexy is a mindset – not a dress size!”