Losing weight can spice up a sex life
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-18 07:28

That certainly was true of Carlene Wellington, 62, and her husband, Gary, 63, of suburban Tacoma, Wash. Both were a healthy weight when they married 42 years ago, until she started to "show love" by cooking massive amounts of food. She and her husband ballooned to 237 and 355 pounds, respectively, and their sex life suffered.

"We had about 600 pounds in our bed," she said.

"I called it my workbench," because sex was so physically difficult, he said.

Carlene Wellington was embarrassed by her body.

"I could get dressed without showing any skin," and had to have the lights off when they had sex, she said. During sex, she often felt pressure in her chest, caused by anxiety and dread.

She now weighs 153 pounds, and her tall husband a trim 235. "It's just like being married to a different person, or going back 25 years," she said.

Her husband recalled the day 13 years ago — after the couple had just lost a combined 200 pounds — when he looked at wife one morning and told her she had a cute butt.

"I don't know if she thought I was trying to make her late for work or not," he said. But he was struck by how much he wanted to.

The Wellingtons are leaders in their local chapter of TOPS, or Take Off Pounds Sensibly, an international support group that had a display at the obesity conference in Vancouver.

The prospect of a better sex life could motivate some overweight people to shed pounds, said Dr. Ahmed Kissebah, an obesity expert at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and medical adviser to TOPS.

In overweight young women in particular, "We see some form of frigidity. They're afraid of interacting" physically, Kissebah said.

Binks said: "We are encouraging health care providers to open the atmosphere and encourage conversations" about these issues.

Gary Wellington said such openness would help.

"The term 'love is blind' is true," he said. But now that he and his wife have both lost weight, "things work better," and sex is again a joy, he said.