Diet: Eat yourself younger and drop 14lbs!
The trick to a youthful glow can be found in your fridge…
HOW IT WORKS
Limited lines, plumped-up skin and a healthy glow all help you look younger, and eating the right type of anti-ageing foods can help you get them. So what should you eat?
Well, in our three-meals-aday plan you’ll start with plenty of healthy fats – from foods like oily fish, olives, avocado – that hydrate the skin, plumping out lines and wrinkles. You’ll also eat lots of fruit and vegetables. This is always good for health but some produce, such as tomatoes, blueberries, kiwi fruit and leafy greens like spinach or watercress have specific skin-ageing superpowers. Accompany meals with protein-packed beans or lentils (people who eat lots of these look younger, say Australian doctors) or orange root vegetables like sweet potatoes and butternut squash (which contain skin-boosting beta-carotene) for an extra boost. Finally, add plenty of garlic to all your dishes – it’s shown to protect skin against sun damage.
Don’t forget to also drink plenty of hydrating water and wrinkle-busting green tea a day. Skip sugary food and drinks though as sugar speeds up ageing. And avoid alcohol; it stresses the liver, which can show up as a line between the brows; have a month off booze and you could look like you’ve had Botox!
Breakfast: 1 poached egg, served with 1 piece of toast and quarter of an avocado.
Lunch: Salad of watercress, radish and cucumber topped with 125g tinned salmon.
Dinner: 125g chicken and 200g butter beans stir-fried with cherry tomatoes, red pepper, spinach and 3tbsp of any curry sauce.
‘Dorothy?’ the teacher called out as she read the names on the school register to check who was in attendance.
‘Here,’ I shouted, before my identical twin sister and I burst into fits of giggles.
‘Kathleen?’ she said. ‘Here,’ my sister answered through her laughter on my behalf.
We’ve always loved playing silly pranks on people, each pretending to be the other, and our tutors were never any the wiser. To start with, anyway…
They ended up having to separate us into different classes so they could tell us apart, and so that we didn’t cheat and do one piece of the same homework.
And whilst we looked very similar with our curly locks, fair complexion and rose bud lips, our personalities couldn’t have been more different.
Dorothy, or Dotty, as she was known, was smart, with a passion for science, whilst I was creative and artistic, and enjoyed painting and making things.
Known as ‘the twinnies’, we were so close we often finished each other’s sentences and we could even tell what the other was thinking without them having to say it.
When we were, very rarely, in the same lesson, we would gesture in sign language – which we’d learnt from the numerous books we’d read – across the room to
‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned’ ‘The best thing in life you can do is to love one another.’
communicate secretly with each other when our tutor’s back was turned. It was like our own private language and we loved our closeness.
When we weren’t at school, we were out on our bikes and cycling around Chatham, Kent, where we grew up – our little brother, Cecil, who was 16 months our junior, would follow. He was one of the only people who could tell us apart.
When we were 19 in 1939, World War II was declared and we both did our bit for our country. Dotty became a radiographer in a London
hospital, but was eventually sent to Winchester to treat soldiers returning from the Normandy beaches, while I worked as a radar operator. It was the first time in our lives we’d been apart and, although we were both busy working, we missed each other dreadfully.
After the war, Dotty temporarily became a physicist’s assistant and I ended up as a primary school teacher. But we were still as close as ever. When we went shopping separately, it wasn’t unusual for us to have bought the same bag or clothes.
It wasn’t long after, that Dotty, then 22, met her husband, Lesley, a friend of our brother, Cecil. Dotty had needed a partner for a hospital dance, so Cecil put Lesley forward. Lesley was 11 years Dotty’s senior.
He’d come to work at a factory – upholstering aircraft chairs and pilot sears – when he made friends with Cecil.
And on 5 April 1947, Dotty and Lesley tied the knot in a lovely ceremony in Borstal Church, Kent. And, of course, I was right by her side as her bridesmaid.
I was thrilled for them – and although Dotty had become someone’s wife, they both still made sure to include me in their lives. The three of us loved bird watching and often went off on adventures trying to spot different types.
We also went on many holidays to places throughout Europe, Canada and Scandinavia. We even visited the North Pole and saw reindeer!
We went to see glaciers like the Morteratsch in Switzerland, soaked up the sunshine in Spain and jetted to the Netherlands.
Dotty and Lesley went on to have three children – Phillip, Margaret and Rosemary – and then six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
And whilst I was once engaged, I never married or had any children of my own. But I loved being an auntie and spending time with Dotty’s brood.
We didn’t live far from each other and would see each other or speak on the phone most days.
But in March this year, with Dotty now a widow after losing her husband in 2004, her grandson, Matthew, suggested we move in together to keep each other company during lockdown.
It was a great idea. At the age of 99, we knew how well we got on. There wasn’t a chance that we’d quarrel or fall out – we’d never had an argument before and I couldn’t see that changing now.
‘How about a game?’ Dotty said, waving a pack of cards in my direction. ‘Go on then!’ I smiled, sitting down beside her.
We entertained ourselves by playing games, chatting and singing.
And in May, we discovered that we were the UK’s oldest twins after a pair called Doris Hobday and Lilian Cox were on the television saying they were the eldest – but we had five years on them! ‘Fancy that!’ I laughed to Dotty.
We think the secret to our long lives is balancing wine and chocolate, with exercise and healthy food – and having each other.
Born in 1920, on 28 August this year, Dotty and I celebrated our 100th birthdays.
‘There wasn’t a chance we’d fall out – we’ve never had an argument’
Because of our age and the virus, we had to be very careful, but we had some friends and family come over for a garden party and we stayed in the conservatory with our face shields on. It was such a pity to not have a birthday hug or kiss, but that’s just the way life is at the minute.
We each received our birthday cards from the Queen through the post and they sit proudly on the mantelpiece.
We both still feel young at heart and get on just as well as we did when we were little. When it comes to us, age definitely is just a number.