Health obsessed, me?
She’s tried ‘alkalising’ juice fasts, paleo and raw diets, daily Bikram yoga, naked saunas, in fact every wellness trend out there. Then Suzanne Duckett found the true secret to health and happiness…
Suzanne Duckett on ditching the fads and finding true health
In our house, we call it the Frazzles incident. The Sunday, seven years ago, when I stood at the checkout in Waitrose ramming bacon Frazzles from a jumbosized family pack into my mouth. Brick-red crisp dust around my lips while simultaneously took bites of an egg mayo sandwich and gulped down a lemon San Pellegrino, the girl at the till watching on in horror. I looked like a mad woman who hadn’t eaten for days.
I felt like one, because I hadn’t. I was on day three of a five-day ‘spring clean alkalising vegetable juice fast’. Twenty-five bottles of green liquid that cost a small fortune but tasted like the bottom of a fish tank had been delivered to my door in chill bags on the Thursday afternoon. On Friday, I holed up and got on with it, albeit very grumpily. Then, 70 hours in, I broke, catapulting into a junk binge. It was the smell of steak grilling on a barbecue while I was out for a ‘lymphaticstimulating walk’ that pushed me over the edge. My walk turned into a jog, which turned into a full-pelt run to Waitrose. Juice fast? Juice farce, more like.
Until five years ago, this sort of erratic behaviour wasn’t unusual for me. Sure, as a journalist specialising in health, beauty and spa matters, puritanical penitentiary pursuits were part of my job. On a personal level, I didn’t do them to lose weight (I’ve always been a size eight to 10) but in an attempt to buck the illness trends in my family – stroke, heart attacks, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis – that could have been managed if not prevented with diet and lifestyle. But as I tried to find the right, healthy direction for me from the hundreds out there, most of the time I’d fail and find myself in a version of the Frazzles incident.
Vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, macrobiotic, low-gi, raw, sugar-free, paleo, I’ve tried and eaten ’em all. I’ve done a cleansing diet supposedly to rid my gut of a candida yeast overgrowth. That was tough; I didn’t eat anything yeasty for a year – no sugar, mushrooms, bread, wine or champagne, nothing ready-made right down to ketchup or mustard. I became the ultimate food-label checker.
For my job, I’ve had MOTS at clinical spas all over the world, been examined, analysed, wired up to all sorts of miracle diagnosis machines to gauge my energy output – and not always with hard science to back up the resulting life-affecting advice. Often, it was on similar lines: less meat, no wheat, sugar, alcohol… or stress. No stress? Hello?! I live in the modern world. Being super healthy was simple at a Swiss spa but once home would become impossible.
I found it easy to be extreme. Gluten-free Monday would ricochet to fish-and-chip Fridays. My mantra was all or nothing. I’ve sat naked in a mixed sauna to detox the German way, taken salt baths and ice cold showers. I’ve been to military fitness boot camps: sloshing barefoot through icy, stony rivers in the Scottish Highlands. My schizophrenic Great North Run began with a perfect training schedule but the carb-loading pre-half-marathon dinner degenerated into tacos and salty margaritas and falling into bed at 2am. (Somehow, I finished the race!) Between 2003 and 2008, I was addicted to yoga – specifically hot, hot, hot Bikram yoga, bending over
“GLUTENFREE Monday would ricochet to FISHAND-CHIP Fridays”
backwards to get my daily dose of obsession, discipline and control. I chanted and started each day in a yoga headstand. I convinced myself meditation was the answer to everything.
Often, I’d embark on a new way of eating and being, trying to convert everyone in my wake to whatever I was supposed to be excluding or including. Invariably, after a day or three, my jeans would feel a little looser, my mood brighter and I’d feel more energised. My head would be filled with thoughts like ‘I might become a yoga teacher/open a retreat in Somerset/be veggie forever’. I was that woman in a restaurant, ordering everything on the side. Fastforward to the next week, the red wine would be flowing again, steaks sizzling and crisps would be my friend.
Then something happened. I interviewed a nutritionist who specialises in eating disorders, especially in girls, and she reminded me that most are about control. She told me that no matter how much I wanted my daughter, who was then six, to have the most nutritious diet in the world, she had to be allowed some say in what she ate.
While I’m adamant Talullah needs to know about nutrition and the rubbish that is put in food these days, I didn’t want to take the all-or-nothing approach any more because 1) it wasn’t just about me any more, and 2) I wanted my daughter to have a balanced approach to life, health, food and happiness. Pizzas and all.
I SAW MY HEALTH OBSESSION WASN’T ACTUALLY ABOUT GETTING HEALTHY,
but a way for me to gain control over life, to lighten my emotional load. The angel on my shoulder used to whisper in my ear that if I was super healthy, pure and ‘clean’ on the inside, I’d be super happy, too. And the devil on the other would be saying, ‘Oh to hell with it, life’s too short. Go on, eat, drink, be merry.’ The more I tried to fix myself by eliminating foods, the more my deprivation and resentment would build up, inevitably leading to a rebellion, then a guilt trip.
It became clear to me that my sweet spot wasn’t when I was being obsessively healthy and resisting temptation. Nor was it when I was totally unfit or eating and drinking whatever I craved then moaning about how crap I felt. I realised both are exhausting and boring (for all involved).
Real health and wellbeing comes from two places. First, it’s in the heart. And my relationship with my daughter filled mine with love and contentment. Secondly, it’s in the mind. Understanding that my extreme behaviour came from fear gave me a sense of acceptance and a new kindness towards myself.
Moderation, though, has always been elusive for me. I had to work out what being moderate means. On the surface, it was finding strategies I could maintain long-term. On a deeper level, it meant committing to balance and wholeness, to nourishing – not punishing – myself.
I made myself stop focusing so intently on the end result and start enjoying the journey. Now, while my health is still very important to me, so is my spirit and my sense of humour and my Sunday roast. I do buy organic food, even tea bags, but I make other sacrifices to be able to do that – I don’t do designer handbags, for instance. I still do yoga, but not every day and not as a competitive sport. I no longer need to make a public display of how healthy and nutritionally elite I am. And I’ve found having the odd glass of red wine here and there with my dinner in the week negates my need to drink a bottle to myself come the Friday-night wine-gate rush.
Living life in the middle lane is easier and more enjoyable. My life may still include a Nutri Bullet, but it whizzes up daiquiris on a Saturday (after I’ve popped a liver-protecting milk thistle supplement), lattes on a Sunday, juices in the week.
I’m still attracted by the latest new superfood or health buzz, it’s part of my job and it’s in my nature. But I consider each one as I’d consider a new-season fashion trend, like ruffles or stripes. Is it for me? Will it suit me? Will it fit in my life? I am no longer a health fashion victim.
I now know, there is no magic bullet, no miracle regime. Believe me, I’ve looked for one and tried them all. Instead, there is moderation, a little of what you fancy. And that even includes the odd bag of Frazzles in all its un-healthconscious glory.