Menopause means not caring if you appeal to men again, says Davina
DAVINA McCall has said the menopause is like a ‘rebirth’ when women no longer care if they appeal to men.
The TV presenter, who last month split from husband Matthew Robertson after 17 years, said it is not a catalyst for everything to ‘fall apart’ and instead is a chance to ‘feel amazing’.
The 50-year-old’s comments came in a podcast released just a day after she appeared gaunt and tearful in an online video talking about loneliness at Christmas.
In the Boxing Day episode of Glamour magazine’s Is It Just Me? podcast, she said: ‘I think that we as women get to a point where we get to the menopause and far from it being a time when everything falls apart and you turn into an old, grey-haired, hunch-backed lady, I have so many girlfriends…in their late 40s and early 50s who are starting businesses.
‘It is like a rebirth, the menopause. It is like a weird thing where women go, “No, hang on a minute, what do I want? We’ve been selfless, we’ve looked after other people”.’
Speaking to hosts Jo Elvin and James Williams, she discussed the differing approaches that women and men take to middle-age.
‘Women think, “I don’t care if I appeal to men any more, I want to feel amazing in myself, and I want to be the [best] version of myself I can be”,’ she said. ‘Whereas guys think, “Am I losing my allure? Where am I going, what’s my job?” That’s a mid-life crisis for a guy.’
Miss McCall, who has been through the menopause, has previously likened her ‘night sweats’ to the withdrawal symptoms of giving up hard drugs.
‘For me as an ex-junkie, the night sweats were really uncomfortable because it reminded me of going through cold turkey at night and waking up in a pool of sweat,’ she told Stella magazine in October. ‘It was so bad.’ After realising ‘this f ****** menopause is finishing me off’, she turned to HRT and her symptoms ‘stopped overnight’.
The former Big Brother host’s new fitness DVD, Davina: Toned In 10, has become a bestseller on Amazon since launching on Boxing Day.
During the podcast, she said: ‘There is no point in exercising unless you are going to do it three times a week. I will always try to do three times a week – my ideal would be four times a week.
‘When I retire, or if I am working a lot less, I would love to [exercise] five times a week, but less, so 40 minutes. I love exercising, it makes me feel amazing.’
She said that after a recent run, ‘I just felt good about life’.
Miss McCall opened up about her weight loss since she began an intense training regime, saying: ‘I’ve lost a bit of weight this year, even things like my joints are better for it…everything feels a bit easier.’ But her emotional video message on Christmas Day sparked concerns among her fans that she is ‘too thin’ and ‘struggling’ after the recent breakdown of her marriage.