Food to boost your mood...
Joe Wicks talks to KATIE WRIGHT about the link between food and mental health, the power of ice baths, and working with Louis Theroux
TWO years on from the first UK lockdown, when PE with Joe got thousands of kids (and grownups) moving, Joe Wicks looks back on those four months with fondness.
“It was like my moment to shine – I had so much purpose, I was living my dream,” he tells me on the phone, chatting while ambling around a lake near his home in Surrey.
The 20-minute workout videos earned Joe an MBE in the Queen’s 2020 Birthday Honours list and a Guinness World Record for most viewers for a fitness workout live stream on YouTube (over 950k). But the fitness expert – who gained a huge following after he started posting 15-second recipe videos online in 2013, and has written multiple cookbooks since – says he started to struggle when the high began to fade.
“I mean, everyone suffered. For me it was delayed, because when we went into lockdown, I was straight to work,” he says. “It wasn’t until it all stopped and I processed it, [that I] felt quite sad.” The 36-year-old, who lives with wife Rosie (who is pregnant with their third child) and kids Indie, three, and Marley, two, is pleased many people – himself included – are now more open about their mental health as a result of the pandemic.
“I think it’s just become normalised now, [to recognise] that actually everyone has mental health. And some days you feel really, really happy, but on other days, for no reason at all, you don’t feel yourself. And it’s learning to have coping mechanisms to help that.”
Joe has installed a DIY ice bath in his garden, which he hops into every other day for some pulsequickening cold water therapy. “For me, it’s definitely not a physical thing – it’s more of a mental thing,” he explains. “It’s extreme meditation really, but in cold water. “That helps me let a bit of stress out, but also brings [me] back to the moment.” Exercise is, of course, Joe’s number one coping strategy. “People came to me originally if they wanted to lose weight, or they want to change their body,” says the man known as The Body Coach on Instagram, where he has 4.3 million followers. “But the thing that keeps them coming back is really their mood, their mental health, how exercise changes their relationships, and how they feel about themselves. “[In the past] I think that I wouldn’t have had the confidence or the knowledge to share about mental health.”
That’s also why his latest book, Feel Good Food, highlights the link between diet and mood. It recommends seven building blocks for a healthy diet, including ‘eat more plants’ and ‘minimise ultra-processed foods’. “Some people think, ‘If I exercise, I can eat what I want, it won’t make a difference’, but it does really make a difference.
“If you’re exercising, but you’re putting really heavily processed or junk food in your body, then you’re going to find it hard to feel that energy and happiness you get from a healthy diet.”
It’s a message he wants to pass on to Indie and Marley as they grow up.
“I do believe the most powerful thing you can do as a parent is exercise with your kids and cook with your kids”, says Joe, which means fun in the kitchen and meals enjoyed together – a distinct contrast to his own childhood.
“My mealtimes were sandwiches and frozen meals thrown in the oven, then you’d come back, sit at the table or quickly eat and go to your room, or take it to your bedroom,” says Joe, who has spoken about his father Gary’s heroin addiction, and his mother Raquela’s struggles with OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and eating disorders.
His family will be the focus of a forthcoming documentary, which is fronted by Joe and produced by Louis Theroux, who he became friends with during lockdown. Revisiting the tumultuous years of his youth was, he admits, a challenge: “I was interviewing my parents and going back into my childhood a little bit, so I found it difficult. I’m glad it’s done, it was hard at the time.”
He hopes when the film is released later this year, it will strike a chord with viewers and continue his mental wellbeing message.
“It’s not a sensationalist thing,” he adds. “It’s a really open and raw documentary about parental mental health, so I’m hoping it really helps people.”