Menopause has made my chest wrinkly and my waist thicker, says TV’s Carol Smillie
‘Nobody loves ageing, do they?’
WITH her winning smile and much-envied figure, she was one of TV’s glamour girls.
But former presenter Carol Smillie has revealed how the menopause has caused her to thicken around her middle and the skin on her chest to wrinkle.
The 55-year-old Scots star of Changing Rooms said she started to see her body transforming in ‘awful’ ways when her hormone levels changed.
‘There’s a change in your body and you know, I don’t love that,’ she said. ‘But why should I be any different from anyone else, I think I’ve come off quite lightly because I’m not sweating like a beast and getting angry all the time.’
Describing the physical changes to her figure, the Glasgow-born mother of three said: ‘You thicken up around the waist. I don’t love it but you know nobody loves ageing do they? You just change shape. You gain a little more weight but it’s just placed differently. It’s like you almost lose your waistline. It’s not a fatness it’s a straightening of the sides. It’s very strange.’
It was not just the former model’s frame that started to change.
‘And then your chest, your decolletage, sort of wrinkles and you think “What’s that?!” It’s just awful isn’t it. I could go like crazy and join a gym and start leaping around but I’m not great at that either. I think you start to dress differently because you think, “Right that doesn’t make me look my best, I’m going to go for a bit more draping around there.” Stick to skinny legs and baggy tops.’
Miss Smillie, who before presenting Changing Rooms from 1996 to 2003 was fellow Scot Nicky Campbell’s assistant on the game show Wheel Of Fortune, has just secured a contract with shopping channel High Street TV for her brand of washable absorbent underwear, Pretty Clever Pants. She said she hopes she can break down the taboos surrounding weak bladders
Miss Smillie, who lives in Glasgow, has been married to restaurateur Alex Knight for more than 25 years and they have children aged 17, 19 and 22. She says that one part of ageing she does not mind is watching her children grow up and fly the nest.
She loves having time alone with her husband and finds it strange when mothers lament that their children have gone.
‘I do quite like having the house just to me and Alex. I think… it’s nice, you know, I’m really enjoying it,’ she said. ‘I find it funny when women go, “Oh my God, it’s awful.”
‘No it’s not awful, it’s lovely, because they come back and after a while I’m like, “Thank God they’re away”.’
She added: ‘I love it, I love it. I think it’s good for them. It’s not that I’m pushing them out in any way. I love to see them earning their own money and going off and doing their own things.’