How I Move
Flexibility is key – Bruce Forsyth did stretching exercises morning and night for 50 years Daily yoga exercises and wholesome diet help keep presenter in positive frame of mind to cope with the challenges of lockdown
I do yoga every day – it helps put
me in the moment. Your mind may wander a little bit, but you are concentrated on that little act of self-love, and I think the rest of your day rolls better for that. You are in a more positive mindset as a result and you feel more resilient.
I started yoga again after I had my second child and now I do it
religiously. When I used to live in New York, I would take almost daily yoga classes there, but I let it slip when I moved back to the UK and became a mother for the first time. Becoming a parent, you carry that child on your hips for three years – you are constantly picking them up, bending, scooping, lifting – and my hip would fall out of line as a result. I was advised to take up pilates or yoga again. Pilates was too detail-focused for me, whereas yoga worked – it puts me in a good head space and it just helps keep you limber and moving.
Flexibility is key – the great Bruce Forsyth taught me that.
He would do stretching exercises morning and night, every day religiously for 50 years. And
I have never seen someone in their late eighties with posture like that, it was incredible. He had posture like a dancer. I think it is really important.
I was a skinny kid, too skinny, and had no body confidence.
Then I got into modelling, the
fashion world, where everything is based on how you look. But I soon realised that it was other people’s projections. I would have an agent who would tell me I needed to lose weight, and then two weeks later they would say, ‘You need to gain weight’. Hang on a minute, I am wearing the same size jeans, nothing has changed – this is your perception of me.
I realised that there was no point letting this affect me
– I cannot change how people see me, I can only be my best self and keep myself healthy.
Working on camera for 30 years has made me more resilient and
pragmatic. I am down to earth and take things with a pinch of salt because, despite being judged on how you look on the outside, I do believe that what you feel on the inside is what you radiate.
I am in my fifties and I feel exactly the same as I did in my thirties.
I know I look different, but working out and yoga is all about maintaining that sense of well-being and quality of life. It makes me feel stronger physically, and health is everything – we have nothing without it.
Food is all we have right now, so mealtimes are the
highlight of the day. It’s my personal challenge to satisfy my teenage daughters’ meal preferences, requirements, and constantly changing tastes. But I enjoy the challenge, it is about looking after them from the inside out.
I believe a happy gut cultivates calm while an unhappy gut cultivates anxiety – and we do not need any more
of that right now. For well-being, keeping myself healthy, it all begins in the gut. So my family’s lifestyle is based around healthy foods. We are sort of 80 per cent vegetarian, and I have not had red meat since I was in my teens.
Self-love has never been more
important. We are all trying to boost our well-being, the odds are stacked against us, but we can cultivate it in the little things. Whether it is a hot bubble bath, a stretch class online or yoga class. It is taking those 20 minutes for yourself and giving yourself a little bit of you-time, doing something that nurtures your well-being. It is more beneficial than ever right now, because it helps us feel that we are in control.
Despite being judged on how you look, I believe that what you feel on the inside is what you radiate
When we are all busy with the small details of our lives, you put yourself on
the back-burner. Often the first thing you sacrifice is that time for yourself – whether it is your workout or yoga. But when I do not do yoga, and have four or five days out, I feel the consequences of abandoning that practice. I have forced myself to get back into it, and I cannot recommend that highly enough.
Even though we are in lockdown, I will try to drag out
the kids on a walk every day. It is difficult to do it after Zoom school lessons, but we try to focus on future plans and goals, too. There is so much negativity and uncertainty right now, we are trying to remind them good is just around the corner.