PLATE EXPECTATIONS
37 Can the food choices you make today really add years to your life?
he has Alzheimer’s and lives nearby with her stepmother. Zoom conversations were difficult because of his illness, and not being able to hug him broke her heart. ‘We had to teach him to salute.’ The meditation app Headspace and her dog Bo were lifelines (‘I’ve developed a renewed crush on my dog in such a major way’) – and exercise. ‘It’s the time when I unload, unwind, just dump stuff. When I work out, I don’t think about anything other than my workout.’ Knowing how vital it was for her own sanity, she persuaded her partners in Own Your Goals to give everyone a month’s free access when lockdown began. When other companies were furloughing, they were hiring to cope with demand. ‘We employed three people… I was so proud.’
I can’t think of a better ambassador for lifelong fitness than Davina. But it turns out she has icons of her own. She shows me the ‘For You’ page on her Instagram account – it’s a sea of grey. ‘These are the kind of accounts that I follow. Grey hair. Older women all over the place, inspiring [other] older women, smashing it. That’s what I love.’
Her current grey-haired obsession is Joan
‘Older women all over the place, inspiring other older women, smashing it – that’s what I love’
Macdonald, aka Train With Joan: a 70-something American with 847,000 Instagram followers and triceps definition to die for. While inspiring older women are out there if you know where to look, Davina feels there’s still more to do to increase their visibility. ‘I feel like I’m the person who is going to break that mould. I feel that I’m not going quietly. Women over 50 feel sexy, we can dress sexily and we can wear zhuzhy underwear and we still enjoy orgasms…’ (I don’t ask her about her own, since the subject of her relationship is off limits, but she has a boyfriend – her hairdresser, Michael Douglas, with whom she has a podcast, Making The Cut). She continues: ‘People say,
“Oh, it’s all gone… menopause… you’re finished with your wizened, dried-up ovaries.” I feel like it’s really important to say that people in their fifties are having the time of their lives.’
We talk about how the lack of information about menopause makes it even harder to navigate your forties and fifties. Davina began hers at 44. Her symptoms – brain fog, memory loss, sleeplessness, hot flushes – were affecting her work. ‘My phone was in the fridge and my keys were in the bin. My night sweats became so bad. I just never slept through. I couldn’t read Autocue.’ It was HRT that saved her. ‘From the minute I put the little sticky patch on – boom, sleep. Oh my god, the joy. I felt like I was back.’ She was, for a time, ‘very frightened’ of being judged for taking HRT. Since the 1970s, the therapy has been associated with an increased risk of cancer, and when a large-scale 2002 study concluded women who had taken HRT were twice as likely to develop breast cancer, its popularity plummeted. But more recent evidence says that the risks of HRT are small, and are usually outweighed by the benefits. Davina points out the health benefits of HRT, too, which she learned from her gynaecologist. ‘I just thought that it took away the bad things of the menopause.
But, actually, it provides you with a lot of help with fending off osteoporosis, which is a terrible, terrible affliction that women can have after the menopause; also, heart disease. It’s actually good for you in so many ways.’ There are risks, too, as with any drug, and Davina’s view is that every woman should make her own informed choice.
Davina has no plans to step away from our screens – so far this year, she’s been a judge on The Masked Singer and co-presented Big Brother’s Best Bits – but she’s stepping on to a different screen, by hatching her own Youtube channel. ‘But I don’t know who I’ll be on there,’ she tells me, then asks: ‘Who should I be?’ ‘Davina,’ I say, fangirl making an appearance.
‘On behalf of all women who don’t want to grow old gracefully, to disappear, please, just be you.’