Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - Davina McCall on Confidence Lessons and Being Fit At 52

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Davina McCall was one of the UK’s biggest fitness influencers before that phrase was even a thing. From noughties workout DVD's to her do-anywhere fitness and wellness platform Own Your Goals, her sustained passion for getting women moving is seriously impressive. The broadcaster and bona fide national treasure fronts Women’s Health’s first-ever Fit At Any Age issue, which is on stands now. At 52, she’s our oldest cover star, and on today’s show she tells our editor-in-Chief Claire Sanderson just what that means to her. Davina also reflects on how ageing has affected her confidence (spoiler alert - it might not be what you think), why your fifties can be a decade of real energy and transformation - plus what she’d love to tell her 20-year-old self now. The mum-of-three also shares her exact workout formula, the nutritional principles that guide - not dictate - how she fuels her body, and the tools she uses to get back on track when her motivation and confidence falters. No matter if you're in your 20s, your 70s - or somewhere in between - there are lessons, laughs and truth bombs aplenty in here for all women. Follow Davina McCall on Instagram: @davinamccall Follow Claire Sanderson on Instagram: @clairesanderson Follow Women’s Health on Instagram: @womenshealthuk Topics:  Why self-love can grow as you age Strategies for raising body-confident daughters Why Davina won’t be back in the gym anytime soon Davina’s current fitness and nutrition schedule The latest on Davina's next big life goal Like what you’re hearing? We'd love if you could rate and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, as it really helps other people find the show. Also, remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, so you’ll never miss an episode.  Got a goal in mind? Shoot us a message on Instagram putting ‘Going for Goal’ at the start of your message and our experts could be helping you achieve your health goal in an upcoming episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. Hi, everyone. You are listening to Going for Goal, the weekly Women's Health podcast. My name's Rochene. I'm senior editor on women's health

and this is your weekly chance to plug in and be inspired to work on your health and wellness goals. Some weeks, we'll bring you advice from world-leading experts on how to achieve the health and wellness goals that matter most to you. And on others, like this one, we call up some of our favourite celebrities and internationally renowned fitness influencers

to discuss the health, fitness and mindset habits that help them to achieve their personal health goals. We have a real treat for you on this week's show. Our guest was one of the UK's biggest fitless influencers, before that phrase was even a thing. From Norty's workout DVDs to her made for 2020, Do Anywhere Fitness and Wellness Platform Own Your Goals, her sustained passion for getting women moving is so impressive. We are talking, of course, about Davina McCall, presenter, Mum of Three, wellness warrior, and I think it's fair to say, bona fide a national treasure.

She fronts this month's women's health, which is our first ever fit at any age issue. At 52, she's our oldest cover star, and on today's show, she tells our editor-in-chief Claire Sanderson just what that means to her. Divina also reflects on how ageing has affected her confidence, while your 50s can be a decade of real energy in transformation, plus what she would absolutely love to tell her 20-year-old self now. They also discuss her exact workout formula and the top. tools she uses to get back on track with going for her goals when her motivation and confidence slips. Yes, this even happens to Davina. Whether you're in your 20s, like me, just about,

all your 70s, there are lessons and laughs and truth bombs are plenty in here for all women. Let's get into it. Hello, my name is Claire Sanderson and I'm the editor-in-chief of woman's self. And I am joined today by our current cover star. She is one of the most famous women in the UK. argue. She is one of the UK's top wellness warriors. Can I use that word? And she is none other than Davina McCall. Hi, Davina. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's of pleasure. So as I said, you are our current cover star. Our issue is on sale at the moment. It is our fit at any age issue and I hope you don't mind me saying that you are the oldest woman ever to grace the cover of woman's health. How does that make you feel? I always slightly feel like my job as a,

you know, over 50 year old woman, 52, I feel like my job is to be a poster girl for any woman in their 20s and 30s to say it's going to be okay. You can still live your best life at any age. You know, and it's a tough cross to bear, but, you know, I'm trying, you know, trying my best. So the idea of being your oldest cover girl is something I'm very proud of. It's not something I'm embarrassed of. Do you know what I mean?

Do you know what I'm saying? It's like my age is something I'm proud of. Yeah. Absolutely. And I have seen the pictures and you do look incredible. You are in such amazing fit, strong shape. You are an inspiration to all women of any age that if you lead a healthy lifestyle, you can feel and be the best version of yourselves.

And I definitely think that confidence has a lot to do with it. and I think that confidence can come with age, but I feel like my fitness and the way that I feel inside, not just on the outside. Because look, my skin is, it doesn't have the same elasticity as it did when I was 20. I'm not all pert and tight like I was when I was 20. If I lean over to do my socks up,

all my skin kind of saggs down in the middle at the front. But I feel. like I am the best version that I can be for my age and that gives me confidence and I think you know you're you can wear your body well if you've got confidence and actually I think that shape and size has very little to do with it how attractive you are is entirely based on how you feel about yourself and if I could tell my 20 year old self that and really explain it, I think it would have changed my life because my 20-year-old self was fabulous,

so perky and pert and beautiful and bouncy and enthusiastic, but I was very vulnerable and fragile, and, you know, the voice in my head was so loud and so negative all the time. And, you know, I think now I wake up in the morning and I think I look like a supermodel. I was throughout my bedroom naked going, yeah, yeah, check me out. You absolutely do look like a supermodel. But when did this confidence start to appear then?

Was there something that was in your 40s or 30s? I think it was possibly started in my 40s. But quite late on, really. I think probably after 45 where I found myself slightly caring less what people thought of me. I've always been really, I'm extremely compliant and I'm quite a good, I mean, along with being a bit of a rebel and a bit of a wild child, I am also partially none. So I have this odd sort of compliance where I want to be teacher's pet. I am the perfect person to learn something with someone. I'm having some voice coaching at the moment because I keep going horse.

and it's because I'm I don't take these big enough breasts from my diaphragm, I'm chest heavy and I'm always straining up here. And yesterday she said to me, I really like doing these sessions with you, DeVina, because I always listen to what I say and then you actually do what I tell you. And I said, it's literally a problem I have.

I'm such a teacher's pet. Then my thing is like, I want to say to, am I your favourite student? 52 for the love of God. Like I just always want to be everybody's favorite student. So there's that, there's a big part of me is that part. And I think that part really cared what other people thought about me. You know, I don't want to hurt people's feelings.

I want to always do the right thing. I want to always kind of, it's exhausting. It's exhausting. And as you get older, you're much softer on, on everybody else. And because of that potentially on yourself. So I'm a lot more forgiving of other people because I realize that I am deeply flawed. Everybody has their flaws.

No one is perfect. And I think I sought perfection in people. You know, I expected my friends to behave in a certain way or friends or family or whatever. And when they didn't, I'd be so hurt. Well, we all do that sometimes. We all make mistakes. And so I'm just, I think,

being more forgiving to other people's helping me be more forgiving to myself and then not care so much, just like myself, warts and all. So we did some research at women's health last year for our campaign called Project Body Love, which was a campaign to encourage women to embrace themselves and feel the best version of themselves and have confidence because a shockingly high number of British women say that they have very low body confidence and it affects their life and they opt out of professional and personal situations when they're not feeling their best. Yes.

But what came out of that research was it was the older women, the perimenopausal and older women, are the most body confident. And I think it's what you're saying there, that you do start caring less when you get a bit older. I'm 42. I'm on that journey myself. And I'm starting to be more forgiving and more celebratory about what I can achieve

rather than be very negative about what I can't achieve and what I'm not. Well, and I've got teenage girls 16 and 18 and listening to them and their friends or looking at them going through photographs of themselves. You know, I look a picture and I think, oh, gorgeous. You're all so good. And they're like, I hate it. I'm revolting. look at my and you're thinking what are we just looking at the same picture but that's just life isn't it

I guess but it's that age demographic that came out in the project body love research that had the worst body body yeah and that's maybe because of social media social pressure is there any actions that you put in place in your home to help your daughters with their body confidence yeah it's not so much actions it's more it's more been verbal all their lives you know so we didn't have scales in the house I never looked or talked about my weight in front of them I mean even down to waxing my privates when they were going through puberty

and therefore their bodies were changing I kept everything there bar like a bikini wax just to show them that what they had was normal because mommy's got it too, they've got it, it's fine, don't worry about it. Obviously now they can do whatever they like. They're 16 and 18, but when they were little, you know, 12, 13, 14, I didn't want them thinking that they were disgusting because they had pubes. So I've worked quite hard actually at trying to see themselves, we talk about, we've talked about, you know, the reality of what boys expect in a girl's body

and what girls' bodies actually look like. We've talked about, we talk about everything, we talk about people on Instagram, you know, do you think that's achievable by nature, you know, like you're aspiring to something that somebody's paid a lot of money to get. You know, I'm not dissing plastic surgery. I've always said, like, big up the plastic surgery, but, you know, you can't try and get something naturally if somebody's paid for it.

It's just impossible. So it's like what's real, what's not real, you know, can you achieve it? Can you not achieve it? And exercise has always been a part of our lives. So I've never forced my kids to work out, but my eldest daughter is definitely part of the wellness warriors. I love that when you said that at the beginning.

So we're both quite wellness warriors. My youngest has just started running with me, my son, and that's a brand new thing from lockdown. And my middle one's yet to join our mission. But it's for me, exercise is something. The minute anybody tries to start telling me to do something, I go and do the polar opposite. So for me, exercise, if I want to encourage somebody to exercise,

I will always just try and do the attraction rather than promotion. Like, look how good I feel about myself because I'm happy in my skin. And this is how I've done it. Not like, if you don't exercise enough, you look, you know, it's like I would never do that. Well, any expert will tell you the way to encourage children is to lead by example. There you go. That's exactly it. Yes. And I know from speaking to you, the last time we spoke was during Women's Health Live virtual,

which is at the beginning of lockdown. And you said that you were getting the children and one of your daughters do your own, your goals, workouts with you at home, but you were having to wait for them together, which was a bit frustrating because they're not getting up until 11 o'clock. And you and I are quite similar. Oh, my God. They were up all night. they're up all night I go to bed at midnight

the kitchen is immaculate I come down and it's like somebody's eating a three-course meal the food's out everybody's been cooking food like saucepins you're like what's going on no wonder my fridge is empty

the people at my local supermarket they're like we can't believe how much you come in here I can't either it's so crazy but that's lockdown for you as well because I noticed that I might you a little

but our food bill doubled over that. So if we can talk about Own Your Goals, your online training platform, I know it's been a savior to so many people during lockdown. You can take us through the type of offering that you are giving women and men, I'm assuming, and how you feel it can benefit them. I mean, I think the thing that makes Own Your Goals unique in terms of fitness platforms, because there are a lot out there, is that we're a bit like a sort of an Airbnb of trainers. So we get all the trainers to come onto our platform. So it's not just me exercising on there.

It's all my favorite trainers. Every trainer I've ever worked on a DVD with because Ed designed all the workouts that I do on there. So I did a DVD with him. Jackie and Marker on there. And of course, Sarah, who is amazing. And then we've got Lily, we've got Jay, we've got Faye, does amazing dancing. And we've hopefully, hopefully got Richard Callender coming to do some workouts for us.

And he does Armageddon and that's the most amazing workout. And so I like to think that whatever you fancy that day, and I am very like that. Every day is slightly different for me. Sometimes I think I want to do a hit. I want to sweat so hard. and then other days I just feel like I just need to do just a toning tweak I just want to do some bar work it's all on there kettlebells bar hit weights matwork yoga we've got lovely Julie doing yoga do you know Chessie King yes I love Chessie

she's been on this podcast Chessie's mum does the yoga on our on our on our site so we've got everything from we've got workout plans so we've got the kind of advanced, beginner, intermediate, all of that kind of stuff. But then we've also got the workout bank, which is just hundreds and hundreds of workouts that you can pick and choose from whatever you fancy. There's some really good articles on there to help people. Obviously, we've got the menopause doctor on there. We did an amazing podcast.

I did her podcast. I posted it and I said, it doesn't matter what age woman you are, you need to listen to this podcast. You're all going to go through the menopause. But then one of my favorite bits about it and one of the bits that is our community. So all of the people that are on Own Your Goals get invited to our Facebook group. And it's massive now. And it's so full of love and support.

And people share their worries and their fears and their private lives and what they're going through. One of our communities just had to come off on your goals for a bit because she's having some treatment for some breast cancer and, you know, the amount of support that she got from everybody, people she's never met before. It's really beautiful. We're all like, you know, come back soon. We can't wait to see you again. Good luck with everything. And they post their befores and afters, which are miraculous. You know, I love seeing befores and afters. There's nothing quite like it. And so I really love that aspect of it. There's a real kind of homelessness. And of course, there's food on there, lots of recipe ideas. But I think the big thing is, is everybody's realizing that working at home,

working out at home is a lot more convenient than traveling to a gym and lots of people love working out in gyms I personally don't massively like it because I feel like I'm on show and everybody it's quite peacocky a gym yeah some can be yes certainly you know with the machines not the classes so much

I love classes I love classes but the kind of ones with big boys machines and everything everybody's sort of strutting around and then I just feel so self-conscious. So one of the beautiful things about you and the way that you speak about wellness is that you do make it available to everyone. You very much speak in a very open, frank, down-to-earth way,

and it's not peacocky to borrow your phrase. And you don't show off and say, wow, look at me, it's very much you can be like me. And I think that's why so many women and just normal women of all different shapes and sizes and earning levels engage with you and look up to you. Way back to the days of the DVDs, which are still, I believe, the bigger selling workout DVDs in the UK. I think also I do struggle staying fit. It's not like it isn't my day job. And there is a sort of misunderstanding with certain people that they kind of go.

So you work out every day. I was like, who's got time to work out every day? I can't. I've got a job. I've got three kids. At the moment, I'm trying to combine running with the dog and my dog's 11. She's really struggling. I thought I'd killed her the other morning.

She was like, I had to go and prod her. Are you okay? So I think, you know, I'm always. trying to kind of double things up or if I do this I could combine this with like a 10 minute workout I'm trying to squeeze it in with everybody else and then there are times you know there have been times when my weight will fluctuate a lot so at the beginning of lockdown literally maybe eight pounds and it felt like overnight yeah it just became very sedentary very scared very, you know, and I knew that I wanted to provide

own your goals for everybody, but was I doing it myself? I was just really, I mean, I was trying, I was sort of half, it was just a really odd time. And now I feel a bit more bouncy again and I feel like I can come back. But I think that's what's good is that I am not the perfect gym bunny, but I'm just doing the best that I can. And I'd really like to help anybody else along on their journey too. to try and motivate them because when I don't feel motivated, I go to the community.

I look at other people in the Own Your Goals community and I think, I was just about to swear them. I was like, fuck me. But if they can do it, you know, if she can do it and she's going through this, stop winging, Davina, get off your butt and go and do something. So what does it a typical workout week look like for you? I know you've sort of said there isn't a typical, but if you had your sort of sort of ideal week, what would it look like?

So ideally I'd like to do four workouts a week. Often, if I'm very busy, it's three. I would love to do, I would love to do like five, 15, 20 minute runs a week. I'd love to just get out every morning and do 20 minutes. I mean, that's like 3K, like a tiny little, just to wake up my senses. That doesn't always happen because my dog can't handle it anymore.

But I am thinking of taking the dog for a walk and then doing a run after. But that would be lovely. And then on top of that, I would probably do, I mean, I did the OIG Weekender and I did a half-hour Armageddon and a half-hour fit combat with Fay. I loved both of those workouts. So Armageddon with Richard, it's quite funny because it started. I was like, well, this is nice. It's quite easy. Oh, my God, at the end of it.

And I thought, this is the kind of workout I love. I feel like I've done cardio, strength, and it didn't feel like hit it. It didn't feel excessively aggressive impact. It just felt it was hard for me. I really enjoyed it. So that kind of workout, if I was doing a 20-minute run and then I came back and did a half hour, whatever it was.

That would be like my perfect workout three times a week. I still, I just love a bar workout with Sarah. Sarah blends. When she does a bar workout, she kind of blends lots of stuff in there, and she does great boxing. So I do three to four extras like that of 20 minutes, half an hour on top of my 20 minute run if I can. Often it will just end up being a half hour

and I haven't done the 20 minute run or it'll just be the 20 minute run and I haven't done the half hour. But at the weekend, I'll do an hour both days. So you are in the menopause. You've spoken about taking HRT. Have you had to temper your training because of your age

and you're fluctuating hormone levels? So with HRT, the great thing about HRT is that your hormone level stopped fluctuating. So I'm sort of back to where I'm, back to feeling how I was and where I was before, like energy levels, clarity of mind. And as I learned from Louise Newsom, the health benefits from taking HRT are so great

in terms of, you know, a heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and, you know, massively osteoporosis. Yes, huge. Reduce the risk of all of those things because all of those things are affected by estrogen. And when you don't have estrogen, it massively increases your chance of getting all those illnesses. So I, you know, I don't feel,

I used to feel so guilty about taking HRT, like it was some dirty secret that I had to hide from everybody. But having spoken to Louise, and she is an expert and she has the science and the fact at her fingertips, I now realize that I'm actually doing my body a favor. So it hasn't affected me. I tell you what I have had to be careful of as I've got older is like a lot of mad twisting and I have to think about my posture because I'm more likely to do the little sprain to

I, you know, tore both my calf muscles one after the other. You know, I need to stretch, I'd cool down properly, stretch out. I was always a bit cavalier about all of that stuff when I was younger. I'm a lot more careful. I do more yoga. You know, sometimes like the hour on the Sunday will be a Julie instead of a hit workout because I feel like I just need to lengthen those muscles and stretch well. So I do more of that now that I'm a bit older.

And what about nutrition? Do you follow any strict rules? I don't know. I mean, I eat a bit of everything like this morning was because I think I've told you about this when I did the shoot. but I most mornings I'll eat a healthy bowl of bio and me which is Dr. Megan Rossi's cereal just got like 15 different types of fibre and that's my new buzzword I try and eat lots of fibre very farty but but I know it's doing good so and but this morning I had a giant crumpet oh lovely what did you have bought out the giant crumpet it's the gift that keeps the

I'm giving because one crumpet's not quite enough, but two's too much. And the giant crumpet feels like about a one and a half. It's perfect. What was on it? What did you do? A lot of butter. Nice. And honey.

Lovely. That's my daughter's favorite. And sugar. So I am not perfect in terms of food, but I will probably do that twice a week for breakfast. But the other five days, I'll do something really mega healthy. I'll do a vegan. I'll put some raspberries on there. Sometimes I have it with.

of fear, you know, which is kind of healthy. But then main meals, because I've got all the kids at home at the moment, if I was just at home alone, I would probably choose to do a fish and salad or a very lightly grilled and salad, something for both other meals. Things like, I mean, today for lunch I'm going to do seared salmon with kids. quinoa and roasted vegetables. Oh, hopefully.

And the quinoa is going to have chicken stock in it. And actually all my kids, my middle one doesn't eat fish so I do a little alternative grilled chicken for her. That's a really nice meal. It's filling.

It's delicious, but it's super healthy. But then sometimes they'll go, oh, can we have bangers of mash? And I'm like, yeah, bring it on. And my mash is like literally heart attack. Yeah. I mean, I'm butter,

milk, you know, the whole shebang. Kids look at them, don't you? I think it's got to be swings and roundabouts. If you are brutal with your diet, you know, like if I was living alone and I do sort of like salad and a bit of protein, but if I went out to a restaurant, I'd push the boat out and have some and I'd probably have a pudding. You know, it's balance for me. But I just don't want to eat as much as I used to.

And you don't eat that much sugar, do you from speaking to you at the past? No, I don't. Do you know what I've miraculously done? I have given up chocolate and I gave it up on the 1st of January. And I eat dark chocolate. I always think that doesn't count. We can't eat too much dark chocolate either, can't you? I can't eat too much.

And I could consume an entire bar of galaxy alone. Do you mean the family size one or the small one? Yes, the family size one. The one that you get at the checkout for a quid. Yeah. I know, yeah. And I went cold turkey and I thought the only chocolate I'm going to eat is dark chocolate. And it really helped because it helped me because it felt like I wasn't denying myself chocolate.

I just wasn't having milk chocolate. And actually it's worked. I never buy cake. My daughter has been the death of me this lockdown because her banana bread is something else. It's so good. She was one of those then. She was one of the banana bread baker. What was up with that?

I know. I couldn't get a flower for a level of money anyway. It was such a thing. We come into the end of our time, DeVina. I do want to take you back to the shoot, the cover shoot of women's health. It was a very socially distant shoot, I have to say, because we did.

We did shoot it fairly recently. How did you feel on that day? It must be the most daunting experience to shoot for a cover of women's health. Do you know what's funny is, Again, I think, because I've got older, there are bits of me where I think, okay, I'm not like that keen on sitting like this because I feel like it doesn't kind of show me at my best. But I feel like I know, I felt kind of great. Like I'm in little pants.

I'm in like little tops and my legs are out and I'm, you know, and I was like, this is kind of, I felt quite proud of myself. I thought, well, here we are. Like, good for you. I've wanted to be on the cover of women's health forever. And for me it felt like some kind of an arrival. It was like, you know, it would be like if Oprah asked me to be on Oprah, you know. And it happened. It happened.

And thank you so much. Well, no. I mean, seriously, it's like it's big for me. It's really big for me. So it was something that I'd wanted to do for a very, very long time. It felt it's going in a frame somewhere. I was just about to say we're going to have to get you a big frame. It's going to have to take pride in place.

So one final question. This podcast is called Going for Goal. So what is your next big goal? I'm starting a business. And so many people that I know, friends of mine in their 50s starting businesses, it's brilliant because I think we are less scared of failing. If we fail, it's okay. You know, we've got this far.

and so I'm starting a business, a lingerie business. I've talked about it before. I was going to try and launch this year, but because of COVID and everything, I think it's probably best to just see how the dust settles we will launch next year. And that's a big goal of mine. And I'm terrified about it.

But it's like it's so exciting. It's like one foot in front of the other. It's for women post-baby bodies. It's sexy. It's lacy. It's pretty. It's feminine. But it's like saying to women,

you know, you might feel invisible, but I see you. Because that's your thing, isn't it? You always wear matching underwear. You've told me that before. Always.

And we met last year and you told me that. I showed you showed me actually. I can't have a quick. Okay, great. And I come away going, totally good away with your underwear, and I looked in my drone and thought, I don't have any.

Throw it all away and start again. I do need to. I need to go on a bit of a shopping hall, with my mask on. Well, DeVina, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you as normal. And please do go and buy the issue with DeVina on the cover. It's a good one as well with this.

Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. Oh, what a legend. You have been listening to Davina McCall, interviewed by Women's Health, editor-in-chief Claire Sanderson, on the Going for Girl podcast. Absolutely do go and check out the October issue of women's health, which is our fit at any age issue, and check out those absolutely sensational pictures.

If you like the show, remember to rate and review on Apple Podcasts because it really helps other people find us. And remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss an episode. And if listening to Devena has got you all inspired and you really want to achieve a health goal, let us know and we can be part of it. Just DM at Women's Health on Instagram with your name and your goal. And our experts could be giving you the tools and know how you need to achieve your goal in an upcoming episode.

We'll be back next week. Have a good one. And bye for now.