'I was manipulated for decades. So many women are'
Nadia Sawalha is no stranger to a diet. The actress, turned TV presenter, turned Celebrity Masterchef winner spent 30 years yo-yo dieting, with a wardrobe full of clothes size 8 and size 16 and everything in between.
Her battle with the bulge is well documented. After a dramatic weight loss in 2010 she released a fitness DVD. But having seemingly tried – and given up on – every diet under the sun, Nadia has finally stopped starving herself in a bid to be slim and is a very happy size 12.
When we chat the 48-year-old was a veritable ball of energy. Words tumble over each other as she tells of her relief at finally stopping her on-again off-again affair with diets.
‘I no longer go on diets,’ she burbles. ‘I’m not going to believe anything that says to me, “You’re going to lose this in two weeks”, and, “Your life is going to be made perfect when you’re a size eight”.
‘I don’t believe any of that anymore, I was manipulated for decades by that – so many women are.’
Her cookbook The Greedy Girl’s diet has been a huge success, riding high for months on end in the bestseller charts. And her relationship with food has been transformed.
‘I always enjoyed my food but I would always then have the guilt,’ she says.’ I've taken the guilt out of it, and my relationship with food is much better; I understand that my addiction was food. For other people it’s alcohol, for other people it’s drugs, for me it was food.
‘If something wasn’t going right, I would eat to comfort myself. I still believe in comfort food, I think it’s a lovely thing, but in the old days I would find myself halfway through a loaf of bread and hadn’t even noticed I’d eaten it.’
Food and family have always been intertwined in Nadia’s world.
‘I come from a family of foodies,’ she explains. ‘My mum was really encouraging and allowed us to cook from a young age. So, cooking for me, coming from an Anglo-Arab household where all the Arab aunties and uncles and cousins would come round at the weekend and everyone would come and sit and chomp and cook together, just brings back really lovely memories of being in a bubbling happy household with lots of chat.
‘My love of food is synonymous with my love for family. It’s a very important thing in my life; it doesn’t just fuel my body. Our mantra in our family is “food feeds the soul as well as the body” and I think that’s really true.’
In fact Nadia, who has two step-daughters aged 18 and 30 and two daughters aged 10 and five, confesses she often cooks four different meals a night – so determined is she that her children will have a good relationship with food.
‘I really remember, and hating it so much when I was a kid when my mum did that “you’ll stay at a table until you’ve eaten” thing. And I remember thinking, “I will never do this to my children”.
‘I get them [her daughters] cooking a lot in the kitchen with me, so that food is something that’s fun. I think that it’s really important to get kids cooking and understanding what’s going into their bodies.
‘It’s a huge part of my role as being a mum. It’s the thing I worry about with my kids more than anything else.
‘There are so many obese children and that actually those children will be starving, because they’re eating food that has no nutritional benefits so there are a lot of fat people that suffer from malnutrition. People say they can’t afford to eat healthily and I say, well, you know that to eat healthily is actually far cheaper.’
If she could give ladies just one piece of advice, one message to remember, what would it be, I ask?
‘A lot of people say that you should put a horrible fat ugly photo of yourself up on the fridge and that will stop you eating. It doesn’t. It just makes you feel worse.
‘I did the opposite and put up the best picture I could find of myself. It switches the way of thinking to “that’s what I want to be again”, not “look how dreadful I got, I don’t want to be like that.” The small changes are the most powerful.’
This year Nadia Sawalha is teaming up with SPLENDA® to launch the ‘Small Steps’ campaign to show women across the UK how making smaller steps within a diet can add up to make a big difference. Working closely with SPLENDA® Sugar Alternative, Nadia has created a range of figure-friendly recipes and quick ideas to help women turn to a healthier way of dieting.
Her battle with the bulge is well documented. After a dramatic weight loss in 2010 she released a fitness DVD. But having seemingly tried – and given up on – every diet under the sun, Nadia has finally stopped starving herself in a bid to be slim and is a very happy size 12.
When we chat the 48-year-old was a veritable ball of energy. Words tumble over each other as she tells of her relief at finally stopping her on-again off-again affair with diets.
‘I no longer go on diets,’ she burbles. ‘I’m not going to believe anything that says to me, “You’re going to lose this in two weeks”, and, “Your life is going to be made perfect when you’re a size eight”.
‘I don’t believe any of that anymore, I was manipulated for decades by that – so many women are.’
Her cookbook The Greedy Girl’s diet has been a huge success, riding high for months on end in the bestseller charts. And her relationship with food has been transformed.
‘I always enjoyed my food but I would always then have the guilt,’ she says.’ I've taken the guilt out of it, and my relationship with food is much better; I understand that my addiction was food. For other people it’s alcohol, for other people it’s drugs, for me it was food.
‘If something wasn’t going right, I would eat to comfort myself. I still believe in comfort food, I think it’s a lovely thing, but in the old days I would find myself halfway through a loaf of bread and hadn’t even noticed I’d eaten it.’
Food and family have always been intertwined in Nadia’s world.
‘I come from a family of foodies,’ she explains. ‘My mum was really encouraging and allowed us to cook from a young age. So, cooking for me, coming from an Anglo-Arab household where all the Arab aunties and uncles and cousins would come round at the weekend and everyone would come and sit and chomp and cook together, just brings back really lovely memories of being in a bubbling happy household with lots of chat.
‘My love of food is synonymous with my love for family. It’s a very important thing in my life; it doesn’t just fuel my body. Our mantra in our family is “food feeds the soul as well as the body” and I think that’s really true.’
In fact Nadia, who has two step-daughters aged 18 and 30 and two daughters aged 10 and five, confesses she often cooks four different meals a night – so determined is she that her children will have a good relationship with food.
‘I really remember, and hating it so much when I was a kid when my mum did that “you’ll stay at a table until you’ve eaten” thing. And I remember thinking, “I will never do this to my children”.
‘I get them [her daughters] cooking a lot in the kitchen with me, so that food is something that’s fun. I think that it’s really important to get kids cooking and understanding what’s going into their bodies.
‘It’s a huge part of my role as being a mum. It’s the thing I worry about with my kids more than anything else.
‘There are so many obese children and that actually those children will be starving, because they’re eating food that has no nutritional benefits so there are a lot of fat people that suffer from malnutrition. People say they can’t afford to eat healthily and I say, well, you know that to eat healthily is actually far cheaper.’
If she could give ladies just one piece of advice, one message to remember, what would it be, I ask?
‘A lot of people say that you should put a horrible fat ugly photo of yourself up on the fridge and that will stop you eating. It doesn’t. It just makes you feel worse.
‘I did the opposite and put up the best picture I could find of myself. It switches the way of thinking to “that’s what I want to be again”, not “look how dreadful I got, I don’t want to be like that.” The small changes are the most powerful.’
This year Nadia Sawalha is teaming up with SPLENDA® to launch the ‘Small Steps’ campaign to show women across the UK how making smaller steps within a diet can add up to make a big difference. Working closely with SPLENDA® Sugar Alternative, Nadia has created a range of figure-friendly recipes and quick ideas to help women turn to a healthier way of dieting.