Davina McCall’s 10 tips for a healthy life

1. Get outside

Left to my own devices I wake up at the same time every morning, between 7.20 and 7.28am. It’s the weirdest thing. Even if I went to bed at 1am, I will still wake up at say, 7.23, like clockwork. There’s so much health stuff out there on Instagram, and one of the things I’ve adopted is trying to do things for my circadian rhythm. So the first thing I’ll do in the morning, before any workout, before showering, is sit outside with a cup of coffee, even in winter. I’ll wear a fluffy Onepiece – it’s like a fleece onesie with a hood, that keeps you hot, they’re amazing.

Sometimes my boyfriend Michael will join me, and we’ll sit on a bench that I’ve engraved with a dedication to my sister Caroline (Caroline Baday died from lung and bone cancer in 2012 at the age of 50), and I try and get some sunlight on my face so I know that later I’ll be able to go straight to sleep at my favourite time: 11.11. To sleep from 11.11pm until 7:30 in the morning is a perfect night’s sleep for me.

2. A 30-minute morning workout

If I’m not having to rush off to work, I’ll go straight upstairs afterwards, put my workout gear on, and head to the gym because if I don’t get to the gym first thing in the morning, it’s not going to happen at all. I have one next to our house, it’s like a shed, the kind of thing you’d have as a home office, but we turned it into a gym.

Twice a week, maybe three times, I’ll do weights. It’s something I’m doing more of as I get older because it’s so good for my bones, my weight, my muscle tone. This is going to sound like a plug for my own product, but I’ll follow a workout from my own health platform, Davina Own Goals which has hundreds of classes by over 15 trainers, doing everything from barre, weights, HIIT, strength training, core and cardio. There’s always something new on, we just had a “strength and sculpt challenge”.

If I’m doing an arms exercise I’ll use 0.5kg weighted gloves, but if I’m doing strength training, I’ll use 5 or 6kg weights. I’ll keep some fours and threes next to me in case I go to failure and can’t lift the heavier ones. I love weighted gloves and weighted vests – with a weighted vest you don’t need to hold on to anything. You are feeling the benefits of the weight but you’re nicely balanced. For squats, a weighted vest is a killer.

3. The once-weekly run

Once a week I like to run. Since my operation, I’ve been doing Couch to 5k to get my fitness back. What I love about it is that you get to a point where you can run 5k really quickly, whereas I think left to our own devices, we wouldn’t be so fast. Come rain or shine, I’ll do this outdoors, near where I live. Roads, countryside, I’ll run anywhere.

I like running with Michael, but to be honest he is like a whippet, so I’d almost rather run on my own because he is too quick and I just can’t keep up. I add a little sprint to each running section, where I’m sprinting for around a minute, and then slowing down again to the running pace, and then sprinting again for a minute. I know that a burst of high cardiovascular stuff is quite good for me, so I just try and mix it up.

My runs, like my gym workouts are never more than 30 minutes. I have a few playlists that are good for running, with songs like Free by Florence and The Machine, which has a really good beat for running, or Valley of the Shadows by Origin Unknown. Drum and Bass has the perfect tempo; while Dance tracks are great for walking. Music is so motivating.

4. Don’t over-do it

People will often say to Michael, “what’s it like dating somebody who’s an exercise addict?” and whenever I say, “I exercise for about half an hour four times a week,” people are like, “What? Oh, we thought you were doing two hours, five days a week!” It’s because I post snippets of my half-hour workouts and everyone thinks I’m doing it all the time.

I worked out for longer in my 30s because I didn’t realise I could get the same results while doing less. If you work out efficiently for half an hour, you’ll get as much as from a sloppy 45 minutes to an hour. I’m always time poor: three kids, work, meetings, there’s always stuff to do, and I don’t have an hour and a half or two hours to work out every day. So it’s really nice finding a way to be efficient and productive at the same time.

What I really noticed after my operation was how much working out helped me recover. Some people on social media were anxious about me getting back to working out so quickly but it’s been the thing that has helped me more than anything. The social aspect is important; I’ve been in bed for two and a half months, so even seeing people on a walk was so nice.

At the beginning I had to start with a brisk walk, but when I went to a slow jog, I could really feel myself waking up again, my brain, my body, and particularly when the sun started coming out, the joy! There would be many times I’d be running and sobbing with joy – I call it euphoric running – where you run and you feel the joys of nature, love being alive. And I run with my arms out, with my hands outstretched and my palms facing forwards. Yeah, people must think, “Oh, my God, what on earth is she doing?”

5. Have a gut-healthy breakfast

By about nine, I’ve worked out and showered. I’m very efficient, there’s no faffing. I eat after the gym. I’ve moved on from my two crumpets with butter and honey, and it’s now Bio&Me, the breakfast company which was founded by Dr Megan Rossi, a dietitian. She is very conscientious, and very strict about what she puts in her food. I like her nutty granola which has loads of different nuts in it.

Big shout out to Tim Spector, who told me about kefir. I used to say “I am never going to like kefir or kombucha, they taste revolting.” But here I am. Two years later, I am swearing by it.

So if you don’t like it, keep trying. You’ll get there in the end. Sometimes at work you just don’t have healthy choices – it might be white sandwiches – and while I don’t mind that and I’ll eat a white sandwich, I’m also grateful that I’ve had my good breakfast in the morning, and I’ll try and have something healthy in the evening.

6. Take daily supplements

In the morning I’ll take Ancient + Brave’s True Magnesium, which I also take at night. I’ll also take their collagen. At the moment, because I’m trying to put weight back on after my operation, I’m taking two scoops of protein powder instead of the one, which I add to a cup of Yorkshire Tea.

Recently I’ve expanded my supplement repertoire. I’ve been learning about creatine and take a True Creatine + supplement, as I had no idea it could help with cellular regeneration. Then I did a podcast with their nutritionist, who was talking about omega-3, so I started taking True Omegas +, which has omega-3 as well as omega-7 and is good for the heart, eyes, brain. I do eat oily fish, but this is an easy way to ensure I’m getting enough.

In terms of my HRT, it’s really easy because it’s only a patch for me because I also have a coil which delivers the progesterone. I also take Grazax, which is for anyone with grass pollen allergy hay fever. As I got to midlife, I suddenly got hay fever, and it got worse and worse. It was at the point where none of the antihistamines were working. None of them were strong enough. I went to see someone who specialises in immunotherapy, and he tested me for allergies, found out I was allergic to grass, and put me on a three year course of grass pollen. I’m now two years in, and it’s been amazing. I had virtually no hay fever last year, and after one more year, I should be cured of it.

7. Stock up on good snacks

I’m either working from home or out to work, typically with TV companies, or photo shoots where I eat what they give me. I’m not sending out a rider, but I do like a Coke Zero. Is that bad? I love a Coke Zero with ice, and builder’s tea, Yorkshire tea. If somebody asks me what I’d like in a green room, it would be a bowl of fruit. Or salty nuts. I know you’re not supposed to have salty ones, but I don’t care and my blood pressure is ridiculously low so I am fine with that.

For dinner, Michael and I cook equally as we’re both good at it. We are epic at Sunday roasts – generally chicken, sometimes pork – and Michael’s signature dish is salmon miso. We’re generally pretty healthy. I get inspiration from Zoe (the nutrition company) for recipes that are good for me. I avoid refined sugar for obvious reasons. In health it’s bad for everything. But apart from that I’m easy going when it comes to food.

8. Take time to relax

I really like to play the piano to relax. As a child I learnt classical piano up to grade six, and I love playing it now. As part of my post-surgery recovery I’ve been learning how to play pop songs and chords using an app called Simply Piano – not an ad! I felt like it would be good for my brain.

I also like to relax with a playlist that Michael made for me for hospital, I listen to it every day. He called it “Sleep My Love” and he gave it to me on my first night there. It has a Ram Dass meditation on it, and Sit Around the Fire with John Hopkins, as well as Coldplay’s Moon Music.

9. Create a night time ritual

My night time ritual starts with a bath, I have one every night if I can, with Badedas. It’s as if your bath has been nuked with this neon-yellow, radioactive bubble bath, but the smell is so good. I did buy a big bag of magnesium bath salts once but I never used it, there’s so much faff in my life as it is, with supplements and vitamins and everything, and this was just one step too far. I take my makeup off in it with a cleanser.

Afterwards, I do my moisturiser, then brush my teeth with an IQ brush by Braun and Sensodyne toothpaste. I now have to go to the hygienist twice a year, because I’ve noticed I get plaque build-up.

I use a Tepee to floss because after I got divorced I got Invisalign braces and straightened my teeth. I have to say it was one of the most amazing, phenomenal changes [to the way I look], in terms of someone who doesn’t do fillers and things like that. Everybody was saying, “Why are you doing that? You don’t need it!” But it’s made a huge difference. You can’t floss when you have it, because the wires get in the way, so you have to go underneath, hence the Tepee. And that’s why I get them cleaned by the hygienist three times a year, because it’s important to remove all the plaque near the wires.

10. Get a good night’s sleep

I fall asleep really easily. Michael’s quite jealous of my ability to sleep wherever I am at any time. I used to have a sports watch that I’d wear in my sleep and it would tell me how badly I’d slept every night, and if I wanted to workout it would say, “You have to rest today”. And I’d think to myself, “I don’t want to rest today! I want to do a workout!” I didn’t like the way a watch was telling me how to live. So I took it off and I feel way better for it.

There’s no pillow sprays or special bed linen, but we do have one of those funny electric blankets where one side can be heated, and the other side isn’t, because I am always cold at night, and I sleep naked. Since taking vaginal oestrogen I’m sleeping through the night, I’m not waking up to go and do a wee, and that’s really helped.

I have a technique I do every night which I learnt that soldiers do if they’re in the trenches somewhere. They’re taught to send each part of their body to sleep, bit by bit. Relax your toes, send those to sleep. Relax the balls of your feet, send those to sleep, now the arches, then the heels, the Achilles tendon, now relax your calf muscles, send them all to sleep. And I go all the way up my body, but can never really remember getting past my pelvis or to my stomach as I’m asleep by this stage.

As told to Kathleen Baird-Murray