Davina McCall talks about why we should all get fighting fit
So, how have you spent your lockdown? Personally, I’ve been making painful efforts to improve my fitness. It seems to me – rightly or wrongly – that if I can’t get fit now, with yawning acres of free time at my disposal, I probably never will. And so, roughly three times a week, I can be found diligently sweating my way through punishing portions of the Couch to 5k, muttering along to a ‘Best of Eurovision’ playlist and wondering when my six-pack will make its long-awaited debut.
It’s beginning to look as though I’ll never be a fitness guru. Which, I suppose, is why we need the likes of Davina McCall. Beloved TV presenter and workout inspiration extraordinaire, the 52-year-old Davina boasts the sort of sleek and exquisitely toned physique that most twenty-somethings can only dream of. Her rippling abs are the stuff of vision boards, and a photo of her looking fabulous in a red thong bikini went viral just before her 50th birthday.
Tips for getting fit
- Aim to work out three times a week. Make it a priority.
- Set yourself manageable weekly goals, and keep a tick-chart. Achieving goals – even small ones – is very motivating.
- Get fit with someone Don’t do it alone. The shame of letting someone down is very motivating.
She’s motivated thousands with her workout DVDs and healthy eating cookbooks, and in 2014 furnished the British public with further evidence of her near-superhuman strength by running, swimming and cycling a gruelling 500 miles across the UK to raise money for Sports Relief.
This month she was due to host the inaugural UK WellFest (a kind of health and fitness Glastonbury) in Richmond Deer Park. Sadly, that plan, like so many others, has been put on hold until 2021.
Amply qualified though she may be, Davina still hasn’t got used to hearing herself hailed as a fitness guru.
“Oh my God, being called a guru of any kind is good, but being called a fitness guru is off the charts amazing!” Davina exclaims.
“In fact, the other day, I gave a woman a lift from the bus stop. We were chatting away, and then suddenly she looked at me properly and said ‘Oh, it’s you – the fitness lady!’ Not the TV lady, not the Big Brother lady, but the fitness lady. I found that crazy and lovely. If you’d told me 20 years ago that I’d be known for fitness, I’d have laughed at you.”
But didn’t it all come easy to Davina? Wasn’t she born toned and flexible?
Marc O'Sullivan
Not quite. In fact, Davina has always been open about the fact that she struggled with addiction throughout her teens and early twenties, progressing from party drugs to heroin. For many years, fitness was a mere by-product of Davina’s hedonistic lifestyle, and clean living the furthest thing from her mind.
“Until I was 25, I was out clubbing three or four nights a week. All that dancing actually kept me extraordinarily fit! But then I stopped drinking, stopped smoking, stopped taking drugs and stopped clubbing. I was determined to grow up a bit and start concentrating on my work. But in fact, I put on a stone almost overnight. I tried working out, but my idea of a workout was 10 minutes on the stepper reading a magazine. I was just paying lip service to fitness.”
So Davina put an ad for a personal trainer in her local paper. She found not one, but two: Jackie (an ex-gymnast) and Mark (a marine), a married couple who promised to help Davina on her fitness journey.
“They revolutionised the way I thought about exercise. It was such a lark. I always dreaded working out, but at the end of each session, I would feel so amazing. Jackie and Mark pushed me further than I ever pushed myself.”
With their help, she released her first fitness DVD, Davina: Power of 3, in 2004. Her sunny, no-nonsense personality, already familiar from the TV, struck a chord with the public, and many more DVDs followed. Davina became the friendly face of fitness, motivating the public to stretch, sweat and tone.
And according to her, we’ve never needed a workout more.
“Our lives have become more and more sedentary. Online shopping and delivery services mean that everything we need can be delivered to our doors – we’re on our way to becoming a nation of agoraphobics! It’s never been more important to get outside and keep moving.
“I don’t want to give the impression that every day I look forward to working out – I really don’t. But I do know that I’ve never regretted a workout and that I always feel better after one. There’s a certain kind of joy that I get from exercise that I can’t get from anything else.”
And that joy isn’t just the pleasure of seeing your body strengthen and slim – although according to Davina, that’s pretty great too. It’s also about boosted mental health and the simple act of taking time out for yourself.
“Exercise is hands down the biggest help I have to support my brain. If my house is a mess, overrun by my teenage children and their friends, I’ll just go for a run and it completely sorts my head out. When I come back, I can be part of the madness, rather than feeling overwhelmed by it.
“Life is very, very busy, so it’s easy to think that there’s simply no way you can crowbar in an exercise regime. But really, exercise is the very thing that stops you from becoming overwhelmed by the stresses of life. I exercise three times a week, even if it means doing a workout at 9.30 at night, then showering and getting straight into bed.”
Which is not to say that fitness has to be a solitary pursuit – far from it! When Davina headlined WellFest in Ireland – the outdoor fitness festival that she’d planned to bring to Richmond this month – she was blown away by the powerful sense of community spirit.
Marc O'Sullivan
“Headlining WellFest was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I knew what it was like to be Coldplay playing at Glastonbury! You’re looking out at a sea of people who are all there for a common good, for their own wellbeing, to get into the vibe, to be part of the church of fitness.”
Sound slightly cult-like? Well, it is a little.
“It’s such a buzz. It’s almost a spiritual feeling, all these people coming together, a sea of people, all moving together to the music, all smiling. It’s the feel-good event of the year in my opinion.”
While we’ll have to wait till summer 2021 for our own taste of WellFest in Richmond, there are still plenty of ways in which keeping fit can foster community spirit. Think of a lockdown nation uniting around the videos of Joe Wicks, donating to Captain Tom Moore as he circles his garden, or taking part in the Instagram ‘run for heroes’ challenge, where participants run 5k, donate £5 to the NHS and nominate five friends. The church of fitness still appears to be thriving.
And if fitness is a community, Davina is passionate about the fact that no one should be sidelined or excluded. During her work as a TV presenter, Davina has always smashed expectations about what women on TV should do.
“I practically gave birth to my children on Big Brother,” Davina explains. In fact, during one of her pregnancies, she famously wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words BIG MUTHA while presenting the show, a tongue-in-cheek statement that motherhood and a career can co-exist.
Similarly, she sees her fitness work as part of a quiet revolution, securing visibility for women who are often overlooked.
“Women over 45 often become a little bit invisible. But there’s a whole new wave of women who are going to stop that! There’s an uprising coming – a really kind and gentle uprising – but we do want to say ‘we’re still here, we’re still working it, and we’re still gorgeous.’ Don’t ever underestimate how youthful and interesting women are in midlife.”
So there we go. Whatever your age or your fitness level, it’s hard to resist Davina’s sunny certainty that life’s a little easier when you work out. I may not be a fitness guru, but I head out for the next instalment of my Couch to 5k with renewed vigour.
WellFest UK with Davina McCall has been rescheduled in light of the spread of COVID-19. The first WellFest UK event was due to take place on the June 6/7 in Old Deer Park, Richmond, and will now take place in summer 2021.