Svelte Sawalha’s food for thought

The thought of turning 50 might lead many women to experience a midlife crisis, eat too much comfort food and have a fear of hot flushes – but it doesn’t worry bubbly TV presenter and former Celebrity Masterchef winner Nadia Sawalha.

In fact, she’s positively looking forward to reaching the milestone.

“I’m excited about being 50,” she reveals. “I dreaded 50 in my teens and my twenties, but now I feel I’ve got another whole lifetime to lead.”

It wasn’t all plain sailing during her younger years. Nadia faced traumas, including three miscarriages, body image issues and a short-lived first marriage – but now her smile is broader than ever as she looks to the future.

With a thriving career as a regular presenter on popular British TV programmes including ITV’s Lorraine and Sunday Scoop, plus several food columns and the release of her latest book Greedy Girl’s Diet Second Helpings!, the world’s currently her oyster.

She’s not sure yet how she’s going to celebrate her birthday with her husband, television producer Mark Adderley, and their two daughters Maddy, 11, and six-year-old Kiki, plus two older stepdaughters. The big day isn’t until November but she’s already exploring her options.

“I haven’t had a birthday party for 30 years, so I’m seriously considering having a big party with amazing food, fire-eaters and belly dancers, but then I might chicken out, because what if people don’t turn up? I’d be so embarrassed and mortified.

“I’m thinking of sending out the invitations now, so there’s no time to chicken out,” she says. “Or I might just go off with my husband and the girls to somewhere gorgeous.”

She says she’s not worried about ageing – because she can live vicariously through her 20-year-old stepdaughter.

“I felt fat, unconfident and guilty for being at work and not with my baby. So I did what I used to do then when I was unhappy... I overate,” she has previously said.

A period of psychotherapy followed – and now it’s a genuine smile that lights up the TV screen. And she remains one of the few women to go on a diet and stay slim long term.

Her follow-up, Greedy Girl’s Diet Second Helpings!, features chips and sauces, peanut butter and banana toasties, egg muffins and other foods not normally associated with dieting, but Sawalha swears by her approach.

“This is the food I’ve eaten for the past three years, this is the food I lost three-and-a-half stones with and kept it off.” She tried all the ‘cutting out’ diets over the years and none of them were effective long term.

“I did every single one of those diets and I was just dieting my way to obesity, because when I came off them, I put all the weight back on, plus a bit more. There has to be a way that you can eat forever.”

“I was on Lorraine last week and my 11-year-old daughter came with me. She sees how you are transformed. I wake up looking terrible and she says, ‘Mummy, it is like magic’.

“I’m in a really privileged position because they [her daughters] know that people are made-up to look so much more beautiful than they are, so they’re not messed up about images in magazines.

“It’s always interesting taking them to work and seeing what they observe and what they don’t.

“People say to Maddy, ‘What’s it like having a mum who’s a TV presenter?’ and she can’t identify with what they mean.

“I used to have the same thing with my sister, Julia, when she was at the height [of her fame] with Press Gang and Absolutely Fabulous, but you can’t answer. She’s just my sister.”