For a Happier, Healthier

DM1ST DM1ST 26 DAILY MIRROR MONDAY 28.05.2018 mirror.co.uk MONDAY 28.05.2018 DAILY MIRROR 31 For a happier, 32 DR MIRIAM STOPPARD healthier Get in touch! YOUR LIFE 34 DEAR COLEEN you! [email protected] BY EMILY RETTER giving them vegetables and the kids still HEATHER Mills chuckles at wanted to eat a burger” she says. “It’s the irony as she describes a time funny, Jamie Oliver and when a ham sandwich was her Gordon Ramsay used to wildest dream. laugh at all our vegan We used to stuff but now Jamie is Picturing herself with her brother and be really sister in the school playground, she says: starting to jump on the Everyone laughed envious bandwagon, too.” “We used to be really envious when people had a ham sandwich – oh my when people Not much dents Heather’s God, how lucky were they?” had a ham optimism. Of course, the reason for the family’s sandwich at Post Paul, and a more than lack of meat wasn’t funny at all. school. Meat £16million divorce settle- Heather, 50, who grew up near was a luxury ment, she could have with- Newcastle, explains her mum left the at us 25 years ago, ered under public backlash. family when she was nine, and her dad But not so. She went on to later went to prison, meaning they had donate millions to charity including her little money and food was scarce. 2007 fee for America’s Strictly, Dancing She says she even went to bed hungry With The Stars. She was the world’s first at times. ever amputee on the show and donated “I was called Grasshopper for being so they thought we her fee to VIVA the animal charity, skinny at school,” she recalls, candidly. before competing on 2010’s Dancing on “Having meat was very much a real Ice. Most recently, she appeared on luxury. We would have sandwiches with Channel Four’s The Jump, and then set a bit of margarine and a bit of jam if we a skiing world record as the fastest were lucky. disabled woman in the world, launching “It took me years to get over it. I had a were nuts... but down the slopes at 103.6mph. She even real issue with food in the sense that won four gold medals with the British when I had money I would overfeed paralympic ski team in Aspen and a everyone. I ate like it was my last meal.” Silver Medal in New Zealand. But her hard knocks childhood She insists she never has flashbacks shaped her character, and today she to her accident. Casting her mind back credits it for her “passion” for food – a 25 years, she recalls: “All I can remember going vegan is ‘I’m so lucky to be alive’,” she says. passion that means she’s one of 3.5 million vegans in the UK, a figure that “When I lost my leg you never had has boomed by 700% in two years. anyone with a disability who was known And it’s that passion we are here to or on TV. The legs were disgusting back talk about – a quarter of a century since then, I remember going into Madame Heather first adopted it. It’s a 25th Tussauds and saying ‘Hang on a second, anniversary few will be familiar with, helped me why do these look real and you’re giving although more bells will ring for the me some crap-looking thing?’ other more famous incident which “I tried to become a role model as well occurred in Heather’s life just before it as designing modern prosthetics for – the police motorcycle collision which amputees to show them they can do caused her to lose her lower leg. anything not be embarrassed about Then a glamorous model, Heather recover after having a disability. was hit by the bike in London. She lost “I am so proud to see all the athletes her left leg below the knee and suffered in Prince Harry’s Invictus games a crushed pelvis, a punctured lung, and compete with the prosthetics we was then fitted with a “ugly” prosthesis. advanced at a time when disa- Yet she refused to wallow in self bility was hidden.” pity, and her instant and gritty losing my leg She concedes life can determination to triumph over be tough. adversity by designing what are now “I still have to crawl to advanced prosthetics, quickly the loo in the night, I catapulted her into the celebrity world. still get bleeding and A world which, eventually, of course, blistering if I overdo it would lead her to meet Sir Paul in sport... the phantom McCartney in 2000, when he spotted her pains,” she says. at the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain “But you end up Awards. The pair married in 2002, but becoming resilient to it, split six years later for reasons she still like lots of people do.” doesn’t wish to talk about. No one could deny she’s But, back to the beginning, it was her the historic Walkers crisps factory adds, no pun intended. “It’s brilliant lowered immune system and our meat-based chicken fiercely independent. accident which actually prompted when she discovered it was closing as everyone has caught on to the plant- digestive system is key to that,” she says. korma, all you do is Although she Heather to change her diet, she explains. she was determined to keep jobs in her based movement.” “The health benefit is quick. You start put in the vegan declines to talk about “I didn’t go vegan because I was home region. She believes people are finally to feel the difference in not being so chicken in low-fat her marriage to Paul, interested in animals or the planet. I had Initially, she hopes to employ 130 beginning to listen to the benefits she bloated. If everyone thought one bowel coconut milk sauce, Heather’s adamant she no idea,” she says bluntly, but likeably so. people, but believes this could rise to 255 has been hailing all this time. movement a day was good, it’s not. You for example. You won’t be marrying again. “I was 25, lost my leg, I had infections RECOVERY or even more as VBites gains First and foremost, going vegan should have one after every meal. All replace like for like.” SPORTY “No interest what- Fighting which kept spreading up it, I was on prominence in major supermarkets, who could transform your digestive system, that food sitting there is fermenting and And she doesn’t Heather soever,” she says. “I back after Heather believes. skiing and antibiotics and spent months in accident want to buy from a British firm that poisoning our system.” shy away from believe in love but I only “All the illnesses we get come from a on Dancing personally know one hospital. And then my friend said ‘You supports British workers. The other possible health bene- suggesting even With The have to go vegan if you’re going to get out She explains: “I was looking to fits she lists range from treating the great Jamie Stars happy marriage among of this hospital’”. She now firmly believes looking for plant-based alternatives to open a factory in Austria, but I really asthma, acne and depression to Oliver went wrong my friends. So it’s not for her diet helped her recovery. replace it and satisfy her cravings, and believe in serendipity. Walkers We’ve taken helping reverse Type 2 diabetes. trying to get me. Never again.” “I’m a Northerner. I was like ‘What are that’s what led to launching VBites, a brought such great employment to over the old She understands people, like her, children to eat vegetables straight up. She is now happier than the area, I want to do the same.” might be dubious at first, but ever, she says, thanks in large part to you talking about? Where are you going 100% vegan company with 104 products Walkers “All you need to do for kids is give now distributed in 25 countries. When 25 years ago, Heather first insists going vegan isn’t just a fad them like for like. Don’t tell them great health. And the best plant-based to get your protein from?’,” she says. “All crisps factory the things you say verbatim because The company has two factories, one talked on GMTV about veganism for avocado-loving millennials – anything, just feed them,” she says. diet, as she calls it, gives her that. someone else has said it. in Corby and one in Benton, near with Dr Hilary Jones, people would in Peterlee. it’s something anyone at any age Heather knows what she’s talking “We need to look after ourselves now “But literally in 10 days my whole leg Newcastle, and now a third is set to scoff, but today Heather is beginning I want to THE BOSS can try. about. She previously donated $1million because if we are lucky enough to be in healed, so it saved my knee.” open in nearby Peterlee, in November. to feel opinion is finally changing. bring jobs Heather at “The best thing is to replace of her food to children in New York’s The our 70s and 80s we do not want to be And Heather has never looked back. Able to talk for the first time about the “Everyone was laughing at it 25 to the area her factory things bit by bit,” she says.

Load more