Biological Age Results Revealed

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I'm making it on Canva Mobile like you suggested and it's making everything iconic. So it's a bit noisy, babes. Marsb is going off. Anyways, I'm going to pin the presentation to you now so you can see what I mean. Gotta go hun. Thanks for introducing me to Canva. Love ya. What's on TV? The answer is a lot. There's never been more choice over what to put on the box with an abundance of great new shows, but you can miss them all if you don't know where to look. And that's where the Pilot TV Podcast comes in, your essential guide to every show that matters. Each week we sift through the very best in Prestige TV to help you decide what's worth spending your time on and what isn't. So join me, James Dyer, as well as venerable TV critics Boyd Hilton and Kay Rivero and let us help take the stress out of your downtime. The Pilot TV Podcast. Because you can't watch everything. Arrayo Original Podcast . Dame, Cruly, do you have any predictions as to what your biological age will be? Maybe you're going to tell me my biological age is 100 and there and so I should be dead. Your chronological age is 8 6. I can reveal that your biological age is . Hello and welcome to What's My Age Again, the only podcast where we demand our guests actual blood. Sweat and tears are encouraged but optional. Today's guest is a Michelin star chef, award-winning author, TV host, and national treasurer. Of course, I'm talking about the dazzling dame Prue Leaf, our third There's only one way to describe this Wonder Woman, and that is a force to be reckoned with. As well as devoting her life to producing top notch, she's run multiple businesses, written twelve cookbooks, 9 novels, campaigned to teach cooking in schools, worked tirelessly for charities to improve the standard of school food, all while finding time to be a loving wife, mother, and grandmother, but has this bustling life played havoc on her biological age? Has spinning so many plates put her health in a downward spiral? Or is the key to youth keeping your mind and your outfit sharp? Dame Prule Leith is 86 years old, but today we will find out if her cells agree. Dame ProLeith, welcome to What's My Age Again? Hello, Catherine. It sounds terrifying. Why? Maybe you're going to tell me my biological age is a hundred and there and so I b should be dead. I might tell you that. Um but I don't think so. You look as ever, vivacious, healthy, young, full of energy. Your new book is called Being Old and Learning to Love It. How do you react when someone tells you that you look young? Do you think that's a good thing, a weird thing? Well, I I know I love it. Of course I I like like the idea that I look younger than I am, but I don't mind being old. No. I mean I really wrote the book because I felt um that uh oldies were getting a a a bad rap and it's partly their old fault because there's a kind of idea that being old is terrible. But being old is just like being young. Some of it's terrible and some of it's wonderful. Um and there's lots of great things about being old. So you say that with authority as though you are old. So when I am old. When did you first identify as being old? You know, when I got the bake off job I was seventy or something. And um or seventy-one. And I remember thinking, God, they're mad, I'm old, I might not live long enough to do this to do a good job, you know. Maybe they count on that because they're a ceiling on the pay rises . So maybe old is good. Oh you think. That's that's very cunning. What made you decide that after nine years that was the time to leave? Well it's mainly just because I've got I'm I'm I'm very conscious that I'm I'm not going to live forever and I haven't I've got limited time left and I realised that I would never get a a Europe an holiday, you know, go to Italy or France or s Greece or Spain, all the countries I love and have not been to enough, I'll never be able to go to them in the summer again because the bake off films all through the summer. So I just thought, you know, I've got to stop. So that was the main reason, but also because I want to do more television that's different. Yeah. I always want to do new stuff. Yeah. And Bacoff was absolutely wonderful. I loved it and I loved the people and all the rest of it. But it wasn't new. Every year was exactly the same except, you know, new bakers and new cakes. I think nine years is a long time to be in the same project when you're someone who spins many plates and has different interests. It's like you didn't get into an office job for a reason. There are people who sit in an office for fifty years and someone who's creative. a Mind you, I'm quite sticker. I mean nine nine years is quite a long time, but uh before that I did the Great Um uh uh British Menu. The Great British Menu programme. And I did that for eleven years. Yeah . Um so I I I am quite a stayer and I did love Bacoff, and I could have gone on happily doing Bacoff because I was enjoying it . But um, you know, in the end, it was the shrinking horizons that was forced me into someone with less sex appeal, Nigella Lawson. Happens to me all the time. Um I like that you count your life in summers because uh we both have children, but when your children are small they say to you, you've only got eighteen summers with your children. If they say eighteen years, that's fine, but if they go, eighteen summers. Yes. Count the summers.. Yes Yeah, I knew then there's something in that. So what does your ideal summer look like? Would you stay on the back of your husband's motorcycle going on a pub crawl of the cotswalds? I'd certainly do that. I don't want to stop doing that. That's lovely. It's very comfy. It's a big um Harley Davidson tri ke. So it's got two back wheels. So it's really comfy and it can't tip can't tip over, so you're not frightened on it. I don't like motor b uh being on the back of a motor bike very much because it's uh i f it feels dangerous but this feels safe as anything. Have you been on the back of many motorbikes per I've been on the back on a few. How many? I've been on the back of a full Hollywood scooter. Well going from Paul Hollywood scooter to John's Harley, I think I'd feel a lot safer in his hands. What is the one thing that you believe will have the biggest impact on your biological age today? I think I should do I should have quite a young biolog ical age because I sleep like a top. And I could I mean, if I had an hour off here before my next meeting and you said y I could lie here, I could just fall asleep for an hour. Really? I can sleep anywhere and I go to sleep very quickly and I sleep eight hours every night without almost without fail, always. Perfect. And I eat very healthily. I don't eat um neurotically healthily. I'm not on some keto diet or anything. I just cook everything from fresh. We never buy ultra processed anything. And it's not a religion. It's just that I like cooking and I like cooking from scratch and I like healthy food. And we buy all our veg from a local f farmers market, so it's really fresh. And so on those two scores, the eating and the sleeping I should do all right. What was the third thing? Well it's about just your general well being, if you're happy in your relationship. Yeah, all that too. If you have past trauma or stress that's written on the canvas of who you are. Well, I should do well on that too, I 'cause'm really happy and I've had a very happy life. And I've had a tremendously lucky life. Of course there have been some pro you know, you don't get to be eighty six without a bit of m you know, I mean when when my first husband died that was widowhood. The first the first year, two years of widowhood really sucks. I mean that's horrible. But that was years ago and it happens to everybody. Tell me about about that. So you were married to your husband Rain for how many years? Yes, I was married for him for a very long time. Yeah. And um but he was older than me, so I always knew he'd die before me. He was twenty years older than me. He died when he was eight y-two. Okay. Um so I was sixty-four or something. That's very young to be a widow. But then eight years later I met John. So I so that was terrifically lucky. Yeah. And I mean most people don't get one happy marriage. No. And I've had two really happy marriages. And I'm still having the second one, so as long as he sticks around. So what was that first year of widowhood like? Was your husband He had been sick for a long time. Very insisting insisted that I kept working and that I did what I needed to do. So I would sometimes go off and get on a train and then just worry about him so much I'd I'd get off at the next station and come back again because I I would be worried about him and occasionally I'd come home and he would have collapsed and because he couldn't breathe properly, had emphysema. He is a w he was a a a walking lesson on not smoking because he he smoked himself to death. And um so th there was a quite a lot of stress in that last couple of years. I I mean I can't tell you how many times I followed a an ambulance to a hospital because he'd have collapsed because he couldn't breathe. Um so that wasn't good. Yeah. But it was a it was only a few years, I suppose a couple of years before he died, and then the the pain of him actually being gone . But I had my family around me and they were wonderful. And your children really step up when something terrible happens. You know, they both came home, stayed with me for weeks after he died. Because I would have thought the opposite, someone like you, as strong as you are and as insightful, you know, the matriarch, you would have to hold everyone together because it's their father who's past as well. But you raise them to hold you up. That's great. And then I or maybe we all held each other really. Yeah. And it was around that time that you realized how few friends you had? In this book I talk about friendship because I've never been good at friendship. Um I've always worked very hard and been very close to all the people I worked with, but I've never worked that friendship. And when I lived with my first husband, we lived in the country and he was really reclusive. He was a writer and he never wanted to see anybody. And and he didn't want to know our neighbours. He was sort of lived in fear that you know, people would come banging on the door wanting to borrow a cup of sugar or something. He had a completely um wrong idea of how how the British behave anyway. Yes. They don't do that. And I was quite happy to to to live this reclusive life in the country because we had the children and um then I would go to I'd go to work in the week and come home at weekends and the children came home at weekends 'cause they were at boarding school. And so we were very happy little family at the weekends, but I and I didn't want anybody else because I lived this very busy life in London. I was running my businesses and I was going to my restaurant every night, and so I was seeing lots of friends in the restaurant, and I was very social . So um, you know, I thought it was fine. And then of course when he died, I suddenly realized that I had no friends in the country. I knew none of our neighbours. We'd never been friends with our neighbours . And that was a really hard t made it r more h difficult. But I didn't want to leave the house. But um Rain had expected me to when he died, he thought I'd go and live in our London flat. But I loved the country. So anyway, I s I I I did find that really difficult. And then um eight years later I met John and he knows everybody in the in our world, in the in the Cotsworld. He knows everybody from the you know, y ask him who the best electrician is. And he'll know not only th the electrician, the plumber and the everybody. He knows who they're married to, how many children they've got. He knows everybody. And then he knows all the tough tofs and poshos and lords and ladies and who they're married to and who their children are. So he is enormously gregarious. He has hundreds of friends. So now I have lots of friends, which is really lucky 'cause I wouldn't have any friends. It's no wonder Rain didn't want you getting to know the neighbors because John is one of your neighbors. That's right. Yeah, that's true. And as soon as you got to know him, you were well connected in the Cottsw wellells. Well no, I don't think that would have ever happened because I think you know, if you're really committed to one person you don't look at other people. I totally understand that. I know. You don't. Yeah. You don't lust after that good looking guy across the table if you're in love with the one who's sitting next to you. He's not that good in bed anyway. I've heard this from a lot of women that especially of a certain generation, to be a dutiful wife and a dutiful mother, you fit yourself around your husband. And you've broken out of that because you had all these businesses and you were in London. You were so successful. I think you're quite different. But in terms of a social circle, your friends are your husband's friends' wives. And then my husband didn't have any. And he didn't, so you didn't. Well he had a couple of old friends that but they were Londoners and they would come occasionally and stay with us or something. But he had a few you know, he had perhaps three friends. Okay. Um. But we were very close to the family, and we had quite a big family between us. This episode of What's My Age Again is sponsored by MedExpress, the UK online pharmacy. If you've been trying to manage your weight but feel like nothing's really working, MedExpress connects you with UK registered clinicians who assess your situation and create a treatment plan to support your weight management goals. With over 1.5 million customers, MedExpress is one of the country's leading online pharmacies, and they offer access to licensed, evidence-based treatment under medical supervision. And the whole process happens from your laptop or phone. 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Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. See website for details. What's the biggest lesson the age has taught you thus far? Do you know I think the thing I like best about being old is that you simply don't care anymore what people think. You do what you want to do. And I and my advice if it was advice, and I'm not I this is not a how to book. It's not a full of advice. It's more full of of I hope amusing and fun to read stories. But if I have any advice, it would be just enjoy it. There are great things about being old, and one of the best of them is that you can do what you like. Were there times in your life that you weren't that Aaron Powell When you're working um in in a company or anything else, you you are really concerned about everybody else as well. I mean you you realise this is a a a ship that requires a lot of people to drive it. You know, it's it's you can't just I think w when you the nice thing about getting old is that you give up all those sort of things and in the end it's just your own life you're managing. You're no longer managing your children's lives, you're no longer managing your businesses, you're not worrying about your employees, you're not worrying about anything really. Um you're just you can do what you like. When you're managing these businesses and the boss in so many arenas of your life. Because you're a woman, did anybody call you a bitch during that time? I mean I was often the first person woman doing lots of things. I mean I I was uh I I I in a way I was really lucky because for example I was the first woman on I I I ended up on about ten or eleven major boards like you know, the board of um Safeway and the board of Whitbread and the Board of British British Rail and all sorts of companies. Because at the time chairman had just woken up to the fact that they really would be it would be a good idea to have women at the top. And they wanted to encourage more women to be promoted and they figured that if they could have some women at the top then you know, in on the board. I don't think they necessarily wanted you to do anything. You just had to be a statutory woman, just be there and and and of course I um and because I had a successful business, um I was one of the targets that people wanted me to be on their boards because I had credibility as a businesswoman. Um and so I was often on boards that I didn't mind why they were putting me there. I always thought well it'd be interesting to you know, I've never I've never been in a building society, so I'd love to join the Leeds Permanent Building Society. Well I I know nothing about trains, so I'd like to be on I always join things 'cause I was curious and and wanted to do something new. But I I also wanted to do a good job. Yeah. And so I would I think I don't care why you're putting me there. Maybe you just want me to be a statutory woman and I don't care about And you know, it was the right attitude because it meant I got on the board and then I did do a good job and then they would suddenly think, oh. And I'm what I'm really proud of is I never left a board without having more women on the board than when I arrived. There was there was nobody when I arrived. But mostly when I left there'd be a couple of women on that board. Because I began to almost seek out um bright women who would be helpful. Were you always very fashionable on these boards? Or did that fashion sense come later? No, I do remember getting an invitation to a to also on British Rail, uh to an invitation to a board dinner. And it said and th the invitation just said, it was printed, it said, um please ask your wife to wear a long dress. So I s said to my husband, Come on, you're gonna wear a dress and I'm gonna wear a dinner suit to go to this thing. But he wouldn't do it. But I would have loved to have turned up. I did turn up in a in a dinner jacket, 'cause it said dinner jackets. Yeah. You know, dinner jackets for you and long dress for your wife. But my my husband wouldn't wear a dress. But I did wear a dinner jacket. Well, you walked the runway for Vin and Omi at London Fashion Week on the a eve of your 86th birthday. That was so amazing. Yeah. Do you know I walked down that runway? I love w I I love Vin and Omia. I think they're great um designers and um you know, they they have a great mission to make design um sustainable. Mm-hmm. And I w my dress was made out of a linen f linen like subject um fabric, but it was actually made of holly from one of the royal estates. They have some um c collaboration with the king that they can make fabrics out of all their waste materi al. So it's hedge trimmings, holly hedge trimmings . Um but I I never know what dress I'm gett or what I'm going to wear when I walk down. But I I had this amazing pink suit with a big fr illy shirt. And it it was fun. And I was walking down this um catwalk, but it's a catwalk in a hotel and you're going all over the place and there are about eight hundred people lining the catwalk, mostly press and photographers, but also fashionistas and and people who are interested in fashion. And there were eight hundred of them and as we turned every corner there'd be a new burst of happy birthday. Everybody was singing happy birthday to me. And I I was quite tearful by the end because it was so it's just extraordinary to hear, you know, eight hundred people singing Happy Birthday. It was so lovely. They and they you know, they gave they turned the whole thing into my birthday party, which was incredibly generous because what they're supposed to be doing is pushing their sustainability message, not my age message. But I like that you embrace your birthday and you felt tearful in a positive way to hear happy birthday because there are women, especially older than me, who were taught to fear age, to reject age, to lie and conceal age. And certainly my mother um is only 66, just turned 66 a couple days ago. She does not like the idea of getting older. And she has to hear messages like yours. She has to train herself. So she'll say things like, well, it's better than the alternative, which is very black, like very dark. Um but it's true, it's it's wonderful. It's a privilege to get older. Um and do you feel more beautiful now as you get older? Do you know I feel much more comfortable in my skin? I mean when I was young I really uh worried about how I looked a lot much more. I w I you know, I was thinking, Oh my god, I got bags under my eyes and uh and i one of the lessons which is so extraordinary I would like to say to young women is for goodness sake enjoy your beauty and your youth and your you know young people are just so lovely anyway. They don't need to do anything. I get really upset to see all these young girls with, you know, inflated boobs and Botox lips and all the rest of it. When they don't need it. You don't have to say young girls, you can just say me. I'm right here, Prue, I know that I've really messed it up in some ways. I got breast implants when I was really young as well. Really young. Much more beautiful. Much more beautiful. Um and I think breast implants might have given me autoimmune disease. I do think I loved them at the time because I got to go to the Playboy mansion before we knew Hugh Hefner was so dumb dangerous and complicated. And um I had a facelift two months ago. Oh darling, you don't need to do these things. You see, I I really worry about that because I think uh when I look at pictures of me when I was young, I think, what was I worrying about? I mean, that's a good looking girl, you know, she she didn't need but I was I mean, I didn't do any of those things because I couldn't afford them and and in and and and they weren't available. But I'm sure I would have because I was convinced that I um you know, that I was too uh too tall, too clumsy, too big, too fat, too everything. And you know, it's bad. And now I'm very comfortable. I think, you know, I'm I'm fine. So you wouldn't do any like surgical procedures? No, I had i i i in my life I have. I mean when I was fifty, I had my the bags under my eyes uh fixed. and And then they said they it'll last for fifteen years and it did and then I got the bags back. But now I don't care. I mean I think I look fine with the bags. Well you haven't really got them though. I think the surgery was a success. You don't have them half as noticeable as people half your age. I think you look great. But so that's not Botox. That's not Do you get any laser facials? I don't do any of those things. No. I and no, I've never done any anything like that. And I and I think there's I I I I think there's a r uh there's quite a lot about this in the book because I think there's a huge con that manufacturers are making lots of money selling pots of cream that cost three hundred pounds or something, which are guaranteed to get rid of your wrinkles or something. And you know, it's just nonsense. I mean, I remember Renita Roddick saying many years ago that um the property in one of those expensive pots of um cream are no different the the sort of uh moisturizing properties are exactly the same as on any fat. So it could be mutton fat and primitive people would um use mutton fat on their on on their faces to moisturize them. Which is just as effective. Yeah. All it you you're paying for is the packaging and the marketing and a little bit and the profit. And a tiny little bit of money goes into the actual product. Yeah. So, you know, I I I I just hate the fact that so many young girls are I think social media is bad for this too because it persuades them that they have to do all this stuff. And it is y we have been taught, I think, in my age group that your body is a trend. So sometimes breast implants are fashionable, sometimes a big bum. What do you think of the big bum trend? Yeah. Did you notice that one? Yeah. I liked it, but luckily I was too busy to go for it. Otherwise I'd be sitting a bit higher up in this interview. Um and then fillers and Botox. I I do agree with you. As much as I enjoy luxury beauty products, some of them are silky or some of them smell really nice. But I've read the same studies that any moisturizer, you should moisturize , you should use SPF. And then sometimes an acid at night, like a retinol or a vitamin A. But really they say that's all you need. People often ask me, what do you put on your face? You know, uh what's your go to who what what if you think I'm going to say some you know really s fashionable smart brand and and I always say well I I just steal those little bottles in the hotels. You know, you get little b bottle and I don't care whether it's called um face cream or body lotion or balm or whatever. It's all the same stuff and it just all goes on my face, whatever it's called. What's your beauty secret? Robbery. It is. Robbery. Out of stealing out of hotels, that's what I do. And if I can't do that, I'll just go for Nivea because Nivea's not expensive and and they've got the good sense to tell you that um for example if you buy a Nivia bottle of of um shampoo it it says body wash good for hair sh face hair So you never found being in the public eye that aging was a detriment or age Well for me it's been a huge advantage. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't eighty-six. What are your opinions about like there are certain men, especially famous men , who have only ever dated much younger women. What do you think about that? Do you think they're intimidated by women their own age? Do you think maybe they're not clever enough to chat to women their own age? I don't know what it is. I mean I ha I've got a friend who who's exactly like that. He's and he's unhappy because he's on his own. But all he wants is very young w omen. And I think really . I mean he wants a lasting relationship. It's not as if he just wants a one night stand. I understand that you probably want the most beautiful girl you can find. If all you're looking for is If you want a lasting relationship, you should not be going for an n you know, if you're in your fifties as he is, you should not be going for girls in their twenties. And do you tell him that? Yeah. Yeah I do all the time. And what's his reaction? He's not turned on by older women, he just But he's friends with you. I know, but then he's not lusting after me, he's just a friend. But I think you've gotta cut him off because the intellectual stimulation that he's getting from you he he does not deserve Well that's an interesting thing. And maybe if he didn't have um older women friends he can talk to, he would give up the young ones because he can't talk to them. Yeah. Well I don't think that's true. There are of course y there are young, interesting women and young bright women. They're not all um There are, of course, interesting bright young women, but there's something about these older men exclusively choosing them that makes me feel like they want to exploit their vulnerability somehow or they want to lead their own feel more masterful, maybe. Yeah. I don't like it. I don't want to make myself look young for the male gaze. I know that. I'm not for the male gays. I'm for the male gays. Um but I still like it. Like there was something about my neck that after having all my pregnancies was bothering me, I did it for myself. No, no, I do think I'm not against plastic surgery. I mean in there I tell the story of my mum who she was an actress and she had very big boobs. And when she was seventy she decided she'd have um her m bosoms s small and mate. And I was so cross with her. I remember say I remember getting really cross with her saying, Mum, this is just a cry for attention. All you'd want is me to spend three weeks with you looking after you 'cause it's a major operation. And you you know you won't be able to lift your arms and all the rest of it. And i i i it's just an excuse to for me to be there 'cause I said who after all, what does it matter? Nobody's ever you're not gonna show your I mean nobody's gonna look at your tits anymore. So what and so she said, this is not about anybody else. She said, I'm doing it for me. She said, I've always hated my bosoms. They've always been too big. And she said, when I was a young actress, I and in the thirties, I had to strap them in because you the the fashion at the time was to look like a boy, you know, the sort of salad days look. Um so she said I was sal wh when I was a young actress I was always having to strap them up and she said the only reason that I didn't do anything earlier is she said your father was rather fond of them . So I um so uh that that's why I kept the but she said he's no longer a l ro round, so I'm now doing what I want and I'm I'm having him off. I'm having him . So she she went ahead and had it. And do you know, because she look she immediately felt lighter. She started to diet more because she had got very overweight. She lost a lot of weight. She started working again. It chered her up so much, and then she got an enormous acting job playing the lead in a in a big play. And I swear she wouldn't have got to that without without the surgery. It just it just changed her image of herself. And then she thought, well it was worse she went back to wearing high heels, which she had stopped wearing. It's she it just changed her life. So it's a good thing. Yeah. But it's great to feel settled in yourself and that you don't need it. That is the ideal of course. I see what you're saying. I love, love your advocacy of getting children especially more comfortable around fresh fruits and vegetables and people cooking more. I think that if your biological age is low, I Our resident scientist Nicola always goes on about how important that is. And especially because you're getting fruit and veg from this local farmers market that will have actual nutrients and vitamins in it. Um what are the high processed foods that you think people should majorly avoid? Like what would you never eat if you were if you hadn't eaten all day and I presented you with some type of salami. This is really difficult because since I never ever eat that stuff. I mean I don't uh we I I just don't even walk past those shelves in the in the I don't know what they are, but I but I I mean I I I 'm horse meat scandal menu. I tell you what I feel guilty about. I mean I do um there are some th there are some things that I just buy off the shelf because I'm lazy. Okay. Um mayonnaise is one of them. And if you look at a a bo jar of mayonnaise, it does have some ultra processed rubbish in it. It's not just to what it should be, which is just egg yolks and and oil and a little bit of lemon juice and salt and pepper. Um but I will always eat things like, you know, I I'll use frozen mashed potato and I feel very comfortable about that because if you look at what's in the frozen mashed potato, it is just potato and salt and but ter. And that's what you do at home. Yeah. So that's all right. So I do i i I I do have um and and same with I will use frozen puff pastry because it's it's just flour and butter. What? I can see the tabloid headlines now. Yeah. Yeah, well I mean it takes a long time to make um puff pastry. And so I often cheat. So I'm not against cheating if the if the ingredients are good. But I think the things I feel y uh a bit guilty about is and I don't want to look at the in uh the ingredient list because I'm sure they won't be there'll be all sorts of stabilizers and other rubbish in in them. But I I buy packet custard, you know, the one that's in a and it it I like the one called that's uh Tesco's Mad Madagascar um mas Madagascar vanilla custard is absolutely delicious. And I make truffle out of that. Ooh. And and I and we get through quite a lot 'cause my husband loves custard. Custard's grain. And that I'm sure that's probably full of uh ultra-processed rubbish. It's very interesting to know that you buy pre-made custard, yet you forced me to try to create my own on stand up to cancer bake off and I failed miserably and it was hard as a rock. And then you didn't eat my pie because you said it wasn't worth the calories. Um do you count calories? I do. I think anybody of my age knows what calories they're eating all the time. And I I do, I t I mean, and I aim at eating two thous not more than two thousand a day, which is about right for my f w weight and size and sex and everything. And it um s and I can usually count up in my head what I've eaten. Wow. Um You just know instinctively that's that many. That's because I I think m my generation grew up very fixated about calories. That was the only th because the the only thing we were concerned about was just uh not to put on weight by the calories. Whereas diets today are but more complicated. They're not just about calories. But I still I still reckon in calories. And so on certain bake-off shoot days would you have just cake? As long as it was on the disease. And and you know, usually if I if I eat a if I ate a teaspoon of every cake and there were perhaps um you know, it would be that was say on the day that they're that they're doing the um technical and the signature challenge, that would mean I'd have to do perhaps two mouthfuls of um times twelve, because of twelve bakers, if it's right at the beginning. And for the for you know, I'd end up with perhaps forty teaspoons of cake. And that would be about fifteen hundred calories. And then I'd have five c then in my head I'd have five hundred calories left for s for dinner. And I'd decide, well actually two glasses of wine would be better than dinner. So my diet for two days a week for ten weeks of the year would be honestly cake and cake and wine. Great . Fifteen hundred not use obviously as they bake as they're less and less bakers. That's fine. But um so I'm sure cake and cake and wine is not a recommended diet. But I would um do it for ten weeks a year. But whatever. But two days in every week. But whatever that's done to your biological age, it will have hopefully bounced back since you left. Well we'll see. Perhaps um perhaps all that cake uh a cake and wine has not been good for me. We don't know. We'll see. The British public will be absolutely disappointed if that is not a good way to live your life. What are your thoughts about death? Does that scare you? It doesn't scare me at all. Uh it does it absolutely doesn't scare me. I um what what scares me or would scare me is um I think if you're if you're ill and you're in pain and you're unhappy, you ought to be allowed to die if you want to. So I spend a lot of time um advocating s assisted dying and the at the moment the bill is going through Parliament. But it's look it looks likely to fail because the the in the House of Lords they there are a little bunch of Lords who have decided to filibuster to absolutely. If y i i if a bill runs out of time because it hasn't been properly debated, because there hasn't been time, if it runs out of time it automatically falls and it and then you have to start again the next parliament and uh go right through the House of Commons and everything else. Already been through the House of Commons who entirely who approved it and want to see it made law. And it's supposed to go to the Lords. The Lords are supposed to scrutinize and improve bills. They're there to scru to check bills and make sure that they are the best that they can be. They're not there. They're not meant to deliberately sink them or bury them. And there's this bunch of lords who have tabled over a thousand amendments which have to be discussed simply in order to make sure that the bill runs out of time and it fails. And that's so undemocratic. And it's absolutely not what the Lords is for. And a lot of the Lords, even those who are opposed to sis assisted dying, don't want the bill to succeed, totally disagree what what this little cabal of um of lawlords are doing , which is, you know, the all these ridiculous amendments . Because they say that's not what we're meant to do. It's it's not the right use of the Lords. It's it's um it's bringing the Lords into disrepu te. It's undemocratic. It means we can't vote because it it'll run out of time. So it's disgraceful. In a way it's metaphorical for the need for assisted death . They're just letting it prolong and prolong and prolong when it could be voted for or against. I'm really sorry to hear that. So that's something that's really meaningful to that's happening at the moment. Um so if it if it does fall, w they'll I mean th something like eighty percent of the public want to see this bill through and you know and the the organizations mostly charities that are pushing for it . They won't give up. They'll just try again. But this you know it's it's i i it's monstrous. It sort of exists maybe I'm wrong. I I think it exists in a space with um termin ation of pregnancies where they go they just put their hands up and they get so frozen by the idea of life and death and life and death and what to do with that interfering. I think I think a lot of the opposition is is genuinely moral, you know, people feel uh uh or or religious that they feel, you know, God God giveth so God taketh away. It's not our business to m interfere. But I feel very strongly nonsense. It's my life. I should be able to I I I believe in autonomy of your body. I think you own your body and you should be allowed to do what you like with it. Up to a point. I mean I don't think you should be allowed to if you're you know, if you're insane, um you shouldn't be allowed to cut your armor for. But when it's just your own life uh and you're really unhappy and you um are in t constant pain and you know you're going to get the pain is going to get worse and that no drugs can touch it, then w we you know, we wouldn't do that to a dog. No. We wouldn't you know. Absolutely agree. And if you were on a a battlefield and your a colleague was obviously dying , um Um, you know, shot to ribbons and unsav able, but in agony, you would put a bullet through him, wouldn't you, out of out of compassion? Yeah. You know, but apparently we can't do that to people who are desperately ill and in pain. Well we'll see. Maybe you'll be one of the people to change that. Yeah. I hope so. I hope so. I hope to live long enough to do it. You see, that's one of the people often say, do you think about death? Well I do think will I b live long enough to see this build through? Well, you shouldn't be skiing if that's your aim. I saw you tried to ski for the first time when you were eighty eighty years old. Well well I I did something called sit skiing, which is absolutely cheating. You sit a you sit in a in a basically in a chair on wheel on skis with a really champion skier behind you and he skis it's so exciting and you you get all the excitement of 'cause you go uh just as I mean m my my children were skiing and they're good skiers round us 'cause they wanted to take photographs of us as we were skiing, and we were tearing down the slopes just as fast as everybody else. Absolutely magical. And the wonderful thing is because you're not in control, you are absolutely in somebody else's hands. There's something completely liberating about it. You you get all the excitement and the pleasure, but none of the anxiety 'cause you're not doing it. Somebody else is. And in fact there's something amazing fee uh about the feeling that if that guy just opens his hands and lets you go you're a goner . I mean there's something uh it's there's something great about somebody else being in charge. So this is like a tailored dame pro-leaf way to kick back. Are you doing any other exercise? No, I I do do s ridiculous exercise because a physio who I much admire told me that I have to do at least half an hour, she said forty-five minutes actually, uh of exercise every day. Um and and she taught me these exercises, so I you know th they're they're really simple. They're I have to you know y I l I I wake up in the morning and I do them before do three of them before I get out of bed, which is the the one where you roll your po you you know, roll your legs this way and that way. And then I do one sort of leg lifts and thirty of them and then thirty uh bicycling um legs. So the the leg ones I do in the before I even get out of bed. But Sir John likes that routine. Then I do a you know a whole lot of you know exercises for my thighs and my ankles and so on and so on. And it's supposed to take forty five minutes. Well it takes me ten minutes 'cause I find them so boring that I just rush at it and I just don't I do it at top speed. At the end I'm quite out of breath, but I have done them all. And I reckon it's probably useless ten minutes exercise, but it's better than nothing. And I do um I do cook a lot and I pot around the garden and um and I'm you know, I'm quite active for my age. Do you have any predictions as to what your biological age will be? No, but based on what you've said about um you know that it should be that it's about how much you sleep, how well you sleep and how well you eat um and how uh stress free your life is and how happy you are. Well if it's all those things I should be twenty five because honestly I I I I know I eat well, I know I sleep well and I'm really happy. Great. And so I've got no I I I I shouldn't have anything that to make me old. Well would you like to invite uh Dr. Nicola Conlin on SAT with me and we'll reveal your biological age . 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Enjoy flexible monthly payments and go direct from London Gatwick. Jet Z holidays. Package holidays you can trust. Atronational protected. Subject to availability and conditions . Switch to Plasnet's award-winning 45 from just 2$2.99 a month. Our sweet deal gets you fast and reliable broadband with no activation fee. With speeds up to 900 megabits. Whoop! Feels like a sugar rush. Full fibre that's full of value. That's a plus. Offer end 6th of May. 24 months. 26.99 from the 31st of March 2027. 30.99 for the 31st of March 2028. New customers only. 62% UK availability. Term supply . Dame Prue Leith, we are now joined by our resident scientist, Dr. Nicola Conlin, who is dedicated her entire career to these longevity studies, human longevity . Your chronological age is 8 6. I can reveal that your biological age is 48. 38 years younger, which is the biggest gap that we have ever had on the show. So congratulations. Yeah, that this is um I mean that's a I am 38, so you are a whole me. younger How? Biologically. Which amazing. So we've had some guests that have had some quite some really good results. And I've I've you know used words like, you know, wow, this is amazing. But yours is by far the best. Like it is exceptional in terms of what we measure. I must be doing something right there. You were definitely so so what you just finished up with before was talking about your lifestyle. So your diet, your exercise, your sleep, being happy. These are all the things that everyone gets so bored of me saying on this show, but this actually shows it really does work. When you do all those things right, it really does make a difference . And what we actually look at in the test is um something called glycans. So these are things that are on your immune cells. So they show levels of inflammation and we'll look at the different patterns and there' differsent ones that we look at and basically you get kind of scored from like low to high and in every single one you were in the top one percent. So yeah, so like very , very good. When I say good, I'm not exaggerating, it's very, very good. Well I'm really impressed. Yeah. And I think for for me what's exciting about this is so you just mentioned like I've m I specialise in longevity and a lot of people when we talk about longevity they think, oh, you know, why why would I wanna live longer? Like or why would I wanna be old? Whatever that's defined as. Because unfortunately, for a lot of people, advanced ages mean chronic disease, they mean not having a great, you know, end of life. And this this is where we focus on something that's called health span rather than lifespan. So your health span is actually the proportion