Revealing the Biological Age

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It blends psychological profiling with high-stakes investigations while also exploring the pressure of his personal life. So if you need your fill of darkness, it's right here on Prime Video. Subscription required. Except to rent or buy. Content may include ads. 18 plus terms and conditions apply . Arreyo Original Podcast. Vanessa Feltz, we took your blood, and the people at Glycan Age tested it, and we are now joined by Dr. Nicola Conlin to reveal your biological age. So your chronological age is 6 4 . Your biological age is Today's guest lived more of her life in public than most of us could ever imagine. Vanessa Feltz has spent over 35 years on our screens and airwaves , talking about love, loss, family, work, weight, and everything we're usually taught to keep quiet about. She's been a wife, a single mom, a workhorse, a national confessor, and for decades, her body has been part of the public conversation too . It's been a roller coaster, from being on diets at just age nine to years of yo-yo dieting, and then on to life-saving surgery. Vanessa's relationship with food, stress, and self-worth has been shaped by pressure, both private and painfully public. She's busier than ever. She says she feels younger than her age, but what will her blood reveal about what that pace has really cost her? Vanessa Feltz. Welcome to What's My Age Again? God, fascinating, desperate to find out. Can't wait. What a great episode. I would definitely, definitely tune in. Who wrote that one? God, stunning. Love it. How do you feel hearing you must have heard yourself be introduced many, many times in your career. I like it much better than thoses absolute cop-out who say she needs no introduction. I always think, yes I do. Go home and work on it. Come back when you've written it. What do you mean? I'd like a sonnet, at least a villainelle, a couple of limericks, something, not just needs no introduction. So I much prefer that. Put in the research. Yeah. Well you do it's true though, you need no introduction. Bloody hell, I do. I feel I do. I think we have a kinship. I think I I sorta was supposed to be a Jewish mother. Well you're living in the right place. Yeah. I live in a Jewish neighborhood. I auditioned for a while dating a Jewish man, but it didn't go my way. But now at least well 'cause he wanted more Jewish than I was able to offer. But now at least I can I can work on Friday nights. True. I wasn't allowed out on Friday night till I was thirty seven. And what did you do for that first Friday? Fantastic. I only had to wait thirty seven years for the chance. And did Friday evenings live up to the hype of what you thought they would be? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Um if your body could tell the truth, Vanessa, about your life so far, what do you think it would say you've done too much of or too little of? I think I've been too virtuous. Do you think? Yes. I think my body would say I've been boringly abstemious, taken sex much too seriously, taken everything much too seriously, tried in vain to appease my parents and live up to whatever impossible standards they sought to impose upon me, always failing but still trying, you know, boringly faithful to the tedious and scummy men in my life. You know, I think my body would say, God, you should have used me Well it's not too late. I know. I'm hoping. I'm hoping to rev it up at some point. What is your relationship status currently? Questing. Questing. Searching. You know, I seek him here, I seek him there, I yeah, you know, single, but reluctantly so I don't like it. I n I haven't managed to adjust to it well. Because uh y one would think that after your trials and tribulations and also looking at all the success you've had that maybe you would have concluded by now that these men were anchors in your life and aren't you better off with your friends and your dinners and your grandchildren and your girlfriends. I mean, yes, but there's always this bit, there's always the chunk of the day where they're not there. Where you can't just muster a girlfriend or summon up a grandchild or you know, and you've read your book and you've watched your film and you've been you've read your book, you've finished, you can't keep reading the whole time until your eyes fall out. You know, you've you've been out, you've seen the thing, you've walked up the red carpet, you've done whatever it is. And then I this is the bit I don't like. I'm just telling the truth here. I could glam it up a bit more, but I'm just saying the truth. Come home and it's an empty, dark, rather cold house, and there's no one there to say, was it all right? Or even someone who doesn't care if it's all right that you can then have an argument with because they didn't ask you whether it was all right or not. There's no one to refuse to have sex with, there's no one to have sex with , there's no one to make a sandwich for, there's no one to resent. There's just no one. And it's so boring. It's so quiet. It's so tedious. Your own thoughts roam and get bigger and bigger. And I already know my own thoughts. I don't want to know more about my own thoughts. I already know them. And I miss somebody to say to, gosh, look, there's a fox in the garden. I'm not expecting them to come back with some aperçus or some, you know, some absolutely withering aphorism . But just if you've seen the fox in the garden, I like someone there to say, Look, there's a fox in the garden too. I don't like if it's just myself and I'm all alone and I'm thinking there's a fox in the garden, I feel bereft of somebody to say that to. I don't like it. So I just like a companion. Not a companion. I like a a a sexy, vibrant, fabulous partner that I'm attracted to that is astounding and amazing and divine and all that smells nice and all that. But but failing all that, I like a someone there that you can just kind of blurt to occasionally. On my own, it feels it feels too quiet and too dull and not what I want. I love that that might be the title of your next book. Oh look, there's a fox in the garden. It really is, it sums up marriage, I think, in one phrase. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Yeah, and and also and and this people do say this often and they are right. You know, you can muster up pals and chums and family members and God knows what to do stuff with. But the bit in the middle where you're not actually doing anything, all you're doing is sorting out your tight straw, you can't get anyone for that bit. And I like someone for that bit. I like someone for all of it. I like I like someone there. Even with all the conflict and betrayal and the shame and everything that comes with these men, you still want one there to point to a fox with? Yes. And that's why I stayed so long in these doomed and hellish , sinister, ghastly relationships, because I just couldn't face the specter of being on my own. It was a mistake. I do regret it. I'm not proud of it. And I I don't recommend it to anyone and I wish I hadn't done it. But I did do it, and that was the reason why I I did it. just couldn't bear to come out the other end and just be alone. And now I have to just get on with it, don't I? Well, unless you do it to yourself again, Vanessa. Well I'm trying to do it, but I can't seem to r enl enlist anyone. I can't seem to I can't seem to court-martial anyone and just force them into Feltz Towers to take residence. It's so difficult. Well, you look sexy today. Well, that's very kind of you too. Did you take it? You look very Amish today. I do look very yeah, I'm shutting it down. I've pointed out too many foxes in too many gardens. You've had too many babies to want to look sexy right now. I'm buttoning it up. You look very pretty. You look very Anna Green Gables. Thank you. When she did get the dress with the puff sleeves. She did. Yeah, and you did too. You know Anna Green Gables. What a Canadian reference. I don't just know it. I mean I could probably quote reams of it by heart. I love Anne of Greengage. Your poinsettia Marilla and all that. Yes, and Matthew Cuthbert and Diana Barry and everybody. I played Josie Pye in the live musical. I bet you were gorgeous as Josie Pie. I bet you were very good. That's excellent casting. I've always been the ugly friend. I'm not the ugly friend. She's a Josie Pie is there's something about Josie Pie. She's got a bit of charisma. She's a rascal. Exactly. Did you take a car here? Are you taking a car home? Yes. I think you should take the underground because that's when you'll be noticed. And I do, I'm always on the tube. I love I've got the free card for being ancient. Oh yes. It's a magnificent card. I love it. It's one of the loveliest things in my life. Can I ask you, because you do look so vibrant, in the same way that you might get ID'd to buy alcohol, do you get ID'd to be using this ? You're a very sweet person to suggest that no one has ever, ever hinted that I might not have earned in terms of being on this planet far too long with this over 60 free tube card. No, I've never had. I wish they would, but they don't. And what is your chronological age? What about my metaphysical age, my metaphorical age, my poetic age. We want to hear my chronological age. The most boring one. What a horrible one. Um I was born on the 21st of February 1962. And so that means I will be my next birthday, which is only a couple a week or so away, 64. And I remember being in the car with my mother and my mother saying, Your grandpa, who's we call Papa Willy, Papa is gonna be sixty-four. Don't start singing that Beatles song, because it might upset and offend him, darling. And so I didn't, lest he be offended at the idea of being sixty-four, losing his hair and all that stuff. And now I'm about to be sixty four. I can't quite believe it actually. It's a different time though to be sixty-four and to be in show business and sixty-four, you've got more hair than ever. Like it's it's a different time for women. I think we're lucky to be born when we were. Do you think so? Yeah, because it isn't it isn't shrouded in the same like secrecy and shame that maybe our mothers and certainly our grandmothers dealt with it. Or did they though? Were they shrouded in secrecy and shame, or were they just simply getting old and no one thought any anything of it? They just were expected to and they just did. Whereas we are shrouding our ages in secrecy and shame by trying to conceal them. I think maybe the secrecy and shame is all ours and was never theirs. Do you think No my mum and my grandma hated getting old, hated it, really believed that their value was tied to youth and fertility and beauty and then they got into all sorts of trouble. Really? Yeah, they really didn't like it. Well my mother never got old. She died at the age of fifty seven. And that's it. So maybe you have reframed it to see it as a more of a privilege. I do think it's a privilege. Of course I do. I mean every day I've outlived her seems to me like a gift. And I'm not just saying it to be schmaltzi and like some kind of how I'm hoping for a contract with Hallmark cards. But I mean, I really do think this. Lots of people I once did this on the radio. I asked, did you expect to die on the same day at the same age as the parent that you lost prematurely? And I said, if I've really misjudged this and you just think I'm insane, you can certainly ring and say so. But people rang and said yes. You know, if their m if their mum had died at, you know, thirty-seven, they never thought they'd get past thirty-seven. If their dad had died at fifty-two, they never thought they'd get past fifty-two. I know that um um Woody Harrelson definitely felt that 'cause I interviewed him on the Big Breakfast, he said that. Eamon Holmes of all people thinks that 'cause his father died at I think sixty four or something like that. And um so every every day beyond fifty seven that I've managed to survive, I have considered a bit of a bonus. That's very young. Yeah. How did she die, don't let me ask you? Um she died of cancer. Oh no. Yeah. And I think you know, the c the um diagnosis was muddled by the menopause as it often is. It's medical misogyny. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Good for comedy, not. But anyway, true. It can be good for comedy sometimes. I have one bit where uh if you have endometriosis and you try to get diagnosed, you go into the doctor and they open up a massive textbook and they go, your vagina's haunted like they don't know. They haven't studied us. Who was it that was diagnosed with hostile vagina syndrome or something? Me. Was it you? Okay . Self-diagnosed So what kind of um men? I thought of vagina. I was just going to say warm, welcoming. Obviously tight. Okay. This is an advert. This is like a live dating show. I'm in the new Sylla Black. I I think that it's inspirational and troubling that you're still interested in a heteronormative relationship with a man after everything that you've been through. And I love how candid you are. I think you have such a beautiful connection with women in this country and your audience because you talk about the relationships that you've navigated and everything that had happened. Navigated is the word. Well, what happened with the last one? I really not navigated a damn thing. Oh the last one imploded hideously and uh I I mean I don't even know what to say about it, just ghastly. And is it kind of the s a similar pattern with men? Is they seem to betray you? Aaron Powell I think so. You mentioned before that whether you're pointing out the fox or you're just talking about the weather or whether you have resentment, it's still something to do. I think that often clever women seek out stimulation and you choose whether knowingly or unknowingly , these very stimulating men, because their behavior requires you to exercise vigilance and assessment all the time, whether you know it or not. And it's something to do, something to mourn over, something to I do see what you mean, but I haven't I I haven't deliberately done. Not deliberately sought out the most time consuming, worrying, anxiety inducing man and thought, oh great, you'll be a project. I haven't looked for projects at all. I have each time not realized that I was diving into a project. I've always thought that this was a, you know, charming, you know, I don't know, gifted, um, you know, desirable , delightful, compassionate individual who would be a delight at all times. But I I I don't know whether there is a thing about men, certain men anyway, targeting bright, highly active, dynamic women. Yeah. And then really making it their mission to destroy them and bring them down. You know, kind of you pursuing you with great odd And then saying, And who are you anyway? And you think you're a big deal and you think you're all that and you think you're something special and you think you're so clever and you're not at Cambridge now was a f a of f and I I know thought I'm not. I'm in High Barnet at the Aldi. Of course I'm not in Cambridge now. I didn't think I was at Cambridge now. What do you mean? And what they mean is you're not particularly clever, and even if you are, I don't care. It doesn't impress me. You're not impressive. What is the point of you? You are pointless, you are worthless, that whole thing. And you think, well, why did you even allow me to make you chicken soup the first time around? You know, it wasn't like I came for you. You came for me. You pursued me. You said you wanted me. I finally allowed myself to be landed and lassued, and now you're trying to say what is the point of me? I'm utterly worthless, I'm not at Cambridge now, I'm not on the radio now, I'm not television now, I'm nothing, nothing, nothing. And yet I'm it's perfectly fine for me to pick up the bills and pay for everything and toil like fuck, you know, to to to to maintain your luxurious style of living, but I'm really worthless. And and I I you know you just think, well what was that and what was that for exactly? Could have just let me go about my business and left me un unmolested and uninsulted. That would have been fine. What about that? Do you think it's maybe I I mean I'm not qualified to clinically diagnose anybody's behavior, but do you think it's a type of narcissistic misogyny where they want to punish you for being . I think so too. Yes, I do think that. I think you're a very special kind of honey to a very evil bee. And that's why you gotta take yourself out of the game. Well now I'm out of the game, but I'd more happily I'm not happily out of the game. I'm gonna petition to keep you out. I don't don't be. I was hoping you'd introduce me to someone to get me in. No, because I think you and I have the same type. I was thinking your grandfather or something. I was thinking there must be someone, some old relation, some mounty or someone in Canada I could just fly casually in for some maple syrup and just, you know, bond it like you did, just a n one night stand that turns into true love. Then I could have several more children, which I I finally got a nice one, but all of my older male relatives died doing what they love, alcoholism. Oh what a shame. Yeah. But if I Bobby, my lovely husband, he might have some relatives. Old one Old ones. Not old. Older. Older. Ask him. Okay. Most grateful. The key is you can't be interested initially because I think that's how we know these men are bad. Yes, remain aloof. Have you dated any nice men? And it just fizzled out in my whole life. Yeah . I wish I could say yes. None. I don't think so. Still not a lesbian. I know. But I just because I once had I once had a dream where I was just approaching the noon. Yes . And in my own dream, I screamed in panic, oh my God, no. I mean, you know, I think vaginas are delightful. I just don't want to touch one or of anyone else's or go anywhere near one. I think they're charming, but not to me. I'd really that's not my thing. And I don't think you can make it your thing, do you? You can't, no. This is how you know you can't just sensibly choose to be a lesbian. You cannot. No, unfortunately. Or else we would all be lesbians. Damn shame. Yeah. Well that is gonna get rid of half of our listeners . Why? Because it's the lesbian the lesbian listeners now of time. Couldn't love a lesbian more. I just don't want to make love to a lesbian, but I but I I wish I did. I'd love to. Well you've lived so much of your life very publicly and that's not just your relationships, your body, your work, your heartbreaks. When you think about your life as a whole. Because some of this sounds quite stressful, Vanessa. The nipples against that was good. That was the highlight of the entire thing. That was the best moment of my whole life. Do you feel the age on your passport ? I don't. I I always feel um exac I think I look and feel and sound and seem and am exactly as I was in nineteen seventy-six when I was fourteen. Yeah. And when I was fourteen in nineteen seventy-six, it was the long, hot, legendary summer of 76, which you may not have even read about in the history books. Oh, it was this extraordinary summer. Have you never heard about it? Oh , it was magnificent. It was this summer when it never rained. It stopped raining. It didn't rain. I mean, this may not be exactly accurate, but I'll explain how it felt at fourteen. It kind of stopped raining, let's say in middle February or something. And it didn't rain again till the end of October. And my grandma said it's the end of the world, this is Armageddon, this never happens in England. You had to peep lots of people had to go to a standpipe to get water. You were told to bath with a stranger or a friend because to save water. It was burning hot. Everyone's hormones were especially mine, I was fourteen, absolutely ramp ant. You couldn't go to bed because it was too hot. My father was in the pajama underwear business and nobody was wearing pajamas because it was too hot. And he said, We're gonna go broke, we're gonna starve to death. You've got to keep your pajamas on, even in the steamy, horrible kind of uh humid atmosphere. Um he went into the ice cream and t shirt business. Everyone did, because you had to, 'cause you had to make a living and it was burning hot. And English and British people started behaving in ways they'd never behaved at all. Too hot to do anything else. It was just burning hot. It was fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. So you could just snog a lot. You could kind of romp through the red rhododendron bushes at night because no one could go to sleep. Atmospheres change. Nothing waiting for Yeah. It was fantastic. Or pregnancy, of course. It was absolutely superb. And that's when I was fourteen. And I feel exactly the same now. I don't think I've changed I think the things I like then I like now, things I didn't I didn't I didn't that stuff. I feel fourteen. I know I don't look fourteen, obviously I get that. But I feel. And I think the general vibe of me is the same though. I think your silhouette looks fourteen for sure. Don't think that's true, but I think I I looked kind of similar to this. Yeah. Had long hair. Yeah. I had big lots of mascara. Probably false eyelashes if I could get them to stay on. I had big boobs. I had a push up bra. I had I had, you know, the urge to be just as I have the I I wanted attention just like I do now. When when I was a g when when my girls were little and we go to Marks and Spencer in uh Temple Fortune in North West London, there were two buttons, push one for um a ticket and one for attention, and the girls to say push the one for attention, you know, you love it. And that hasn't changed. I think I 'm still, you know, full of whatever it was I was sort of teeming with then. Maybe not the same number of hormones though, let in fairness. Different ones. No. Well, no now nothing at the moment. Don't think I've got a hormone anywhere to to be you know, if you ask me to report on my hormones, I don't think they've I think they've long departed this vessel. I think you have some. I don't know. I don't think I have any. I think the the make would the makeup of hormones changes, but I think we retain hormones. Well let's ask the doctor do I have a single hormone when the doctor comes? Okay, I'll ask Nicola. Have you has this been linear? You've always felt this joie de vie, this 14-year-old Vanessa, or has it ebbed and flowed? Have you been in periods where you felt very different and then returned to this. I think I've always felt like this. I've always wanted something and tried to get it and worked hard and felt full of stuff, like full of oomph and emotional stuff. When I when I did Big Brother the second time, I asked to have the psychiatrist come and see me because obviously the first time I'd imploded and written on the pa you know the table in chalk and wearing a leopard skin dressing gown and dark glasses and the whole nation thought I'd had a nervous break down in front of them and I obviously hadn't, but it looked as if I had. So when they asked me to do it again in twenty ten, I said, well the guy better come and examine me and see if I'm fit to do it because I can see him ploding on telly again. Anyway, he came, examined me, blah, blah, and he said, you know, you can do it, you are sane, you will be fine. He said, But of course, you know, your emotions are somewhat exaggerated. And I thought, no then not. What do you mean? What do you mean exaggerated? Those are my actual emotions. You can't tell someone else that their emotions are exaggerated, can you? It's a weird turn of phrase, isn't it? Yes. Like not you have big feelings, you're very emotions are exaggerated. And you want some bloody understated, you pusilanimous fool. That's it. Yeah. I mean I emote, it's true. And I d and I either fervently love it or desperately loathe it. I feel extremely engaged by it. I'm offended. I'm I'm you know I'm on edge. I'm I'm something. I'm never just like it was okay. And neither are my girls though. Neither are my girls. You know, all my grandchildren in fact. Do you think the Jewish experience is very stressful at the moment? Yes. More so than before. Much more. Yeah. Much more, yes, I do. Do you think it's heartbreaking? It is heartbreaking. I'm so sorry. Do you think that this climate would have an impact on your inflammation, on your stress levels, and then on your biological age? I haven't thought about that at all. And I would say I hope not, but I wouldn't be altogether surprised if it has some impact. It's very, very um disheartening, heartbreaking, lots of words with heart in it. You know, lots and lots of words like that. It really, really is. I mean I've grown up, I've lived in this country all my life. Um you know, and on my my mother's side, I'm I think sixth generation British. You know, I read it, I read English literature at Cambridge at Trinity College. My specialism was Chaucer, Jeffrey Chaucer. I mean, I'm good at Middle English, I'm good at Middle Scottish, even I studied a guy called Henrison who wrote in Middle Scottish. I feel, you know, in every every particular of my anatomy, my blood, my cells, my soul, British through and through because I am. And if I'm not, what am I? What else am I if I'm not British? I mean, I've lived all my life and it's all I love and all I know and all I am, as far as I can see. Um, and the idea that people might think me something else because I'm Jewish, or decide they despise me before they've even met me or try to stop me doing things or being things or going to places or, you know, judge me and despise me is is is obviously absolutely um unbearable, unbearably sad. So don't I think it's had any impact on my the age of my cells? I've got absolutely no idea, but has it had an impact on my emotions and my my equilibrium? Yes. It's British with exaggerated emotions. They should try it. It's the best kind of British you can be. Let it out. Well, I am sorry, it causes me stress and I'm not even Jewish. Um you've been on our ears and our screens for thirty-ivef years now to.. Long time It's even I think that's a long time. And that's an incredible work ethic. Where would you say that comes from? I think it comes from a feeling a bit like Dickens of not wanting to do want not wanting to end up in the poor house, not wanting to end up, you know, with no shoes, starving, wanting to, you know, be able to you know, to enjoy a level of sort of financial freedom, um and also being freelance and being freelance, you know, plays absolute havoc with the ego because people can throw you out, you're never on the staff, you're the first to go, you're the first to be dispensed with. You know, all that kind of a thing. And so, you know, you always think, God, if it's a job, I'll do the job. Whatever it is, I'll do it. Are they gonna pay me? Okay, I'll get the money and I'll and I'll do it and then I'll I'll get the next one and do it. Um and I spent twelve years doing early breakfast on radio two where I had to leave the house at three twenty in the morning. I was on air live at four AM, finished at uh six thirty, ran across two ro ads into Radio London to to present the Radio London breakfast show, finished at ten A. M. and often twice a week, ran down the back stairs, jumped on a motorbike and got whizzed off to do this morning. So I'd done three jobs by eleven o'clock in the morning. Um which was good fun actually. And it makes you feel as if you're an urgent person that people are desperate to see, that was waiting for you everywhere to turn up. You you know, it it makes you feel busy and needed and wanted and paid, which is a good feeling. There's a point where especially when when the girls were little. Have you ever slowed down? Well when the girls were little, I wasn't yet, you know, famous or infamous. So I was a freelance journalist just trying to make a living. So it wasn't slow, but it was less I mean, it wasn't wasn't I w I wasn't in any goldfish bowl, I wasn't remarked upon. I was just trying to scratch out a living, really. Um, married to a junior hospital doctor, so money was very scarce, so I needed to make make a liv ing. Um and then I got famous when they were I think about five and eight. Okay. Um and the fame was an overnight thing that wasn't necessarily at all predictable because it was only I only got a show that was two after noons a week. You know, and it could have gone unnoticed. There are loads of people on telly all the time and no one knows their name or which mascara they use or how much they weigh or, you know, who's just betrayed them, you know. But I became a sort of tablo id figure literally overnight and uh life change in a certain kind of a way. I kind of wanted to pretend it hadn't, but it kind of had in a way. You're very good for tabloids. Not that the tabloid culture is or was ever uh very healthy, but in a country where a lot of people keep things to themselves, whether their emotions or their personal lives or anything else, I love, love, love how much you share. And it's what makes people feel really connected to you, but it's also really headline grabbing to the thing. Well the thing is I kind of had to do it because I was meant to be the British Oprah. That was meant to be my my raison depth, or that was who I was supposed to be. So if I was going to have people on my show talking about the fact that they you know, that they copped off with the best man at their own wedding or that, you know, they preferred an Italian stallion to a British bulldog or whatever it was , I I couldn't then be sort of, you know, cagey about my own life, I didn't. I didn't think that was fair. No. You know. And also when I got famous, I was just married to a Jewish doctor that my grandma chose. And I had two little girls. I had nothing at all to say. I wasn't doing anything I wasn't meant to be doing. Everything was just ticking along and I hoped hoped it would do that forever. So there was nothing I felt that I couldn't talk about or didn't want to talk about. There and everything sort of went haywire. It was kinda too late to claw back. Has there ever been a time during your career when your body wasn't scrutinized? No . This episode of What's My Age Again is sponsored by Med pressEx , 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. There's no need for face-to-face appointments. They'll post your approved treatment to your door each month. You don't have to worry about getting locked into a contract or subscription either. You can cancel anytime. Your relationship with your body can change over the years, but MedExpress is there to offer you discrete and convenient professional guidance supporting your weight management journey. Visit medexpress.co.uk to check your eligibility and get forty pounds off with code WMAA . Because you bought your robot vacuum on your Barclay card, you got 0% interest for up to 24 months, which makes watching it hypnotically sweeping up your crumbs, even more satisfying. Oh, Mr. Biff, what you buy is your business. Helping you pay less interest is ours. Barclay Card, backing your future. Subject to financial status, new customers only. Representative example ,24.9 cent APR representative variable, 24.9% purchase rate per annum based on £1,200 credit limit TC and Cs apply. Your next holiday starts here with Virgin Atlantic Holidays. This is your sign to duck into a basement jazz bar in New York . Or rainforest trek to hidden waterfalls in the Caribbean . Or high-fi a superhero before breakfast in Florida. Lock in your holiday with a £75 per person deposit. Book in store over the phone or online at Virgin Atlantic Holidays. Select routes. For Ts and C's, visit VirginAtlantic.com. At all Protected. Death avers, schoolrunners , gym girlies. Breakfast is over. The long road to lunch begins. Your patience is thin, your stomach empty. Get yourself a muller light boost bowl. Greek style yogurt with a delicious layer of real fruit compote, added vitamins, and 10 grams of protein, all topped with a bit of granola. Because 11am , well, that's crunch time. Mmm, Stanium, that sorted me out. Mullah like those poles. A Rayo original podcast . Work. It's changing, and so's how we feel about it. The podcast that'll guide you through getting ahead, growing your interests, and still having a little life outside of it is reworking. I'm Tim Campbell. And joining me this week, Alistair Campbell. This is the first generation that can't take for granted the idea they might be better off than their parents. Listen to Reworking now on the Rail app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. I got famous in 1990, really famous in 94. And, you know, that that those were the years when, you know, the 90s were the years of phone hacking. They were the years of people going through your bins. They were the years of male, middle class, older journalists and editors calling Jade Goody, who'd come from a desperately deprived background where she'd been a carer from the age of about three, you know, a pig in print, as if that was okay. So I come from the era where everything was considered fair game. People would say the most revolting personal things about particularly women or almost only women really, and you were expected to I don't know, sink or swim, take it on the chin. I don't know what you were meant to do. And it was, it was, it was as if I was just grossly impertinent to believe that I could be on television and not be a size eight Barbie. And if I wasn't a size eight Barbie, what the hell was I doing? And whatever wrath I incurred, whatever insults were lobbed at me, I'd richly deserved. Because look at that big fat thing waddling onto television. What the hell does she think is going to happen? That was basically the the the the thrust of it. And was there a particular headline or journalist or a paparazzi experience that stands out as well? It was pretty much all over the show, all over the shop, and it was in all sorts of different outlets, tabloid papers, magazines. You know, there'd there'd be a picture of my bum that they had snapped while I was on a beach on holiday. Usually I hadn't known they'd snapped it, and I'd get back and it would be on the front of a magaz ine and it would say, you know, oh yuck, Vanessa, oh my God. Once I saw it, bought up every copy I could see in our local news agent 'cause I thought it would upset and offend my girls. And I turn and it turned out they'd done the same at another local agent, news agent, thinking that they'd be able to protect me from it. You know, and it was just having the temerity of having an arse. Yeah. And and I wasn't wearing a thong or, you know, thrusting this ass in the faces of unwilling strangers. I was jared on the beach with my kids, you know, with a large arse, and that was basically it. And that was just a crime worthy of real punishment and and you know, absolute appropriate. But it was also quite funny at various times when it's you know Vanessa's friends think she's drinking custard again and things like that. And actually technically you can't really drink custard, it's too thick. I mean I did try once I read that. But I I was accosted at outside radio two at, you know, three twenty in the morning by uh a sun journalist with a big thing of custard. Will you pose with the custard, Vanessa? Now your friends think you're and imagine a friend of mine telling anyone they think I'm drinking custard. Vanessa's on the custard again. What friend was there? I was on the custard again. So sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was farcical, but always it was hurtful because you know what woman wants to be branded, you know, utterly revolting, you know, vilely, overweight, obese, grossly unattractive. It's not nice, is it? You can't you can't you know lie awake in those early hours and feel good about it. And have you been able to reflect on like what do you think that it is about show business in particular, but even if you're not in the public eye, that threatens people so much about a woman living authentically and taking up space. Like is there a reason they want us to be young and small? I think I think it's the idea of sort of diminishing women. I'm I've I've given I've I've interviewed several successful men over the years who, while I'm conducting the interview, tell me to be quiet . And it's my own program . And I'm I'm I'm my job is to question them. And you know, if if you'll give me a chance to speak, young lady. It's my programme and I I'm gonna ha I don't know how long you're gonna talk for. So at some point I am going to have to interrupt you with another question, or because it's time for the news, or because the show's finished. I'm not gonna just be able to sit there like a silent handmaiden as you talk and talk and talk. You know, men in positions of power who want to shut up a woman, even if the woman's actual job is to question them and ask them things. And I would never be discourteous, never try and stop them talking. On trlyy and ask them a question to find out whatever it is we wanted to know about them. You know, not talk over them, not try and heckle them, just sit there doing my job and be told to shut up while doing my job. Um and I think it's kind of an extension of that, isn't it? Yeah. Um I think that sometimes as men grow like literally fatter in traditional marriages, they grow and they grow and they get loud and they get leary. And I have seen so many women shrink themselves to accommodate that space, whether that be metaphysically or literally , um, which is meant to be as young and as small and as quiet and as invisible. Yes, and and compliant and compli ant and submissive and in every way kind of recessive, kind of receding into yourself to the point where you don't impede them, impinge on them, you're no obstacle, you'll know anything. You're and you can be I mean only if you're you know extremely small, thin, young and beautiful can you be an adornment. And to many men that is the only purpose of you. It's either to shag you or to wish to shag you. If they don't want to shag you and they can't shag you and they wouldn't want to anyway, then what are you for? Just what are you for? And the answer is you're useless. You're absolutely pointless, and that's why they really don't want to hear from you. They don't want to know what you're saying, even if what you're saying is asking them a question about themselves. They still want to shut you up. I mean, the whole thing's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And you've shared so much about your relationship with your body and the way that you look and being in the public eye and taking all of that horrible abuse. Um I know that you've spoken about surgeries before. So what exactly Well so I I I obviously I was overweight and obviously it was just fair game to abuse me and everything else about it. And obviously it was no fun being reviled or criticized or anything else. However, for years, I just thought, well this is this is me and this is who I am. Then I um my husband left and I was utterly brokenhearted and I was much too brokenhearted to eat and I knew that using food as a crutch really just would not work because because I was so so destroyed and so distraught. I just wasn't for the first time in my life hungry. And I I I had first tried losing weight to keep him. Um and obviously that failed enormously. That was a total catastrophic failure. But I did think, well, I'm losing weight , I'll just carry on losing weight. So I did. And I got slimmer and slimmer and slimmer. Then I had this absolutely gorgeous golden moment. And I'm actually quite angling for one of those now. I'm hoping I might get this quite soon, where the press called me gaunt . And the joy of being called gaunt when you've been called, you know, grossly, grossly fat. I can't even explain how wonderful it was to be gaunt. You know, I was gaunt. Um and I'd lost lots of weight and and I and and I looked I looked much, much, much slimmer and smaller, and there was less of me and I might have looked younger and some people might have thought I looked better looking, but I was totally broken hearted. So it's this absolutely bizarre situation where you are so sad you cannot eat and people are congratulating you the whole time. But you look great. You're so slim. It's like, yeah, but I can't swallow. I can't sleep. I can't sit for long in a bath. I am so, so heartbroken. I am heartbroken. But you look great. But you look fantastic. But I'm my heart is broken. I am destro but you look fabulous. You're so god, you look great. You're so what size trousers are you wearing? All this kind of a thing. So that happened. And then I was, you know, roundly congratulated at be ing so much less of a person than I'd been when I was bigger. This was just great. I was completely diminished, fabulous, terrific. And then a couple of years later, I met someone and cheered up no end. And of course, as I cheered up, my my appetite returned. Yeah. I wasn't heartbroken anymore. So now I was just having a piece of cake and a piece of pie. I've never been a disgustingly out of control binge eater that has to be really ashamed and thinks, oh my god, I just had a whole chicken and a whole side of beef. That's that's not me. I would just have a couple coup well, you know, a couple too many custard creams and a drinking the custard, of course. An extra kind of dollop of chocolate mousse. Right. And and, you know. So I definitely of course ate too much, but not not in a kind of unbridledly appalling way, but I just kept doing it. So obviously I put weight. So I put the weight back on and then the press, the kind of reaction was, you know, you fooled us. No, you haven't, you know, you said you'd lost weight, but look, you're putting it on again. Look, you know, you're meant to be thinner, you're not thinner, look, you're now fatter. God, you're getting fatter, fatter, fatter. So then I was in this whole kind of thing of um yo-yo diarting. Yeah. So I would really take the bull by the horns, I would start exercising ferociously, I would eat almost nothing. Eventually I would lose the weight and this would be marvelous, then I'd be celebrated. Everyone would say it was fantastic, and then people would want to do a a a photo uh shoot with me in bikini. It was all tremendous. Were you ever offered any of these commercial deals you can do. I did one. I did a fitness video. If I can, you can. We went to number one. I then copped off with my trainer. That was all good. Bit of a cliche, but good. Fun at the time. And um and so I would lose the weight and this would be great, a great sort of tremendous acclaim and tremendous applause and well done. And then one day it would happen every single time I would sort of be so relaxed because I was now so slim, that I would just have a good big piece of strudel or something. And then as if by some hideous curse, quicker and quicker every time it happened, the weight would come back on again. You know, you always see these lovely articles about Slimmer of the Year and they've lost nine stone and then two years later, unfortunately, there they are, and they've not only as big as they were before, but they've gained even more weight, and that would be me. And the difference for me was it was always in the public eye. Yeah. So I'd get bigger, bigger, smaller, smaller, bigger and smaller, smaller and bigger. Really, really boring. Really, really hard work to lose the weight, really hard. And each time harder, and each time the weight came back on faster, faster to such alarming rate of knots that it was like I'd lost two stone, three stone, four stone, and then suddenly, you know, two and a half weeks later it was all back again and then some and it was all in the It was just horrible. It was just all very, very, you know, soul destroying continu um of hell. It sounds very stressful. Todd was really fueled by this cycle of adoration and shame and bullying by the media. So it didn't come from a healthy place. And d did you have any health problems during I did lose an enormous amount of weight. I think it was in two thousand and eight. Yeah. Just through diet and exercise, relentless diet, relentless exercise, relentless privation, relentless, you know, all of that. And then I did have to have my gallbladder out. No. And funnily enough, you've there are lots of pieces in the paper now about the fat jabs saying some people are having to have their gallbladders out, presumably because losing weight at at speed isn't good for gallbladders. I don't I'm a not doctor, I don't know, but I did have to have that once, um, in two thousand and eight. But anyway, finally, I just happened to bump into an old chum who was a a bloke who I'd known had always been chubby, um, and he was slim. And I said, What happened? And he said he'd had a gastric band. Right. And I asked my uncle, who's a doctor, you know, should I have this gastric band? Thinking he'd say, absolutely not. Of course not. You don't have surgery for reasons of vanity. But he didn't he said for reasons of health, absolutely yes. He said, you know, you you really have tried incredibly hard. And I really had tried hard. And I really, really had tried hard to stay slim and I just couldn't seem to manage it. You wouldn't after that long, because I think if if my knowledge of like metabolism is correct from everything I've read, is that once you do that to your body, your body is like a little child inside of you that is like, oh, she's feeding me again and it holds on to everything. So you wouldn't be eating much, but whatever you would eat, then yeah. And it takes all joy out of eating, it takes all kind of pleasure. You can't eat a single thing without what people call these days food noise. This internal more. I Oh,'m eating an apple. Here I am eating an apple. Should I have eaten it? Shouldn't have eaten it. Oh my God. Okay, well I won't have any lunch. I won't have lunch. Oh my god, I'm having lunch. I'm eating an egg sandwich. Oh god, I shouldn't have eaten the spread. I should have taken the egg out. I shouldn't have taken the mayonnaise.. Oh Christ Oh God, I said I wasn't gonna have a now and this is just to yourself. Oh, it's exhausting and boring, really, really, really boring. So this guy had had a gastric band. I asked my uncle, should I? I spoke to my GP and they said yes, do, and I did. And it was terribly disappointing. It I don't know if ever anyone's told you what it's like when you have one. I've heard about uh dumping where you're dumping's the least of the problems. Dumping's the least of the problems. That's really not a big deal. What is that? That's when something's if you eat sugar you feel you get you know, you feel unwell and lightheaded and like you should go and lie down, but that's not the key thing. Well the way it works is it's essentially an actual band. It's a kind of rubber um I don't know if it's rubber or plastic ring that that kind of constricts your stomach and makes it smaller so you can't eat big things, you can't eat hard things, you can't eat healthy things. What? And w if you try, they get stuck, sort of in the band, and you have to go and bring them up. Oh no. And it's because it it's really very weird, but although it's just a piece of plastic, so you would think it wouldn't have a personality, it would be completely predictable and rel iable. It isn't. So some days you can swallow, I don't know, let's say, let's say, a bit of chicken salad. You can, it's fine. You eat it, it does go down. You have to eat it slowly and carefully, but it goes out. And the next day, the same chicken salad won't go down, and you're gonna have to go and spew it up. And the whole thing is very, very difficult. And I say the the chief failure with it is eventually, you get so bored trying to eat a piece of chicken or an apple because you just can't get it to go down. It's incredibly difficult. And you are, of course, the fat person you always were inside. And so you start to eat the things you can eat, which is, you know, mashed potato, lasagna, you know, chocolate mousse, all the things you're not supposed to eat, but you've got no chance in hell of eating the other stuff. It just won't go down. So you eat the out the wrong stuff. And then you think then then you quite rightly would say to me, Vanessa, for God's sake, you paid privately to have this gastric band inserted. What the hell are you doing eating chocolate mousse, you idiot? And the answer is you're right. Yeah, I know. But you can't eat any of the other stuff. You just can't eat it. So what are you going to do? I mean if you're someone who always liked chocolate anyway, you'll just eat the chocolate because at least you can swallow. So it doesn't take the weight off you in the way that you hope it would. If you were a drinker of alcohol, you probably wouldn't lose any weight at all because you can drink whatever you want. Yeah. It's just a physical barrier that stops you eating as much as you ate before. But as I say, if you can find the things that slide down, you will probably end up eating far too much of those and nothing of the other stuff. Also the constant rushing away to rushing along to the lavatory to puke isn't attractive. Um so it's not very good. And in the end, mine got embedded in my liver. And so I had to have an operation to take it out. This is in 2019. I was on this morning on the telly doing what you say I do, which is disclosing all there is to know about me and all of that. So much more than that. Talking about that and saying a gastric band and it stuck in my liver and blah blah blah. And they had booked a surgeon called Mr. Shaw Summers on to talk about this so that I wasn't just a a view, there was an actual doctor to describe what was going on. Um and he said to me on the way out, you know, Vanessa, you've got to have it taken out, obviously, because it's, you know, obviously causing you terrible problems. He said, but when you do, really, you should have a gastric bypass at the same time because otherwise, you know, you'll just put all the weight back on again, he said, because eating is an addiction and you'll, you know, you're absolutely stuck in it and it's an illness and you can't, you know, you've tried to fight it and you can't, you'll get bigger and bigger and older and older, and then you'll come and see me and say, can you give me a gastric bypass? It would be much better if you did it at the same time. Okay. So I took advice. Obviously, I didn't just go okay. I took lots of advice. Everybody said that operation had got much um simpler and much easier than it used to be and much less full of risk and whatever. And so that's what I had in twenty nineteen. And it has worked really well. However, I did not know that the fat jab was about to be invented. And had I known, I could have saved all the money , not had a big operation, and I could have had those instead. So I'm a bit regretful about that. Obviously, it's a bit of a shame for me. The timing was off. You've had the gallbladder out already, so that wouldn't be an issue. What do you think about the jabs? I'll say this is the only podcast I've ever done where I've mentioned my gallbladder. Well it's relevant. It's very intimate part of my anatomy I no longer have. I didn't normally discuss it in public, but anyways. Lack of a gallbladder, it's affecting my whole personality You discussed the vagina first. Yes. Two. And the gallbladder second. Um what's your view on the the jabs? Because they're quite controversial. Fabulous. Yeah. Absolutely tremendous. I mean, I know so many people who are on them and just thank God for them. They love them. Yeah. And it absolves them of all that horrible internal dialogue about what you should have eaten and you haven't eaten and whether you're going to eat it. And you know, the minstrels calling to you from the glove compartment of the car at three o'clock in the morning, come and eat me, eat me, Vanessa, eat me, eat me that that thing. Apparently you don't hear that. You don't hear the food noise. You lose a lot of weight. It's I mean, I've had lots of doctors on my shows talking about is it good for you? Is that is it not good for you? And they s they keep saying um that the benefits of being slim massively outweigh whatever any of the risks might be. Yeah. Um so all I know is everyone I know who's on them, A looks very slim and B very happy. That's all I know about it. I'm not an expert, but that's what I know. No, I feel the same. I know a few people on them, and they there's so much gatekeeping still, I think, about slimness. And the only people who seem to be very anti-jab are people who have nothing else interesting about them, but their thing was smugness because they could be slim. Yeah. And it's like, well, maybe you had internal osempic all the time. You always metabolized sugar differently. You didn't have the same food noise as these people. And now it's just a level playing field. Yeah. And they just they wanted to be the only skinny ones. Do you feel like as you get older you feel more at peace with this tab loid roller coaster and this scrutiny of your body? Because it really does. When you when you sum it all up like that, it sounds so unjust and really stressful. Very nice of you. I uh I think I, as soon as I had the gastric bypass, I could, and even when I had a gastric band, I could just say gastric band. I didn't enter into a whole conversation about how am I dieting and how am I keeping the weight off and have I gained or have I lost or what's going on I could just kind of disengage from the whole thing and just not be the poster girl for anything. Either dieting successfully or unsuccessfully. I just didn't have to be that person anymore. I could just go, as I can go right now, gastric bypass 2019, highly documented, well documented, absolutely talked about by me every single second. I was talking about it before I had it. I was talking about it in the operating Vietta before I had it. You know, so nobody could accuse me of being fern Britain and pretending I hadn't had it, because I didn't be that. I didn't want to be the person that pretends they don't. No. So I want to be the person who says they do. So I've said I do and I have, and that that is, and I don't really have to discuss it anymore, because that's the end of that story, isn't it? I hope. Well, sorry for discussing it now. But is relative to the podcast. Not because of the physical side of it. I'm more interested, I think, in the stress because having done a few series, stress seems to impact biological age a lot. And it sounds like you're frightening me now. I think I'm gonna come out at 187 or something. Well, I'm seventy-seven. I didn't really experience a a stress, I don't think. I mean I didn't think ooh my weight is stressful. Not the weight I didn't feel or or or people's attitude or c I didn't I don't think I felt stress was the thing. I th I think I felt uh you know, ashamed and unhappy, humiliated, that kind of thing, and also bored. Yeah. Um but not necessarily stressed, but maybe I just wasn't using the word stress and it really was stress. I don't know. I mean shame and humiliation, all these things I think the body does recognize as being unpleasant at the very least, stressful. Maybe. Yeah. But you don't rest, even when you're happy doing things and working. Is rest something you allow yourself? I look, I think because my mum died at 57 , I don't need a song telling me that I haven't got all the time in the world. I know I haven't. And therefore, I feel in a hurry. I feel like life is a colossal hurry. I've got to hurry out and do stuff and hurry up about it and just keep doing it because the time will come when I can't, when I'm not there or when I'm ill or some horrible thing. So I don't feel that this is the time to rest. I feel you're a long time dead. And while you're alive you should do shit. Yeah. You know. And if you have the energy for it and you love it and it brings you joy. Yeah, exactly. Um one thing that came up in your questionnaire was ultra processed foods. Oh yeah. That's also not good for biological age. No. Um so what does that include? Well all I know is when when the story broke about was it horse meat in their lasagna or their whatever it was their ready meals of you know shepherd's pie or something. I just happened to notice that at the BBC where I worked at the time, nobody seemed to give a damn about it because they don't eat those foods. They were like, well, I've never eaten a you know ready me al of you know uh a ready meal, you know, shepherd's pie or something. I've eaten hundreds of them. Yeah. And I just thought, gosh, I'm on a completely different plane as t as far as food's concerned. I mean I it's not like I don't like food. I do like it. Yeah. But I I haven't been a sort of foodie and I haven't been a health food freak and an organic person. And you know, when I was married to a junior hospital doctor, we really didn't money for that sort of thing. I was just trying to feed the kids. Um and I admit to having given them them the uh the um you know McDonald's ninety-ninep happy meal in those days a long time ago because my elder daughter was about please God to be forty, so it's a long time ago, but you know, because it was it was inexpensive. I knew she'd eat it, I knew she'd enjoy it. I like the idea of the happy meal making her happy. I just like the whole thing. I I didn't think I'm middle class and educated, this is below me, beneath me, I shouldn't be doing this. I feel full of guilt at doing this. I'm gonna go and milk a cow and give her some raw unprocessed milk. And I just didn't even think about it. Um I don't know why not, but I just didn't I haven't been one of those middle class educated people that's constantly peeling an avocado. I just haven't. You're busy. Probably should have been, but I haven't. So do you know, do I eat ultra processed foods asked your form? And the answer was yes. Not not exclusively. And obviously these days with more awareness because everyone makes everyone makes such a fucking fuss about it. Don't they? What do you think about the culture of um especially on social media, there are women who've made this traditional return to like churning their own butter and making sourdough and really demonstrating how organic they can be for their children. What do you think that's about? anything more tedious than any of that stuff. And you know if they want to lob me the occasional sourdough loaf, I'm sure I'd thoroughly enjoy eating. I'm certainly not gonna make one or bake one. I've never ever baked a pie in my life. I've never baked in fact I think in my entire life. I've never I mean I normally just go through my kitchen and give it a pat . And my children do say that when they hear a microwave ping they think ah just like mummy used to make. I thought I was meant to be an intellectual. I wasn't meant to be cooking, was I? No. I didn't I didn't feel as if I was. Maybe I was obviously wrong, but I didn't I've made many mistakes. This is just another of my many mistakes. I don't think so because do you know what? If you are a highly functioning, super successful, famous single dad, would anyone be asking you about like, well, how often are you cooking from scratch? They might. And then, you know, all these very functioning, successful super dads might well say, you know, before work, I prime my sourdough, whatever you do, what they have some germ or virus . What do they have to feed or whatever it is? I don't know and I've never I wouldn't recognise one of those if it bit me in the ass, honestly. I've never seen one. I don't know what they are. But I mean there are lots of people who are highly effective and dynamic and do cook from scratch and do, you know, grow their own marrows and do care a lot about this stuff. And I obviously got this gaping chasm where I ought to care about this stuff and I'm probably just eating a curly whirly and sacrificing yet another tooth and, you know, piling into some horse meat that's been, you know, smuggled into some lasagna and not really caring less about it. I think that's me. I don't know. I d I'm I I don't think anyone's ever asked me this before and I'm ashamed and humiliated as usual. But that is the truth. I'm telling the truth. Unvarnished. Where's my varnish? Where's my facade? I like the lack of . Where's the bit where I start lying to you? I'm trying to drum up that bit, but I can't seem to do it. It's your look. It's your sweet disarming Amish. It's Amish outfit. Yeah. Yeah. You're like a milkmaid. Only organic. No, I had a chicken tickamas Did you? Delicious. Eat what you want. I've got no I haven't had any lunch or anything too. And you may what? Well I've just got my show's uh two till three. Yeah. My makeup at half past twelve. They're just isn't time to really have lunch and then I came straight here and nobody offered me a I haven't even been offered a banana by your team by your team of henchmen and butlers and livery flunkies. No, what have you got? What have you got? I haven't got I'm starving. Actually starving I. might be losing weight as I sit here. Do I look thinner? Well what wrapped up. Do I look gaunt? Is there a sandwich to take away? What food is there in this place? Is there any food here? Is there anything processed, unprocessed? No. What's that? Is that a piece of old cake on a plate there? Oh, you you do get a cake in a minute. Do I get cake? Is it a place of piece of new cake? Yes. Oh, fantastic. You didn't say there was gonna be food. Well, it's a new formatting point where we will reveal your biological age on an actual cake. And then do I get to eat the game starve for breakfast at four PM. Yeah. Lovely, thank you. Well my grandma Sybil took my uncle Melvin to the pediatrician and said, Doctor, I just don't know what to do. He'll only drink Pepsi Cola and eat G I think it was, you know, Cab Cabries Dairy Milk. And he was six foot four. Whoa. And the doctor said, you know, Mrs. Orenstein, I think he's gonna be all right. You know, don't don't worry too much about it. And he is all right, still alive. He's a solicitor, he's a you know, venerable man of great knowledge and happily married, and also he's got lovely children and grandchildren. He's great. And all he had drank was Pepsi. And does he have any heart single friends? Tall he's a bit, he's a he's my uncle, you see, so he's about 16 years older than me. A bit bad. But when you get my age, you don't really want an older man , that's just too old. No, that's all I want is an older man. You know, you don't. Oh old. Think carefully about it. You don't. You don't. But what if you were super wealthy and old? You can point out a fox to a man in a wheelchair. Oh stop it. Yeah. Stop it. Because then they won't be around that long. My floor my inner Florence Nightingale get ready to unleash. Okay. I don't think so. What age are are you looking for? Same similar age, couple of years older. Yeah. Couple of years younger. Yeah. But not much younger and not much older, I think would be good. Younger's good, I think, for women. I think the younger men I have done that. Well yes. Yes. And then you've never felt so old as when you're with a younger man. Okay. It's the most aging thing on earth. It really is . You're reminded of your age every second of every day. I had to I had to draw a veil over the entire menopause. Can you imagine? All I wanted to do was go and stick my nipples in the freezer and I just had to pretend I wasn't room temperature and I was not I was either on fire or flame, absolutely arctic, shivering, and I just had to smile through in a sexual negligé of some kind the whole time. Oh, yeah. Because it was ten years younger and, I just thought it would be such a turn-off if I even acknowledged I never uttered the M-word. I never ever referred to it. If I had my old Jewish husband, I could have been moaning every minute. I'm hot, I'm cold. Open the window, close the window. But I never said a word, not one word , because I just wanted to be alluring at all times and pretend to have hormones I don't have. It's back to the summer seventy six. Yeah. Nightmare. Was the your husband have you returned to Jewish since? I've tried. Oh. Quite difficult. I think because Jewish men are so highly prized. Because A, there aren't very many Jews in this country at all. Yeah, and they stay out. thousand people in total in the whole country, in a country of sixty-five million plus people. So very, very few. So therefore very, very few of the right kind of age and provenance. And they have been taught by their mothers quite rightly and accurately that they are a precious cargo, that they are, of inestimable value that any woman would be so fortunate to cut their toenails and you know give them a blowjob that they are really worth, you know, just Pashas and Sultans, but Jewish. And so to date them is difficult because they they they they don't feel they need to provide anything at all but their presence. That's true. Just here I am, the end. I don't say anything funny, I don't say anything sexy, I don't flirt, I don't I just here this is me, okay? Here I are, here I am. Old, you know, fraying at the edges, crumbling like an old Ritz cracker, but here I am, it's me, okay? And then you're meant to be grateful. So I have found it quite difficult, gotta say. Have tried though. Um, you do a podcast with your daughter, which we love called Help My Child Is Anxious. Thank you. And you have said that family is a hugely important part of your life. Yeah, now I'm gonna start smiling. When I get the cake, I'm really gonna cheer up, but talking about my grand, am I allowed to talk about my grandchildren now? Is that where we're going with this? Of course, you may. I've got these marvellous grandchildren. Where's my bag? So this is this is the only bag I ever use. They get they get updated every few months. Oh but look at this bag. This is my grandbabies. That's great. I did think that you were getting the bag so that we could see a phone with photos on it. But the photos are right on the bag. What are these Jewish children doing in Christmas outfits? it's W wellell we have Christmas with British Aren't they lovely though? Yeah. So the baby is Cecily, she's three, then there's AJ who's six, Nerly, who's ten, and Ziki who's twelve, so it's Bermitz for next year. We're counting down to the Bermitsfire, so it's all count it's all going on they lovely. Do you know what's wild? I met Cecily and I didn't know at first that she was your granddaughter. Yeah. But she looks like you. Do you think so? Yes. And then I think it was her other grandmother or someone with her said . Oh I think you know her other grandmother. And I looked at her and I said, Is it Vanessa Feltz? And I went, Yeah. Yes. So that must keep you feeling young, looking like a three year old. I don't think I look like a three year old. I'm sure she looks me, but she She does look like you. Well Google thinks she looks like me. Because Google put a picture of m me and put Cecily and it's it was me when I was her age. Yeah. No, she looks like you're not. I mean she holds forth. She has certainly holds. She's not she takes the no, she really does. She's hilarious and she has takes the rats. And how lovely to be near to them and to get to see them so often and to be working with your daughter. Yeah, which I didn't expect. She's a primary school teacher. How are we going to end up working together? That was never going to happen. I've loved you for a long time. I've known a lot about you. Hearing it all now, it sounds like you have many things about your life and your family and your joy and how cultured and clever you are that will keep you young. But there's heartbreak, there is stress, there's surgeries. Processed foods. I don't know. I never know what the result is going to be, but we are going to reveal your biological age with the help of our resident scientist, Dr. Nicola Conlan, to interpret the results. Are you ready? Yes. Another year older and wiser, Rebecca. What a smart choice to travel a bunch of West Coast first class. A glass of fizz brought to my seat? Yes, please. Ooh, and a cheese board. Well, 'tis a special occasion . And what have you learned in all your years? You should have done this a long time ago. Cheers to that. You deserve a Fenty West Coast first class. Enjoy delicious freshly prepared food and drink and service to your seat. Some journeys belong in first class. Book direct with the Banti West Coast. Exclusions and limitations apply. I'm Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, and as a vet , I know you want the best care for your animal companion. Pet insurance can help, but you need to choose wisely as not all policies are the same. Pet plan aim to pay claims quickly and without a fuss, and that's one reason why so many vets work with them. Get your pet the best veterinary care. Save 10% on new policies when you ensure at petplan.co.uk. T's and Cs apply FitzArmeda is an appointed representative of Petplan Limited. 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. Vanessa Feltz, we took your blood, and the people at Glycan Age tested it, and we are now joined by Dr. Nicola Conlin to reveal your biological age. So your chronological age is 64. Your biological age is Are you ready? Seventeen. Oh no ! I suspected I might be fourteen. I'm I'm God, I'm I'm devastated and shocked. Oh dear, this is so bad. Nicola, what hate It's definitely not bad. What a terrible number. I hate it. Can't I st throw my body in front of it to cause a distraction so we don't have to look at it anymore. I could put the clash back if you could. That's killing me, honestly. God, I'm gonna withhold permission for this to be broadcast. That'd affect my entire career. Why am I still waiting to star in a Hollywood ali as movie? Terrible. It's not all bad. First of all, let's recall my biological age is 77 . And with the help of Dr. Nicola Conlin and some advice, it is reversible. Good. So we could have taken your blood at a particularly stressful time. Nicola expla how did this happen? Yeah. Such a vivacious woman. So the first thing to say is that your biological age, unless your chronological age, is absolutely reversible and it can reverse very quickly and just as it can reverse very quickly, things can make it go up just as well, like a stressful period of life. You know, even having a couple of months where sleep's not been great, sleep's something I'd definitely like to ask you about after going through many, many years of you know hosting the show early in the morning. Um but I think the key thing here is that it is absolutely reversible. So it's definitely nothing to panic about. Um but we do see some little clues in our results about what might be driving it. And the one thing that did stand out with your results was what we would call the manager's profile. So we call this somebody that is on the go, 24-7 . They have a really hectic lifestyle, maybe not sleeping as good as they should. And this sounds quite maybe like your life. I know Catherine was saying about rest . Do you ever rest ? Um which she said you don't. No, is this the time she said I've been at every single night bar one for three years? Okay. Whoa. So maybe you know resting not necessarily I'm not exaggerating, that is the truth. Like for dinner for dinner, out to a show, out to a play, out with friends, out to something or other. Because I'm not happy, I'm not I don't like staying at home on my own. I don't like an empty house. I just don't like the feeling. So I have slept out and literally come hell or high water in snow, in rain. There's but only been one time and I only stayed in 'cause the arrangement fell through. And that was about two years ago, I think. Out every single night, and I'm not exaggerating, it is the truth. And um maybe that's got something to do with it. Wow. Do you think? That's definitely a first. That's wild. But I've also never heard Nicholas speak about this manager's profile. Have you not? So you are unique. Yeah, it is. It's a it's a thing. And we call it manager's profile because we typically see it in people that are I don't know like running companies and you know have a really hectic life where there's really no give. Actually I should just say in last year um I worked seven days a week for ten months. So I didn't and I had I think two days off when Channel 5 showed the snooker. So I worked every single day. I did seven shows a week, plus the newspaper column, plus the magazine column. So two LBCs at weekend, Saturday and Sunday, the Channel Five show every weekday, and the column and the and the m and the magazine column, um, with only two days off in ten months. Uh so maybe that might have something to do with it, do you think? I think that's probably got a lot to do with it. Yeah. Yes. I think that would be classic manager profile. But the thing is it's it's about you know, you mentioned earlier 'cause I've be I've obviously been listening in the back about like being Russian everywhere and always, you know, ha onto the next thing, onto the next thing. And what we often don't realise is that in our body, our body's kind of perceiving that is is stress in terms of you're thinking maybe psychological stress, but it's not, it's like cortisol stress where you're like, okay, I've got to be here by this time or I'm gotta be on the next thing. It's like a Russian kind of stress. And sometimes, although we're not we don't think we're stressed, we're just so used to like operating at this elevated system and inside the body can suffer a little bit at the cellular level, but these things again are things that are very easy to shift just by 'Cause I know what you were saying as well about you know, being at home by yourself feeling lonely. It's not lonely, it's just that feeling of go I'm not gonna see another living soul till I go to work the next day. I think you are so clever you need constant stimulation. So clever. It's true. I think I think I see it in a lot of high functioning, really successful type A women is the and and what about these men, these stimulating men? And heartbreak, does that live in the body? Uh absolutely, yes. Heartbreak definitely does. And that definitely is a more psychological stress. And we do know that going through periods because it's trauma essentially, and going through periods of trauma, there have been a lot of studies that have shown that even trauma that people have had in, you know, earlier in life can still show up in the body as a higher biological age later on. Um so that definitely is a thing. Um the other thing which I know I'm gonna touch upon is the ultra processed food because we do know that has a big role. So and even making small chesalleng like, just trying to get a few more fruits, vegetables, things like that in does really help. And it was so interesting what you were saying earlier about having the the gastric band and that it didn't even allow you to be able to eat the healthy fo od. I tr you know, for me that that was crazy. I I hadn't come across that before and we know that in you know you often see this with diet foods. A lot of diet foods are heavily processed. And at that time the body needs more nourishment, it needs the vitamins and minerals, things like that. Do you take anything to support that? Do you take have to take supplements to support? I take multivitamin and I take vitamin D and I take something or other that um oh what's his name? Uh Russell Kane, you know the community I love him and his wife has developed this range of stuff to says like get younger or don't be so old or something like that. So I'm taking that. So if that has a great effect on me, maybe I'll come back and you can measure me again and maybe that'll work. Because I've only just started taking those. So yes, I take all that stuff. Yeah, so I think if you that's a good idea. If you if you feel like your diet isn't getting that nutritional support that you need, definitely try ing to supplement with things as well um is always helpful but even just trying to take out some of the ultra processed things because it's not the fact that it's got hasn't got the nutrients in it it's also some of the chemicals that go in it. And like, you know we,'ve all been there, we've all got kids where we've been like, quickly eat this, it's it's easy, it's quick, and it's fast. But for a long time we didn't really know any better. Like, you know, that was the way we were brought up. But now there's so much research coming out showing that actually some of the chemicals that are in the ultra processed foods are causing inflammation and basically damaging the gut a little bit, which then can damage the you know or cause inflammation around the rest of the body. So yeah. The other thing was sleep. So what is what is your sleep like? Not great. Right, okay. I think the you know twelve years of getting up at 3.20 was just in it's quite hard to sort of reverse it and go back to normal. Yeah. And you know, broken sleep and all that kind of thing, because I was always checking with one eye open to check that I hadn't overslept, because you don't the the worst feeling on earth was the idea you might miss your show and just sleep through an alarm and all of that kind of thing. That was twelve years on a proper red alert. So I I've but I've but I've stopped that now. That stopped in August 2022. So it ought to have calmed down. But unfortunately by January 2023 the the last relationship had I I had chucked out the last incumbent, let's put it that way. And um since which time I have never felt quite settled in the way that you need to be really settled, have a good kip. So a combination of a broken heart and a broken sleep pattern isn't good for sleep. So I do I you know I'm doing my best to sleep. What can I do? I'm trying trying my hardest to do it, but the harder you try, the the more it eludes you. It's difficult. You don't want to be trying hard to sleep, you want to just drift into a beautiful dre,am less, charming, refreshing sleep. If you're trying to make yourself do it with all the ferocity that you put into making yourself do all the things you do all day, write the column, present the show, do the thing, see the grandchildren, go to sleep. Just go to sle ep. It's like have an orgasm, have it, have it.