Entrepreneur Elle Macpherson has successfully merged the fashion, beauty and wellness worlds, making a business out of her supermodel nickname, ‘The Body’, by launching a line of premium supplements that have become a global phenomenon. A consistent best-seller on Net-a-Porter, the 54-year-old’s WelleCo dietary formulations are key to her inside-out approach to beauty, but she tells us that looking and feeling incredible takes more than mere supplementation. Delve inside her diet and best tips to lose weight.
She maintains year-round wellness
“I believe in maintenance, I’m not a big binge and purge person. I think it’s really important to maintain wellness year-round. Not because it looks good but it actually feels good – which is really important when you’re running a business and you’ve got kids and a full life. It’s easy – I just make good choices and I enjoy the choices that I make. I really enjoy a plant-based diet, I love vegetables.”
Approaching summer, her best tips to lose weight include cutting out wheat and sugar
“Coming up for summer what I try to cut out is wheat and sugar. If you love bread and butter, that would be what I’d give up for the summer. For me it’s a ‘fine tune’ more than anything else. If I can encourage people to stay well all year, for example taking the Super Elixir [her super greens powder] every day, getting outdoors and breathing some fresh air, making sure you’re getting enough sleep and drinking enough water — if you can just keep it really simple when it comes round to feeling good for summer, it’s easier because you have those strong building blocks already in place.”
Drinks are as important to her diet as foods are
“The first thing I have is hot water and lemon when I wake up, then my Super Elixir greens and a matcha tea. Sometimes I have cap-full of apple cider vinegar in water if I’m feeling like I’m inflamed. I drink three litres of water a day and my Sleep Welle Tea at night.”
Her food formula is three meals, two snacks
“I have three meals a day and two snacks, mid-morning and afternoon. I have a bit to eat with my son at 6:30am after my drinks. I might have a poached egg sometimes, or half an avocado or some muesli that I make in the dehydrator with nuts and seeds and a little bit of coconut and cinnamon, and I’ll mix that with some fresh hemp or almond milk that I make myself.
“I like raw foods, so lunch is usually raw or lightly blanched vegetables and dinner is a salad or something like humus, tabbouleh or nut dips with dehydrated seed bread. It’s a bit different – but I’m never hungry and I eat quite a lot. Today I had a super bowl with quinoa, beets, goats cheese, sweet potato and rocket with olive oil and it was fabulous, I felt completely nourished.
“I snack on my Nourishing Protein [WelleCo’s natural plant protein powder], I have one every day, either the vanilla or chocolate one which I have blended with almond milk and banana, or water and avocado. In the afternoon, I might have a snack of kelp crackers and sesame or some dulse seaweed.”
Organic ingredients are very important to her
“All 100% organic, always. It’s very important to me.”
Her treats are not ‘guilty’ pleasures
“There’s no guilt in my pleasure! I have lots of pleasures – dark chocolate, the occasional espresso, a Thai curry – but I don’t feel guilty about them because I really love my mainstay diet too. I don’t enjoy junk food and I don’t like too much sugar any more.”
She used to love sugar, but curbed the cravings
“Since I’ve been taking the Super Elixir I don’t crave sugar anymore and so when I have cheap sugar now, I just don’t like the taste. Sugar is addictive but breaking that addiction only takes about three days. Do a week of taking the Super Elixir greens and then try to give up sugar, it’s usually pretty successful.”
She favours matcha over coffee for a caffeine boost
“Green matcha tea and the Super Elixir greens, they’re my favourite go-to energising drinks.”
Exercise is as important to her as diet, whatever the weather
“I do sports like water skiing, running, cycling, swimming laps, snow skiing if it’s winter, walking the dogs – I just love to be outdoors.”
From: ELLE US
