MY LIFE IN HEALTH
TV presenter, author and charity founder Katie Piper, 38, on lockdown weight gain, the pitfalls of soul searching and the importance of breaking beauty taboos.
My non-negotiables are what I need to do to feel good and turn up every day. A big one is running. Four mornings a week at 6am, before everyone else in my house wakes up, I go out for 40 minutes and run between 5km and 7km. If you communicate your non-negotiables with everyone in your life, you can find a way to accommodate them.
When running, I’ll often multitask by listening to a podcast featuring a guest I’m soon [to be] interviewing on Loose Women or Radio 2. If I listen to music, it’ll be upbeat and fast to help me switch off, which I’m not very good at. I can’t sit still, so running is my meditation and the benefits are more than just physical. It’s a bit of a placebo because I feel I’ve done something just for me and that time feels luxurious, so I feel less resentful and stressed.
Prior to lockdown, life was harder for women. We didn’t do as much by phone or video call, so it wasn’t possible to nip out on the school run, then come home and work. Work had to be in-person and involved long days in London. There was no flexibility and that was hard. I was washing clothes at midnight and missing my girls’ [daughters Belle, eight, and Penelope, four] bedtime four nights a week.
I don’t live that life anymore and that’s great. Trust and flexibility has improved and I deliver more because I value the situation.
Receiving an OBE was a privilege. I started The Katie Piper Foundation in 2009 and the OBE [awarded to Katie, who suffered life-changing burns in an acid attack in 2008, for her services to charity and victims of burns and other disfigurement injuries] sends a strong message that inclusivity and diversity is at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Being able to give the charity that platform is so important, and I feel just as encouraged being the face of both skincare brand La Roche-Posay and haircare brand Pantene, who I’ve worked with for years. Now Pantene is aligning with Lucy Edwards who is a fully-blind Tik Tok star. I’m blind in one eye and it’s incredible seeing such wonderful women breaking beauty taboos and stereotypes. I remember seeing women on billboards with no imperfections and thinking they were beautiful and I wasn’t because they didn’t have pores and I did. So, what brands are doing is powerful and will help young girls coming after us.
I couldn’t do my job without being fit and healthy. Growing up, I had loads of hobbies including judo, running and dance. As a teenager, I started going to the gym but in my 20s, if I wanted to wear a crop top, I’d skip dinner to achieve a flat stomach, which I learned later wasn’t sensible. As I got
