HEALTH | CELEBRIT Y INTERVIEW
Davinia Taylor is on a mission to transform the health of the nation, one keto coffee at a time! Editor-in-Chief Katy Sunnassee chats to her about how she got onto this path, why she swerves seed oils, and how she fuels her brain to stay focused and energised.
Before I changed my diet and began my biohacking journey I was in a very flat state, physically and mentally.
Everything was an effort. I was huffing and puffing doing the most basic things; walking downstairs to unload the dishwasher felt like walking 1,000 miles. There was no mental stimulation; no excitement; no get-up-and-go. I was over weight but didn’t notice because it crept up. I had swollen knees, feet and fingers, and my neck was very puffy. I was a walking, talking bruise! That’s the best analogy I can give.
I didn’t realise how sick and tired I was until I started getting better. I’d been to the doctors saying I felt terrible, but I couldn’t articulate what was going on.
When you don’t have the vocabulary for it, you get treated like one of millions, which is to say you get told you’re depressed, you need to calorie control your diet and lose weight, and you just need to get more sleep. That was the beige advice I was g iven.
It was probably 15 years ago now that I was diagnosed as bipolar, which I’m not, and began my journey with antidepressants and bipolar medication.
I was also diagnosed with depression, which it wasn’t. But I was put on medication and was so scared that if I came off it, I’d start drinking again. I’d given up drinking after the birth of my first son because the hangovers were so ferocious and lasted weeks. The bad times outweighed the fun times, so I gave up drinking; I was scared of going back to that place and thought I had to take antidepressants and bipolar medication otherwise I’d become unstable.
Fast forward around seven years, we moved house as I was due to have child number four.
I was registering the children with a new doctor who had a look at my notes too. He took one look and said, “Oh my goodness, what on earth are you on here?”. I hadn’t questioned that I might be on the wrong meds. My new doctor said I had to come off them all and as I did, I didn’t relapse into an alcoholic stupor; I didn’t lose my marbles, and it felt as if the Vaseline was coming off my eyes, so to speak. I felt less knotty in my head;
