The presenter on turning 65, her scales ban and her obsession with burrata…
It’s been 30 years since Penny Smith burst onto our screens on GMTV. Since leaving the show in 2010, she has presented The Krypton Factor, Loose Women and other TV shows, before moving into radio, where she now hosts the mid-morning show on Scala Radio. We catch up with her, while she gets her hair done…
You look fabulous. How do you keep in shape?
I still do yoga but mostly I just use every single day as an opportunity to be active. I walk up escalators, or sometimes I’ll walk up the stairs.
I’ll look on Citymapper and if my destination is two miles away, I’ll walk or cycle. I like doing accidental exercise, nothing formal.
You turn 65 in September. How do you stay positive about getting older?
I feel fit and healthy. The other day, I had a check-up and my doctor said he hasn’t seen such beautiful blood pressure. I left feeling like I’d got a gold star.
It’s like the compliment you never knew you needed.
Exactly! It’s funny, isn’t it? In your 20s when you’re told, “Your hair looks nice”, you think, “Excellent”. As you approach later life, being told you have perfect blood pressure makes your day.
Would you ever consider tweakments to keep the years at bay?
I constantly think about it and if something makes you feel good, then get on with it. Why not? Sharon Osborne looks great, but other people don’t.
Two years ago, you said you don’t weigh yourself any more. Have you been on the scales since?
I still don’t. I was obsessed with my weight for a period of time, particularly when I put on a lot of it when I worked in Belgium in my teens. I went to France and Holland after my A-Levels, before becoming an au pair in Belgium. Belgian food is superb… I put on four stone in three months. When I came home, I was pretty much an egg on legs.
I felt terrible because I was huffing when I went up the stairs. I’d always been very active – I was vice-captain of the hockey team and captain of the netball, volleyball and basketball teams at school. All of a sudden, everything made me puff and I didn’t like it.
How did it lead to a weight obsession?
Part of the problem of getting fatter was that every time I weighed myself and I’d put on weight, I would be depressed so I’d go and cheer myself up by eating 17lb of cheese. Then when I started to lose weight, I would congratulate myself by eatin
