{"id":523052,"date":"2026-07-03T09:05:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/523052\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:05:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:05:28","slug":"i-thought-oh-god-im-not-bouncing-back-how-davina-mccall-58-transformed-her-fitness-in-one-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/523052\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I thought, \u201dOh God, I\u2019m not bouncing back\u201d\u2018: how Davina McCall, 58, transformed her fitness in one step"},"content":{"rendered":"

She embodies the energy of a Duracell bunny crossed with a gym bunny. And yet, says Davina McCall<\/a>: \u2018I wasn\u2019t always exercise lady. I wasn\u2019t A-team at school ever. I wasn\u2019t brilliant at sports. I wasn\u2019t the kind of bouncy, get-into-everything, on-all-the-top-teams, on-the-athletic-field-at-school-on-sports-day [type].\u2019<\/p>\n

So how did her name become synonymous with fitness? As she said on stage at the The Longevity Show, it\u2019s really about finding your own personal motivation. <\/p>\n

Speaking at the women\u2019s health summit at London\u2019s Tobacco Dock, she shared how: \u2018I\u2019d go to the gym occasionally before I had kids. But I was the type that would read a magazine on the stepper. The gym I used to go to, the Wasps rugby team used to train in there, too. I would only work out properly if they were in. Then I\u2019d put the magazine down and suddenly put some weight into it and suddenly wouldn\u2019t be able to walk for five days.\u2019<\/p>\n

That motivation may have worked in the short term, but after the birth of her second child she found a deeper drive. \u2018I remember thinking, \u201cOh my God, I am definitely not bouncing back here,\u201d\u2019 she said. \u2018But after I\u2019d had my second baby, I got fit for me\u2026 It\u2019s not to get bikini-body ready, it\u2019s for my own kind of sanity. And then fitness took on a new meaning. It wasn\u2019t about being thin; it was about feeling good inside my head and inside my body. And that had benefits outside as well. I looked better, but it was more about how it made me feel up here.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re bombarded with unrealistic images and expectations \u2013 even I get confused,\u2019 agrees qualified personal trainer Kate Rowe-Ham<\/a>, an expert in menopause fitness and author of The Longevity Solution. But being fit isn\u2019t the same as being thin, she says. And a desire to slim down is unlikely to provide the staying power necessary to hold you to a fitness programme. Instead, she says, you need to dig deeper and identify your own, very personal and more profound motivation. <\/p>\n

In Kate\u2019s case, she says: \u2018I want my teenage daughter to know she doesn\u2019t ever have to feel the need to shrink herself,\u2019 she says. \u2018I want her to know that being strong is cool. Equally, my mum\u2019s 75. She says, \u201cAt my age, I just want to drink what I want, eat what I want to eat, do what I want.\u201d And I get that! But how do you want to feel in those remaining years? Strong enough to really enjoy them?\u2019<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a powerful motivation, and one that\u2019s likely to keep you working when things get hard. As for Davina<\/a>? \u2018I work out, I do the best that I can\u2026. It is hard, but I\u2019m living my best life. And on the other side, we can all behave wholly inappropriately and no one can really tell us off because we\u2019ve earned it.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She embodies the energy of a Duracell bunny crossed with a gym bunny. And yet, says Davina McCall:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[62038,2139,239283,637,589,163,85,46,195853,636,239281,237453,239282],"class_list":["post-523052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-62038","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-ea13e39d-105e-4eae-8cd1-71488d8816db","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-how-davina-mccall","tag-sponsored-false","tag-transformed-her-fitness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}