With her exclusive interview in this week’s HELLO! magazine, Ulrika Jonsson has been even more revealing than usual, showcasing her stunning figure and talking about the surgery she’s undergone to help her achieve it – a breast reduction and a new technique called axillaplasty to remove fat from around her armpits.
But Ulrika works hard at maintaining her figure naturally, too, as she explained to hellomagazine.com… “I put on five stone with the last baby,” she says, about her pregnancy with Malcolm, now a year old, who was born weighing a whopping 10lbs. “That was mainly two stone on each breast and one stone with the baby! Huge breasts,” she laughs.
Because of an ongoing back problem, Ulrika has to be careful about exercise to get back in shape and so uses Pilates, which strengthens the core muscles that also help support the back, while lengthening and toning muscles. But she doesn’t believe in dieting.
“The only diet I've ever ever done was WeightWatchers when I was 21 because I was quite a big girl and I needed to lose about a stone-and-a-half around the time I started as a weathergirl at GMTV,” she says. “It changed the way I ate because I looked at food differently and understood food better. I don't want to live a life where I'm constantly worried what size I am. I am now really delighted to say that I'm a size 12 – I think! My ideal weight is nine stone and I'm 5'7".
Ulrika says her secret is eating “clean food” – simple meals without fattening sauces and side dishes – while reducing wheat, dairy and trying not to mix carbs with proteins. “There’s not a lot of stodge,” she continues. “There's lots of pasta and fish and chicken. My biggest meal tends to be lunchtime, with rice and veg.” Ulrika makes sure she doesn’t eat dinner later than 6pm to give her body time to burn the calories, choosing fish or chicken with veg, and wakes up to a small breakfast of rice cakes or Ryvita.
“My big treat is a mug of soya hot chocolate,” she tells us. “I'm comfortable that I'm the size that I am,” she says. “I found it so stressful to be worried about my weight. We are made to feel self-conscious in the public eye about our weight and I resist it at every level. I have to say, my attitude to people who are dangerously obese is that they really need to look after themselves. But if you're a size 14 or 16, that's OK. And how many miserable skinny people do you know…”
