The three rules Prue Leith swears by for longevity and happiness at 86
These are the cooking star's three 'ingredients' for living well in her 80s
Prue Leith often comes across as jolliness personified, and it's clear she lives a happy life - not that she hasn't had her ups and downs.
Prue has been very open about the 13-year affair she had with her first husband before he left his wife to marry her, and the challenges of being alone after their 20-year age gap left her widowed at a younger age than she would've liked.
However, she's now happily married for a second time, and her career is flourishing at the age of 86. The cooking star is also in good health, and has now revealed the three rules she swears by for longevity and happiness in her octogenarian years.
Eating well
When it comes to eating well, Prue doesn't follow fad diets or make any restrictions to what she consumes.
She enjoys variety and quality, and wants to feel joy when she's eating. In conversation with Woman's World, Prue says, "It’s a hugely varied diet, and it’s a healthy one, and it’s good food."
She understand the privilege of being able to shop locally for fresh produce that hasn't "travelled halfway around the world and spent the last two years in a freezer."
Speaking of how she and husband, John Playfair eat, she explains, "I am lucky enough to afford to buy the best ingredients, and we eat very simply, but we eat really well."
Not only does Prue shop locally, she also grows a lot of her own vegetables, and doesn't overthink how much of them she consumes.
"Eating healthily never feels like a punishment," she tells Good Housekeeping, adding, "I don’t always get my five a day – but sometimes, I’ll have 20 a day. I just think food should be a joy."
Get plenty of sleep
This can be a difficult one for anyone with sleep disorders or menopause-induced sleeplessness.
But for Prue, sleep comes easily, all of the time. “I can just fall asleep wherever I’ve got an extra half an hour on a train and nothing to do. I’ll just go to sleep," she shares.
Known for her love of afternoon siestas, Prue adds, "When I go to sleep at night, I think, right, I’ve got eight hours and I put my head on the pillow and I’m out."
Prue is so keen to get the correct hours of sleep in, that she had naptime written into her contract when she worked on Bake Off.
"It’s in my contract that I have an hour’s nap after lunch," she said at the time. Prue continued, "At my age, I need a sleep in the afternoon when I’m working."
"Everyone loves it because it means they get an extra hour’s break every day – although they have to be quiet as ‘madame’ is upstairs having a kip!"
Love well
While Prue loves her husband, who chooses her clothes and brought romance back into her life following the death of her first husband, Prue explains that loving well means more than just being in love with someone.
It means finding purpose, passion, and feeling a love for life. "I love well, and that doesn’t just mean loving John," she says. Prue explains, "I think if I say sleep, eat, sleep, and love - the love bit also encompasses a love of anything."
"You’ve got to have a reason to get up in the morning," she says, adding, "You’ve got to love your life, really."
An animal lover, one of the things Prue is passionate about is Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Tattie, one she gifted her husband, she says she is "obsessed" with.
For Prue's 86th birthday, her husband bought her a Maine Coon cat, whom she named Sophisticat. The pair loved her so much, they recently got another kitten of the same breed - both appear on Prue's social media feeds and bring a lot of happiness to their lives.
