“I thought I was too old for corsets at 50 – but they’ve helped me rediscover my post-lockdown waist,” says Sharon Walker in The Daily Telegraph. Corsets are back on Gen Z’s radar thanks to Billie Eilish’s dazzling Vogue cover shoot and Bridgerton, the bodice-ripping Netflix drama. But as a “fiftysomething mum of two”, I never thought corsets were the look for me. I was wrong.
I became a “fully paid-up convert” after trying one of Deborah Brand’s exquisite corsets, the Mila, “which can knock a full five inches off any lockdown waist”. My muffin top is “suddenly, miraculously, as flat as a pancake”, and I don’t look bad “for an old bird”. I also swear it has “improved my posture”, as corsets are impossible to slouch in. Crucially, I can still breathe in it, not being “the type to punish myself with fashion-induced fainting fits”. And it adds “a layer of glamour” to almost any outfit, whether you’re wearing a skirt or jeans.
Give processed food a wide berth
Dr Robert Lustig, a University of California professor, offers six tips for healthy eating in a new book, Metabolical: The Truth about Processed Food and How It Poisons People and the Planet.
🥛 Don’t worry about dairy, especially milk. It’s wrong to “demonise” it, as so many people do. The saturated fat in dairy is associated with protection against cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, as well as preventing weight gain.
🛒 Shop round the edges of supermarkets and avoid the aisles. The latter are full of processed food – bad for you. The edges are where the fresh stuff is: meat, fish and dairy in the refrigerated sections.
🐟 Wild fish and free-range eggs, packed fall of omega-3 fatty acids, “are among the healthiest things you can put in your mouth”.
🥖 Buy your bread from a bakery, or bake your own.
🌰 Eat more fibre; wholegrains, nuts, seeds, oats, barley, rye, berries, broccoli and leafy greens. Lustig’s colleagues at the University of California have shown that you can take an unhealthy microbiome and turn it into a healthy one in two days by eating more fibre.
🍌 Eat more prebiotic foods: bananas, dates, chicory root, garlic, Jerusalem artichokes, onions, barley, nuts and rye.
The bottom line is, “processed food diets can kill”, Lustig says. Food should be left as nature intended.