How I ate my way to health

Whether she’s whizzing up veggies for a juice or heading to yoga for a morning stretch, award-winning food blogger Ella Woodward glows with good health.

But just four years ago, Woodward’s health was waning, leaving the then 19-year-old model and history of art student bed-ridden for up to 16 hours a day, unable to risk a short stroll without suffering heavy heart palpitations and chronic pain.

Eventually diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS), a potentially debilitating condition which affects the autonomic nervous system and causes symptoms like severe palpitations, headaches and dizziness when standing up, Woodward found that traditional treatments only went so far and decided to completely change her approach to eating, gradually cutting out meat, dairy, sugar and processed food.

As someone who previously wolfed down “mountains” of ice cream and cooked very little, save “boiling pasta” and making the odd dish of scrambled eggs, at first, her U-turn was met with confusion by her family and friends. But Woodward soon began to reap the benefits.

“It was a gradual process,” explains the 23-year-old, who was inspired after reading about an American cancer patient who found making changes to her diet helped her manage her illness.

“After a few weeks of really living and eating differently, I started to feel minor changes. It took 18 months from the beginning of my diet change for me to say, ‘OK, I feel like I’m really healed’, and gradually, it just built up and got better.”

To keep herself on track, she started a blog – deliciouslyella.com – and after a good reaction from readers, and last year a hefty seal of approval in the form of a Blogger Award from Red magazine, she launched a healthy eating app, which has so far attracted 75,000 downloads.

Now, she’s just released her first book, also entitled Deliciously Ella.

While Woodward, who was doing a stint of modelling in Paris when she became ill, couldn’t have anticipated the impact the diet has had on her health, she also credits it for changing her outlook.

“I would never have thought it would really change me and I would come out of it a different person, but I really feel I am very different,” she says. “I’m much more positive.”

She’s always been a positive person, she adds, but these days, she tries to appreciate everything a bit more, and to feel grateful for the smaller things in life.

Always pleased to hear from readers (“it makes everything worth it”), she is nevertheless determined to avoid foisting her healthy eating habits on to anyone else.

“My number one aim is to encourage people to introduce some of the healthier elements into their life,” says Woodward, who splits her time between London and California, where her boyfriend lives.

“If that’s just eating exactly the same as you always have, but adding an extra portion of vegetables, then that’s a great place to start. If you start pushing things on people, they resist. No one wants to have things pushed upon them.”

But the foodie, who is also training as a nutritionist, has found unlikely allies.

“My boyfriend, who is German and grew up on sausages, is now loving it!” she says, laughing.

“Recently, he told me very proudly that he’d had three vegetarian days. And the other day I made a green juice, one of the real hardcore green juices, not with fruit or anything, and I was looking out of the window while we were driving to the airport, and I turned around to see him drinking it.”

Her mum and sisters have become vegetarian too, but despite being hugely pleased that she’s having such a positive influence, there are some drawbacks to the success.

“Now when I go home to visit my family, I always cook,” she reveals with a laugh.

• Deliciously Ella: Awesome Ingredients, Incredible Food That You And Your Body Will Love by Ella Woodward is published by Yellow Kite, priced £20