Melanie Sykes on how she finds time to stay fit and healthy as a busy mum

Melanie Sykes has been a firm fixture on TV and radio for almost 20 years.

She’s dedicated the last 10 years of her life to making being fit and healthy a lifestyle.

As a busy working mum, it’s a wonder how she’s found time to make it work for her, but that’s in part why she’s become an ambassador for Kellogg’s, who are making it easier than ever to stay healthy in a hurry as all of their cereals are now fortified with vitamin D.

We caught up with the 47-year-old to find out how she made health and fitness a way of life.

Are you into any wellness trends?

“I’m into meditation but I wouldn’t consider it a fad,” she explains.

“I think it should become a bit of a lifestyle for all of us and then we’ll be able to be happy and healthy and nice to each other.

“It’s definitely something I’ve got involved in in the last year. I was reading about how mindfulness is really important in the world in the health magazines that I read so I downloaded a couple of apps.

“I did a bit of Headspace for a while and now I do a different app and I really like this guy’s voice. When I do it, it makes a difference but it’s about doing it. It’s finding that 10 minutes a day to just sit and actively do nothing while being awake.”

Does exercise give you lots of energy?

“Yeah, it just completely underpins everything: my mood, my energy, just absolutely everything really.

“Everything comes from how I feel when I’ve done that. I’ve been doing fitness and health and stuff and gymming for 10 years this year so it’s just part of my existence.

“It’s been 10 years that I’ve been actively part of that community when I was about 37, or 38 I started training.”

Do you have a favourite way to work out?

“Not really, I do a lot of classes like barre but I really like just putting my tunes on and doing weights and stuff.

“Sometimes it’s nice to be with a group of women doing barre. It’s fun to communicate with other people, but sometimes I feel like I just want to put some tunes on and work some things out while I’m working out.”

What is your advice to people intimidated by joining a gym?

“I just joined a gym and when you join you get a free personal training session usually or you get someone to walk you around the gym and tell you what to do,” says Melanie.

“There are so many exercises online, so many fitness magazines, it’s just reading about it and being brave enough to take that first step in there. That’s always the key.

“If it’s your first time in a gym, it is daunting, it was for me but you just have to get over it and get into it.

“Talk to people about what they’re doing. I got into diet and how important it is to support your fitness with diet. It’s just a big evolution really.”

Do you have a good relationship with food?

“I’m a bit of a foodie, I cook every day and I’m a really healthy person.

“I cook for my children every single day I don’t always have what they’re having depending on what I’m doing but I think I have a good relationship with food. I have three solid meals a day and snacks so I think that’s pretty healthy.

“I think being a mother, you care about what you feed your children, most definitely. My mum always cooked for me every night and I think you adopt what your parents do. I don’t think it was like ‘I’m a mother I must give them vitamins’ I think I just did what my mum did and we always ate good home-cooked meals.”

Do you think attitudes to healthy food have changed over the years?

“Up until three years ago, nobody had avocado with their eggs! It’s amazing,” she muses.

“We’re so into superfoods and what they do for us I think it’s an amazing revolution in the food industry.

“Everybody tries to be healthy for one meal a day at least, you can’t avoid it now. When you go to restaurants, everybody who’s making food is trying to get the best out of it. It’s an amazing thing.

“I’ve heard about 4:2 diets and this and that and I think people are really getting to grips with the fact that it isn’t that difficult. It’s obviously, low sugar, low fat, high protein, vegetables, the greener the better. I mean everybody juices now, it’s become the norm.”

Do you take any multivitamins?

“I take fish oils and I go through different phases so at one time I was taking turmeric but the one thing I do try to always take is my fish oils. I’ve been taking them for years, they’re very good for the brain.”

What’s your morning routine like?

“I always workout in the morning, not necessarily first thing. Obviously, I get up, I’ve got the boys I’ve got to get to school, get them fed and sorted. If I’m not working I’ll have my breakfast and then I’ll go and work out or I’ll do yoga at home or I’ll do online fitness stuff if I can’t get to the gym.

“I try to get my exercise done in the morning. I really don’t like exercising in the afternoon, I do if I have to do but I try to get it out of the way. I do yoga videos online or I subscribe to beach body on demand which has amazing workouts.”

As part of its Better Starts initiative, Kellogg’s is helping people get more of this essential vitamin in their diet by increasing Vitamin D in many of in its cereals to 50% of your daily needs.