Ella Scott
Former Great British Bake Off judge Dame Prue Leith has gotten candid about her experience with GLP-1 injections.
It’s currently estimated that around one in ten British adults in England, Wales and Scotland have used or plan on using weight-management medication.
Some of the most popular GLP-1s licensed for weight loss in the UK include Wegovy and Mounjaro, with Leith, 86, being the latest celebrity to give the latter a whirl.
However, the former Queen Margaret University Chancellor didn’t quite have the same success as comedian Rosie O’Donnell, singer Meghan Trainor, The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Jennifer Aydin have had with drugs.
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The 86-year-old, who recently announced she was bowing out of Channel 4’s GBBO after almost a decade, recently spoke to The Telegraph about her motivations for trying weight-loss medication.
She claimed her spouse, retired fashion designer John Playfair, used Mounjaro and lost three stone.
It was apparently ‘working so well for him’ that she thought she would give it a go too.
In a further interview with The Irish News, she alleged that she believed Playfair had actually become ‘healthier’ while using the GLP-1 meds.
However, Leith admitted that when she received her drugs, she ignored the pharmacist’s advice about consuming around 1,500 calories a day.
Instead, she ended up consuming only 200 per day.
“I didn’t realise,” the culinary icon claimed. “And what your body then does is it simply says, ‘this is starvation. I mustn’t let anything go’. I did not lose a single pound.
“So I lost no weight, although for two weeks I was eating almost nothing.”
Some users report that GLP-1 medications quieten food noise, reduce appetite, and force them to eat smaller portions than they would have previously.
Experts at Superdrug Online Doctor recommend eating a healthy, balanced diet, prioritising whole foods like wholegrains, fruits, and vegetables, alongside lean protein sources.
According to a trial, people who severely restrict their calories whilst on mounjaro are likely to lose 2.5 times more bone density in their hips compared to those who eat more moderately.
Muscle loss, nutrient deficiencies, and gallstones are also side effects of extreme calorie restriction.
The South African TV star said that after a fortnight of using the injectables, she came off them, realising they didn’t quite suit her lifestyle.
“I like the fact that I look forward to my meals, and I’m a cook – my life has been about food. I would hate not to have the joy of food,” she confessed.
She added to The Telegraph that she found Mounjaro ‘bloody expensive’ and believed that if it wasn’t going to work, then it was an egregious ‘waste of money’.
Elsewhere in the interview, Leith revealed that she rarely put weight on during her GBBO tenure.
“Cake and wine go together. It’s obviously not a diet to be recommended, but it worked fine for me. It’s only 10 weeks of my life, and it’s only two days of every week,” she revealed.
When asked what she thought of her replacement, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, the mother-of-two said: “She is going to be absolutely brilliant. She’ll be very different, but she’s a class act, she really knows what she’s doing.
“She knows her onions – people will expect her to know about cake, which she certainly does, but what they won’t expect is how clever she is, how sharp, witty – she’s really erudite. She’s a fantastically clever woman.”
Watch episodes of the Great British Bake Off on Channel 4.