I did fitness DVDs for money but they made me so unhappy – now I’ve snacked myself to death, admits Coleen Nolan
WITH a starring role in Dancing On Ice and her latest fitness DVD riding high in the charts, Coleen Nolan had never looked better.
But behind her trim, size 10 figure and beaming smile, the Loose Women star was desperately unhappy.
It was 2009 and after battling to keep her weight under control for years, Coleen had cashed in on the celebrity fitness DVD craze, releasing four of her own between 2007 and 2009.
With a gruelling diet and workout regime, she had shed 4st and dropped from a size 18 to a 10.
“I looked amazing, actually,” she says. “I would say that’s probably the best I’ve ever looked.
“Funnily enough, I got offered a lot more primetime jobs.”
But the 5ft 7in star says the constant exercise and dieting made her miserable.
“They sent this trainer around seven days a week and I was on this really strict diet.
“As a person, I was probably the unhappiest I’ve felt. I lost me somewhere,” says the mum-of-three.
“I lost my personality and didn’t know who to be any more.”
The pressure to keep the weight off started to take its toll.
“I thought, ‘I don’t know who I’m doing this for’,” she says. “I was doing it for the money.”
Coleen started gaining weight and, by 2011, was a size 16.
“I’ve been on every single diet going and every single one of them works until you stop doing it,” she says.
“I did a liquid diet, which involved three glasses of liquid, and lost three stone in three months. It was only 500 calories a day.
No quick fix
“My doctor was saying, ‘Please come off it’, because it was very dangerous.
“When I did, I must have put 4st back on. Unless you change your lifestyle, no quick fix is ever going to work.”
Coleen’s body battles started when she was just a little girl.
At the age of nine, she joined her older siblings in the Nolan Sisters and it wasn’t long before she started to feel insecure.
“My sisters were teens at the time and were stunning, and I’d think, ‘Oh God, I’m fat’,” says Coleen, 58.
“Now I look back and think, ‘Oh my God, there was nothing of me’.”
As part of the chart-topping girl group, which included her sisters Maureen, Anne, Linda and the late Bernie, Coleen says her body was under scrutiny from day one.
“I was probably told to lose weight, or called the chubby one,” she says.
“But I was just nine. I’m so glad I didn’t listen to them, I probably would have ended up with an eating disorder or just hating myself.
“It’s an industry that can make you feel incredibly insecure.”
The world of TV today isn’t so different.
As she prepares to celebrate her 59th birthday next month, the presenter says she’s furious to find she’s being sidelined by TV bosses thirsty for younger stars.
“I’m in an industry which tends to say, especially to women, ‘No, you’re a bit old to do that now’. Well I’m just not having it,” she says.
“I’ll let them know when I’m too old.
“You’ll go to a meeting for a new show, you get on great and you think, ‘This feels perfect for me’.
“Then someone in their twenties or early thirties who’s obviously beautiful gets it.”
Coleen even claims she has felt pushed to get cosmetic surgery or “try a bit of Botox”.
She says: “There is a lot of pressure but I don’t want to, thank you. Leave me alone,” she says.
“It does make you look in the mirror and go, ‘Maybe I should get a facelift. Maybe I should have Botox’ or ‘Maybe I should be a size six’.
“I’m just strong enough to say no.”
I’ve been on every single diet going and every single one of them works until you stop doing it
But Coleen adds: “I don’t think there’s anyone that doesn’t look in the mirror, stand there and pull in their cheekbones and pull the wrinkles out.
“But I equally love seeing life on people’s faces. I love all the scars and wrinkles.
“I like a face that’s lived and laughed a lot, not frozen in time because you’ve had work done.
“I’m not in any way knocking anyone that wants to go down that road. But don’t try to pressure me into it.
“I also feel that everyone’s starting to look the same. Women are just starting to look like The Stepford Wives.”
Covid and lockdown took its toll on Coleen’s weight and she found herself back up to a size 18-20.
Not only that, she was in “crippling” pain due to a bad disc in her back, bursitis — a painful swelling in her hip joints — and plantar fasciitis — heel pain — in both feet.
“I had the worst time. I was literally eating paracetamol every day,” she says.
“I was overweight, obviously. It was lockdown so you just ate s**t.
‘I’m such a snacker’
“So I decided to go on a plant-based diet, which changed my life.
“Within two weeks, I wasn’t taking painkillers, my feet and hips cleared up and I lost about two stone.”
But as one lot of health woes subsided, another, more serious condition appeared.
Coleen says: “I’ve just found out that I’m pre-diabetic. It’s type two, which means it’s to do with food.”
Coleen puts this down to her eating between meals being out of control.
“I’m such a snacker. I have snacked myself to death — crisps, chocolate, anything,” she says.
“And processed vegan food is just as bad for you as having a McDonald’s.
“I just need to stop eating crap.”
But when it comes to using weight loss drugs like Ozempic — a favourite with celebs — Coleen is strongly against it.
She says: “I don’t believe in any of that.”
Coleen had a scare last year when she found skin cancer, a basal cell carcinoma, on her shoulder but thankfully it has been successfully treated.
But three pre-melanomas on her face are yet to be treated.
“As soon as I can, I’m going to go and get them sorted because they will turn into cancer later on,” she says.
Her sister Linda, 64, is still battling incurable brain cancer.
“She’s just incredible, her will to live is off the scale,” says the star.
“She says she’s going to chemo like I say I’m going to Tesco.”
Coleen lives in Cheshire with her partner of three years, Michael Jones, 59, who works in supermarket logistics, and animals including four dogs, three cats, a horse and two goats.
I decided to go on a plant-based diet, which changed my life
Even so, she says she has been suffering from “empty nest syndrome” since 22-year-old daughter Ciara left to go travelling with her boyfriend earlier this year.
“Because they bought a one-way ticket, I can’t say, ‘Oh well, I’ve only got three months to get through’, because it could be three years,” she says.
“It’s a massive, massive hole in my life. My eldest son (Shane Jr) is back for a while and I’ve got my partner Michael here, but that’s not filling the daughter gap.
“I don’t think anything will fill that until she’s home.”
In the meantime, Coleen is keeping herself busy with her new solo tour, cheekily titled Naked.
The show sees her belting out a selection of her favourite songs, sharing her views on ageing and discussing her love life — which could be awkward, given who she will be sharing the stage with.
“My son Shane Jr is supporting me and my ex-husband, Ray (Fensome), is playing guitar,” she reveals.
“My new partner is doing the merchandise. So it’s very much a family affair.”
Coleen decided to call the tour Naked as it is her first time on stage without her famous sisters.
“I’m feeling incredibly exposed and because of that, my partner suggested calling it Naked, which I thought was a genius idea,” she says.
“People ask, ‘Are you going to be naked?’ and I’m like, ‘If that makes you buy a ticket, then I’ll say yes’.”
As to what is up for discussion, she says nothing is off limits.
“If you ask me a question, I’ll answer it. I’m no holds barred,” she promises. “Unless it’s nasty or something.
“But you’d be really stupid to spend money on a ticket if you hated me, so more fool you.”
- Coleen has dates around the country for her Naked tour, until March 28