SHE swapped self-loathing for self-love, but Nadia Sawalha has learnt that re-training her brain is a daily mission.
After decades of feeling uncomfortable in her own skin, the 55-year-old has been stripping off to reveal her “flaws” on Instagram.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Nadia admits she still battles against the voices in her head – despite huge praise for proudly posing with her cellulite.
And although being kind to others comes naturally, the mum-of-two has to work hard on being kind to herself.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Nadia said: “People say to me all the time – ‘I wish I had your confidence’.
“But every single day I have to tell myself to be confident. I have to tell the nasty voices in my head saying about my fat rolls to ‘shut the f*** up’.
“I say ‘you’re not allowed to live in my head anymore. You’ve lived in there my whole adult life’.
“But it’s about reminding myself every day to be kinder to myself – not even just other people, it’s about being kinder to myself.
“I’ve been doing this s*** for a long time now, it’s about retraining my brain.”
The TV personality has been on Loose Women since its launch in 1999.
Her bravery on the ITV show has seen her speak out about her husband Mark Adderley’s alcoholism, family feuds and being diagnosed with the balding gene in her 50s.
“I’m not now suddenly a confident person,” insists Nadia.
“Whenever I post a picture on Instagram, I’m thinking ‘oh god what have I done’.
“But I don’t think it actually matters what you look like. So many women have these horrible voices in their heads no matter how beautiful they are.
“Self-loathing is across the board, that’s the thing about body confidence.
“I hope my girls will have these thoughts for a lot less time than I did.”
Nadia has been embarrassing her daughters Maddie, 17, and 12-year-old KIki by impersonating Kim Kardashian promoting her shapewear.
In hilarious videos, Nadia makes fun of herself by miming along to Kim’s voice after stripping down to her underwear.
It’s that “warts and all” attitude that has gained her an army of followers on social media and her YouTube channel.
Nadia jokes that her family – who she films with from home – have been in training for the coronavirus lockdown for decades.
She and Mark – her husband-of-18 years – have been homeschooling Maddie and Kiki ever since they struggled with bullying and school phobia six years ago.
“There’s nothing we don’t talk about as a family,” said Nadia.
“Every day we check in with each other. We have been prepared for this.
“We talk about mental health – mental health or physical health it’s the same for us.
“When the government was talking about exercise I kept shouting ‘what about mental health, where are we all going to be after this?'”
Amid the chaos of the pandemic, the couple found time to write a book – Honey, I Homeschooled the Kids – about a candid and practical guide to teaching at home based on their experience.
“In lockdown we felt blessed,” says Nadia.
“We were able to be busy seven days a week with all of our work and homeschooling the kids.
“It’s like we’ve been in training for lockdown for most of our lives.
“I found it incredibly moving being able to talk to people every day and hearing how people know their children better now than they did before lockdown.
“We wrote the book with everyone in mind – whether you are home-schooling or your kids are in state school – you can get something from it.
“Education is every day of the year of us – it’s term time all the time.”
