Don’t break your heart

Date
10 October 1985
Channel
BBC (UK)

Interview with Kim about healthy living and eating.

I gave up smoking mostly because I got quite scared about it. I was finding that I was getting… I always did suffer quite badly with my chest and everything, but I was finding I was getting ill every month. And it seemed to be like a recurring bronchitis thing that I was getting. And also in the studio it was getting a real pain because I was clearing my throat and it used to take ages and it took a tone off my high register and a tone off my low register. And generally it was making my work suffer. So for the two reasons, for the health reason which was frightening me because my blood pressure at the time got quite bad and I was feeling it, and also because of my professional… career, so they were the two things that made me stop. But the benefits of stopping have been, you know, brilliant. I mean, I don’t get any bronchitis problems anymore, I haven’t had any since I stopped smoking two years ago, and my skin is much better, it’s not such a problem anymore. Smoking affects your skin very badly and my skin got really bad at that time

I’ve cut down on fatty things, especially. So I have skimmed milk now all the time, it just takes a while getting used to it, and then you don’t want it any other way. Like sugar, I stopped taking sugar only about a year ago now, I used to have two all the time. And bread, you know I don’t buy bread anymore anyway but if I do it’s always the good stuff, you know, the brown stuff… And vegetables, I buy fresh vegetables because… you know… Especially the life I lead, because you can get into a way of eating fast food and quick food and bad food too regularly. There’s nothing wrong in having that sort of food as long as you balance it out with what you eat regularly every day I think. If you look at the intake over a year, what you’ve actually taken in, it’s a lot.

I’m very aware of keeping fit. In the summer I cycle, I live in London so I cycle around town, which is good and bad because you’re breathing in all the fumes but it’s much better for you I think. I also go swimming a lot, I play squash, weight training occasionally. It’s good to get out of breath as regularly as possible in whichever fashion suits you best really.