IT’S EASY TO think that healthy living is only the preserve of those with lots of money and lots of time.
For someone like former Irish Olympian Derval O’Rourke, for over a decade being fit was an integral part of her life. After all, her body was her career.
That’s a far cry from many people, who count gobbling down a sandwich on a 15-minute break in front of the computer as ‘lunch’.
For years, O’Rourke trained hard, but it wasn’t until she had a bout of ill-health and saw how that affected her performance that things shifted. She started to look at food as a source of more than just fuel – as something that could change how her body acted and reacted.
The Fit Foodie
Two years on from her 2014 retirement, that discovery has led O’Rourke publishing her second cookbook – The Fit Foodie – in an effort to spread the word that healthy living isn’t just for former Olympians.
The book’s recipes are simple and familiar – lasagna, one-pot chicken stew, spinach and feta frittata – rather than being focused on coconut oil and quinoa, and are followed by tips on how to insert exercise into an already busy lifestyle.
How did she go from athlete to cookbook author? That’s the first question TheJournal.ie asked when we sat down with O’Rourke on the eve of the launch of The Fit Foodie.
“It was probably a long windy road that doesn’t make any sense half the time,” is her answer.
“When I was competing in athletics I always did other things – so I went to college, eventually did a Masters in business management, and I would have worked a little bit and I also went to cookery school.”
She became interested in the healthy living trend and particularly what she learned from cookery school. Her first book was about showing people how to eat healthy food.
“For the second book because I left being a professional athlete and became really short on time, I had to all of a sudden realise ‘oh my God, nobody has time, it’s not just me, it’s really hard to get stuff done’,” she recalled.
“So for the second book I wanted it to be for people who were really time-short but they wanted to put in the effort to being fit and healthy, and I wrote it from that perspective.”
In 2004, she was struck down with appendicitis. Her subsequent Olympics performance was affected by that – something she calls “a big kick in the teeth”.
I was young and when you’re young you have that naive optimism that everything that you want to go well will go well. And when you get a big kick in the teeth all of a sudden you have to face reality of what can I do better, and I had to become more responsible.
And I thought OK I have to take some responsibility, and taking responsibility for how I ate and performed, and it became something really important to me. But also at the same time I am very fond of really nice food and the bit of craic and social experience of eating food, so for me it had to be enjoyable at the same time.
She believes everybody can be healthy – but it’s about an individual approach and not expecting everyone to eat like an Olympian.
“I think it’s about being a little bit better yourself and looking at your own level. I’m not into prescribed diets and prescribed training plans because I think we’re all individuals and I just don’t think everything works for everybody,” she said.
I enjoy a glass of wine and the odd slice of cake and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
With that in mind, here are O’Rourke’s top tips for living a healthy life:
Dining al desko
One of the cornerstones of O’Rourke’s Fit Foodie approach is ‘dining al desko’ – that is, bringing your lunch into to work with you. Sandwiches made with white processed bread probably aren’t what she’s talking about here…
Here are her tips:
What are your own health and fitness tips? Tell us in the comments.
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