If you are a dynamic person, who treats life as a race, there is sanctuary to be found in the gym. Especially if you are of a certain age. For someone who has long regarded fitness as something that needed to be achieved in record time in order to shed weight (invariably in record time too), it’s liberating to discover that, at a certain point in life, there is more to be gained in challenging your body in kinder, more compassionate ways.
Whether we like it or not, our bodies change shape during our lifetime. A 50-year-old woman who weighs exactly the same as she did at the age of 20 cuts a very different figure – fuller in some places, angular in others. Her stomach will be more convex, her waist a bit thicker, her hip-bones less defined, her collar-bones more pronounced, her bust less full and high, the skin on her thighs and arms apt to give a bit with every passing year. The effect is generally softer and squashier as muscle gives way to fat. This tendency is independent of, though obviously enhanced by, reduced activity levels in later life. From your early 20’s, unless you increase your activity level considerably, working out several times a week every week, you will sacrifice about 200 grams (half a pound) of muscle for the same amount of fat every year. The visible consequence is a spreading middle, bottom and thighs. And clothes that feel as if they must have shrunk in the drier. Since fat is a lot lighter than muscle, the woman who steps on the scales and discovers to her delight that she hasn’t put on an ounce may also be mystified to discover she has gone up a whole dress size, or more.
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Have you ever smelled a pineapple marigold? This sun-loving shrub, sometimes called a “pineapple crush”, is more lemon-y than pineapple-y: it has the most vivifying scent – a clean, fizzing aroma with a wisp of sweetness that evokes the smell of Limoncello, the Italian liqueur made with the zest of Sorrento lemons. Predictably then, the pineapple marigold, which I grow in my garden, takes me straight to the Italian Riviera and Capri, every time I stick my nose into its acid yellow blooms. You can see where this is going now can’t you?
Legology followers on VH will know that Capri holds a special place in my heart, being the location of The Leg School, the clinic that consolidated my ideas on leg health, and how this – and the energy it engenders – impacts our overall wellbeing. And lemons are very much part of that story and the conclusion I aim to bring you. Although treatments at the clinic didn’t involve lemon oil, the daily diet did. Lemons are Capri’s de facto symbol. Locally grown ones, used to scent soap and cologne, and to flavour oils and drinks (see below for my version of Capri’s “granita di limone”), have a distinctive aroma, a sparkling sweetness which, like the “pineapple crush”, seems to merge sunshine, freshness and sea air with its citrus notes. The Leg School therapists encourage guests to make lemon a diet bedrock – to drink lemon tea, sprinkle lemon juice onto food or add it to hot water – because it has such an excellent alkalising effect on the digestion (read my feature on the 80/20 diet published here in January to discover why this is so helpful to your legs). It’s also replete with citro-bioflavonoids, plant metabolites which may enhance circulation by boosting capillary flow.
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I’m about to embark on my 26th summer of beauty. Over quarter of a century’s worth of reviews on products that better a near naked body – the shape-makers, skin-fakers and system-shakers that target personal insecurities, be they excess hair, cellulite, puffy ankles and slack skin – has given me firm views on what makes one topical better than another.
Where the health and shape of our legs go, my criterion has never just been about the product itself but the whole approach. As VH-ers know, my take on leg beauty is integrated: I believe that the quest for better legs does not rest on the one-off purchase of a new contouring cream every summer, but on a ritual that runs like a ribbon through your year and incorporates a certain attention to detail in the way you live your life. I have the same philosophy over skin care. And I look for this kind of holistic guidance from a product: if it’s offered to give the user a better chance of achieving a goal (be it reducing cellulite or perhaps enhancing a slow lymph) over time, that’s a big fat tick from me. Course, in these quick-fix times, I realise that there is a thirst for immediacy and I wholeheartedly agree that topicals should give some instant gratification: expectations need managing, but you still need to feel encouraged and elated, as well as supported in the long-term. I absolutely want a product that will make my legs feel slimmer and lighter – allowing me to feel more energised and confident – in just one application. And I absolutely know this is possible.
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I hesitate to mention the word ‘diet’ at this point as I imagine most of you are heartily fed up with it by now, especially if happens to be prefixed by ‘detox’, but mention it I must because diet is part of the science that gives you better legs. And not just any diet.
At the turn of the last century an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto came up with a new rule, the Pareto Principle, having observed that 80% of the peas on his dinner plate came from 20% of the pods grown in his vegetable garden. Pareto’s was the law of the vital few or of factor sparsity. The point of the peas was that they showed how, in many cases in life, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Stay with me.
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Regular visitors to this page will know that The Legologist takes a rather alternative view to leg care. The golden rules – exercise and brushing/exfoliating to enhance circulation, massage, diet and creams to counter fluid retention and help skin elasticity – are all part of my approach, but the fundamental difference between what I believe to be the science behind great legs and, it appears, what everyone else does, is that it is not all about cellulite. Actually, I have a real bee in my bonnet about this: the way I see it is that leg care has been hijacked by beauty companies looking to gain with a one-stop fix for cellulite. As such our best interests are not being served because the bigger picture isn’t being addressed, and it should be: legs aren’t just about cellulite – there are 101 other leggy issues that need to be addressed, some of which are linked to the factors that contribute to it. Cellulite is an external sign of aspects of your wellbeing, from the workings of your circulation to your body’s waste disposal, so trying to get rid of it completely with something from a bottle is futile. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it till I die: cellulite, a natural phenomena, just cannot be tackled with topical ‘cures’ alone.
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Are you sitting comfortably? If you are anything like me you will be on the edge of your seat with your legs crossed and one leg jiggling up and down beneath the desk. I ask because if you have problems with your knees – be it aches, twinges or creakiness – the way you sit may be the cause, especially if it tends to always be in the same position.
One of the biggest myths about knee pain is that it only occurs with activity: nagging pain can be as much of a problem when you’re sitting, irrespective of your age (so you don’t have to be an octagenarian), for long periods. Ever felt twinges while at the movies or in the car and got restless as a result? Exactly. It’s called patellofemoral pain syndrome (PPS), is surprisingly common, can occur in one or both knees and gets worse the longer you sit there. PPS is felt at the front of your knee, in the area of your kneecap (patella), and it’s usually caused by the compression of the patella and cartilage underneath.
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It has occurred to me, as I sit nursing some very stiff calves, that this is a timely moment to be writing about shock prevention for your limbs during and after exercise. There is a great deal of focus on performance fabric now – glorified leggings, shorts (and skorts, the hybrid short-skirt) and trackies that aim to maximise a workout through the sheer intelligence of fabric and cut. The humble legging now offers compression benefits to give maximum muscle support and recovery, reduce muscle vibration and conserve energy; some of it claims to burn calories more quickly and sweat off extra pounds too.
There is a lot to be said for this – and the other thoughtful little details like chafe-resistant flat seams, body-mapped perforation for airflow, built-in reflective designs, deodorising panels and nifty little iPod/key/purse pockets. For a start the best of this gear really does make you look more streamlined while you pound away, and that can only be a good thing if you are spending a lot of time working up a sweat in a mirrored room.
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It often only warrants a sentence in self-help articles for legs – sometimes it doesn’t even get a mention. But the simple ‘hydro flash’ method – using a showerhead to spritz your legs with intermittent blasts of warm and cool water a few times after each shower/bath – is one of the best things you can do for your legs, especially if you have a sluggish circulation, a tendency to retain fluid, stubborn fat deposits and dull skin.
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Let’s start this one with a question: how much, if any, body moisturiser do you use? Is it a daily post-shower habit or a high-days-and-holidays treat – something you do when your shins have begun to look like a dry river-bed and your hips are so dry they actually itch?
Most of us, dare I say it, fall into the latter group, sloshing cream on with abandon – tra-la-la-la-la – the first (and only) warm week of the year, when we have to get our legs out, then letting dust collect on the same jar for the rest of it. Now, allow me to change all that with one bold statement: dry, slack skin is what makes the difference between the shape of your legs, and any cellulite because the difference skin tone makes to the appearance of your legs is remarkable. French women know this. Which is why, along with a good glass of wine and an even better haircut, body moisturiser, the secret to supple skin and more, is one of their beauty staples. They realise that daily application of it, be it scented cream or leg-lightening diuretic oil, works real magic.
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In the absence of an actual holiday this summer The Legologist has often found her mind drifting off to the Italian Riviera, back to Capri, island of legs and carefree escape. I first went there in 2009, with a commission from the Telegraph Magazine to review The Leg School, a clinic at The Capri Palace Hotel. I had no idea that what I’d find there would change much of my work focus, consolidate some theories I already had about leg care and confidence, and give me a whole new reason for working in the business I do.
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