I’m turning 50 next year and I have made myself a promise – to get as fit and healthy as I can.
My mum was 52 when she had breast cancer. She was treated and got over it, but that number has always sat in the back of my mind. My children have reached ages where they’ve started asking: ‘Mummy, are you and Daddy going to die one day?’
In midlife you appreciate all the more how precious health and life is. When I first became a mum 13 years ago, I gave myself over completely to motherhood. I’ve devoted everything to Eva and her siblings (Kit, 11, Noah, nine, and Boe, four) and, naturally, in the process of raising them – especially when I had three under five – I stopped putting myself first.
This is not a complaint. I love being engulfed in the chaos of it all and, to be honest, I’m not very high-maintenance. I cut my own hair, I don’t even wear make-up unless I’m working and very occasionally I get my eyelashes tinted. For over a decade, every day was devoted to my kids’ needs.
I stepped back a lot from my TV and acting work (though obviously I’ve always jumped at the chance to do the Gavin & Stacey specials) and poured everything into raising them, because I genuinely loved the feeling of being needed.
Then last year, when I turned 48, I realised you can’t control most things in life but you can at least check what’s going on with your own body.
So I had a run of NHS health checks – a mammogram, smear test, bowel cancer screening and blood tests – and the BMI test confirmed that I was overweight. I wasn’t remotely surprised. In the process of giving my kids all of me, I let healthy habits slip.
When I first became a mum 13 years ago I gave myself over completely to motherhood, writes Joanna Page
My children are everything I wanted in my 20s when I was a petite size 8 and so flat-chested my life’s aim was to hold a pencil under my breasts, the Gavin and Stacey star writes
After tucking them into bed, I’d dive into cheese on toast, crisps or chocolate and a late-night coffee. That wouldn’t have been so bad, I guess, but I hardly ever included fruit or veg in my daily diet.
I never touched breakfast so when hunger struck at 11am, I’d scoff 11 custard creams. I also wasn’t doing much exercise at all.
After the test results, I started worrying about diabetes, strokes and heart disease – long-term health complications I just can’t risk as a mum of four.
For 13 years, my body was for them. I breast-fed on demand off and on for 12 years and loved being mumsy. At my heaviest after the pandemic, I was cooking endless pies and potatoes every day and, like most people at the time, I was drinking more than usual.
Annoyingly, I didn’t carry the weight I gained in a Marilyn Monroe, hourglass way. I’m 5ft 2in and was like a little round apple. I never disliked the way I looked or felt unattractive but I was aware that holding fat around my waist was a health risk.
So after stopping breastfeeding Boe last September I decided to make some lifestyle changes, but not in a manic way. Rather than suddenly cutting food out and feeling miserable, I got into a mindset of adding the good stuff in. Instead of thinking: ‘No more biscuits,’ I thought, ‘Today I’m adding in water or three apples’.
Now I eat three proper meals a day, including a three-egg omelette with ham and cheese in the morning, and I consume less sugar because I’m not snacking between meals. I still have chocolate and crisps but they’re no longer my main food source!
Quick weight-loss fixes are commonplace these days but I knew that without sorting the root of the problem, I’d end up back where I started, so I needed to change the way I was living. Now I also do the odd weights workout at home, plus lovely daily walks with our spaniels Bess and Lola and the occasional swim in my local lido.
Six months later, I’m down a couple of dress sizes but thankfully I’ve kept my curves and boobs.
They’re everything I wanted in my 20s when I was a petite size 8 and so flat-chested my life’s aim was to hold a pencil under my breasts. Now I can hold a big bottle of bubble bath, a TV remote control and loads of Kit’s action figures!
The other day, I said to my husband of more than 20 years: ‘James, look at this!’ When he turned around, I had a big Lego boat under there.
I definitely feel sexier now than I did in my 20s, but these days sexiness comes mostly from how good I feel inside – and I love rediscovering the old Jo.
Suddenly, I’ve got pockets of time at home without any children and that space for me is lush. My plan is to start doing yoga, join the local gym and keep going to the lido.
So far, all I’ve done is tidy the house and watch The Diplomat on Netflix but after putting in a solid shift as a full-time mum for 13 years, I don’t feel guilty for now prioritising myself.
I’m learning that it’s OK to have a bath or read a book for half an hour and I’ve noticed that by giving a bit back to myself, I’m no longer so tired and stressed. The other day, I actually thought: ‘Oh my God, I’ve got my sense of humour back!’
Getting here hasn’t been straightforward, though.
A couple of years ago, two years after my last birth, I woke feeling low. I felt heaviness, a physical weight on me and over a number of days I sat in bed and sobbed. All I could see was a blackness in front of me.
I was 29 when I was cast as Stacey Shipman in Gavin & Stacey, and I wasn’t bothered about fame, but the show put my home country on the map
Joanna with her co-stars Mathew Horne as Gavin, left, James Corden as Smithy and, right, Ruth Jones as Nessa
Two years after my last birth, I woke feeling low. I felt heaviness, a physical weight on me and over a number of days I sat in bed and sobbed. All I could see was a blackness in front of me
It’s the only time in my life when I’ve not wanted to be around the kids. One morning, I said to James: ‘Nobody loves me, I’m not a good mother and it would be better if I went away.’ James was frantic and a doctor’s appointment was quickly made.
The GP put me on the lowest dose of HRT, which completely lifted my mood – but after a year, I began experiencing anxiety and palpitations, panicking that we were all going to die.
Being my normal, impulsive self and because I deal with a lot of things on my own – probably because I’m an only child – I took myself off HRT and within days, my spirits lifted. I’ve not been back on it since and I feel fine, no mood swings or hot flushes.
Looking back, I think what I experienced was postnatal depression. I had never felt anything like it before – it was a real heaviness and I didn’t quite recognise myself.
The HRT just helped lift me at the time, and because I’m quite in tune with my body, I then knew something wasn’t right for me hormonally, so I came off it.
Earlier this year I started taking two CBD gummies – sweets containing perfectly legal cannabidiol oil – before bed to help me drift off to sleep.
Then I noticed I was getting headaches in the morning so I got some Lion’s Mane gummies – with extract from the mushroom – to help me concentrate. Then I panicked, thinking: ‘I feel like Judy Garland. I’m clearly on uppers and downers. I want to go back to normal again.’
Now I’m on nothing except levothyroxine for an under-active thyroid, which I was diagnosed with in 2004 – it fluctuated during all pregnancies but doesn’t affect me at all – and the odd Berocca.
This calmer, less in-demand and healthier me is doing wonders for my marriage. For years I’ve worn big, wire-free industrial bras but now I’m wearing little vests, which is also making me feel sexier. For the first time in a long time, I feel comfortable in my body again and that confidence naturally feeds into every part of my life – including my relationship with James.
I feel more like myself again and that brings a different energy back between us.
We met on the set of the TV adaptation of David Copperfield way back in 1999 – he was playing Ham Peggotty – and our lives have been through such different phases since then, from carefree to time-poor to now, when we’re just getting a sense of ourselves as a couple back again.
The other day, all the little ones were in school and nursery so we had an impromptu lunch at our local pub in Oxfordshire. We sat outside and talked and talked. We’re reconnecting as Jo and James, not just Mum and Dad.
We’ve co-slept with all four children but it’s only with Boe, our youngest, that I moved into the nursery because there wasn’t the space for us both, occasionally other kids and James in the marital bed! I’m still co-sleeping with her.
People wonder if that affects a marriage and the honest answer is, not mine. Boe’s our fourth and I can’t bring myself to move back in with James yet. I’m clinging on because she’s our last and he’s very understanding.
No matter how tough times have been – especially when we had three under five and were in the pits of hell because nobody was sleeping, we were so exhausted and sick of cooking – we still thought: ‘This will pass.’
James and I know that us sleeping in separate beds won’t last for ever, and when Boe tells me she doesn’t want me beside her anymore, I’ll be back beside him.
Even if I was in our marital bed right now, it wouldn’t make any difference to our marriage.
With four kids, the reality is you’re often exhausted by the end of the day, so you find time for each other wherever you can – and that’s something we’ve always been good at, especially now all the kids are out the house during the day!
I had my fallopian tubes tied four years ago but if I accidentally fell pregnant tomorrow I’d be over the moon because I’m still broody.
If I’d started having children in my 20s, I’d have ended up with way more than four!
This is why James and I have talked about fostering and adoption. We’ve got so much love to give, we’re very patient and understanding and – as actors –very adaptable. When Boe’s older, it’s definitely something we’ll consider. I can imagine us living on a farm in the countryside, like the Waltons, with loads of land and animals.
I was invited by a writer to read a play recently and thought: ‘Oh my God, I remember why I got into acting.’ But with the family, I can’t disappear for six weeks to rehearse and then perform in London every night. My love for the kids overrides fierce ambition.
Right now, I’d much rather focus on TV presenting or do something like a travelogue.
Another side of me would be perfectly happy stepping away from the industry altogether. I’d love to do interior design, work with animals, maybe even train as a counsellor.
I regret dropping psychology during my A-Levels because as I’ve got older, understanding how people think is what really interests me.
If that dream ever happens, my patients will have to be 30 or younger because anyone 40-plus will arrive and go: ‘Jesus Christ, it’s Stacey!’
I was 29 when I was cast as Stacey Shipman in Gavin & Stacey in 2007. That sitcom made my career and it will never not feel extraordinary. The other day, I was with Mat [Mathew Horne who played Gavin] recording our Table For Four podcast and discussing how only we will ever understand how big and special it was to start our careers in a show that became such a cultural moment.
After growing up in Swansea, I left drama school and just wanted to act.
I wasn’t bothered about fame, but Gavin & Stacey put my home country on the map and made being Welsh something to be celebrated, rather than joked about.
‘It made us so famous, people called out our trademark phrases in the street. I still hear, ‘Where’s Gav?’, ‘You’re well lush’ and ‘What’s occurrin’ Stace?’ when I pop out to the supermarket.
As for my 50th birthday next March, I’d prefer to do something a bit mad like a parachute or bungee jump or maybe even sign up for a 10k run than have an enormous party, which would be my worst nightmare.
James and I are really anti- social. Years ago, we did red carpets and went to events like the Baftas, but these days I can’t be bothered. I’d rather stay in, watch it on the telly and have some cheese and sherry.
Right now, I just want to enjoy life. I’m not going to conform, look or sound like everybody else.
Even recording my podcasts – including Lush!, which I do often with James – I love sitting there and just speaking my truth.
At 49, I feel more comfortable in my skin than ever and if this is what getting older feels like, I can’t wait for what’s next.
Lush! The podcast is available to listen to on all podcast platforms.
