Strictly’s Shirley Ballas reveals she’s eaten the same meal backstage at show for SIX years in bid to stay slim
STRICTLY Come Dancing’s head judge Shirley Ballas has revealed she’s eaten the same grub backstage for a whopping six years.
Wirral-born Shirley, 63, who replaced the late Len Goodman back in 2017, said although she would enjoy tucking into the lavish carb and sugar-laden food laid on for the Strictly 2023 line-up, she walks around the table and looks at it instead.
Asked what the food was like backstage, Shirley told us: “Very good for everybody else. I don’t do catering.
“I have seen the food at Strictly. I like to walk around the table because they have lots of yummy cakes and sweets and biscuits, and they have all sorts of fantastic food.
“But it definitely is calorie food because obviously the dancers are dancing all day and of course they’re young with fabulous bodies.”
Confirming her longstanding eating routine, she added: “No. I get my chicken from Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s. It’s been cooked.
“Just lemon chicken. And then I cut it, but it’s hot and it’s just been baked.
“They bring me a lot of salad and we might have a little bit of sushi in the afternoon perhaps.
“And that’s what I have on Strictly and I’ve had that every year, every week for six years.”
Asked on the Comfort Eating podcast which of the available food she would have if she didn’t adhere to her self-imposed ban, she added: ”Macaroni and cheese, fresh mashed potatoes, anything with a gravy on it, rice with lots of fried chicken, anything – as long as it’s not spiced.
“The only thing I don’t do is eat spiced.”
Just last month, Shirley told how she lost 9lbs in seven days.
She recently spent a week on a luxury juice retreat in Portugal and insisted she would stick to her new healthy habits when she touched down on home turf.
This summer, Shirley said: “I lost 9lb. Yoga is definitely something I’m going to keep up throughout the whole Strictly series.
“I have cleansed my system too, I do colonic irrigation, I’m up at 5am every morning.”
The dancer added to MailOnline: “I wasn’t there to sunbathe, I was there to take every spin class, two hours hiking up hills that would put my heart rate close to 179, that’s how high we were going.
“It was a tough, tough week of hard work but I came back really rejuvenated.”
Meanwhile, last year, Shirley opened up on her gut health nightmare.
The BBC star exclusively told The Sun: “For many, many years, my body was absolutely not in sync with itself.
“I didn’t tend to go to the bathroom but once a week.”
She had pain, bloating and constipation for decades.
“Maybe it was a little easier while I was competing, because when you get nervous that seems to help the system a little bit,” she said.
Yet it’s only in the last 18 months that she’s finally gotten a handle on her gut health.
Shirley added: “I was always looking for something that could help me line up my system and make me feel better.”
The Queen of Latin came across Symprove – a liquid probiotic – on social media and hasn’t looked back.