She said she addressed those issues in her book and said it was important that the sport “gives a healthy impression on the viewers as well, so that it should inspire people to cycle”.
Some of her recipes were meals she “learned to make to support my training, but now I eat as part of a healthy lifestyle”.
However, she said attitudes had “changed for the better and there was a lot of really well-founded science-based thinking in cycling and other sports about a balanced diet and a healthy body”.
“Some people are naturally very slim and some aren’t and you can’t force everybody to look the same,” Pooley said.
“No-one forced calorie restriction upon me, it was because I was told it was better to be thin and I looked around me and saw lots of thin people so I inflicted it upon myself, but I realised… the more I ate the faster I went.
“Now I realise that I was over-restricting and so a lot of people realise it’s not about restriction, it’s about healthy fuel.
“My point is that enjoyment is a really big part of… healthiness.”