{"id":632991,"date":"2026-03-05T02:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T02:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/632991\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T02:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T02:48:17","slug":"dame-prue-leith-reveals-her-exact-exercise-routine-to-stay-fit-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/632991\/","title":{"rendered":"Dame Prue Leith reveals her exact exercise routine to stay fit at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you find exercise boring or have made countless fitness resolutions only to break them, you\u2019re in good company. Dame Prue Leith has revealed her relationship with exercise \u2018for the sake of exercise\u2019, saying she finds it \u2018painful and unbelievably boring\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u2018Being tortured on a Pilates reformer<\/a> machine, forcing oneself out into the rain to go running<\/a> or doing push-ups on the bedroom floor are all variations of hell for me. Ditto yoga, steps, spinning and the rest,\u2019 she says. \u2018I greatly admire people who stick to these regimes, even profess to enjoy them. At various times in my life, I\u2019ve joined gyms that I never went to (I think they probably make as much money from back-sliding members like me as they do from active ones), I\u2019ve hired personal trainers and soon un-hired them, and made countless resolutions about exercise and diet that I\u2019ve never stuck to.\u2019<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve made countless resolutions about exercise and diet that I\u2019ve never stuck to<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, how does she stay healthy and fit enough<\/a> to endure long days of filming and cooking in her 80s? \u2018I do, it\u2019s true, a dozen exercises and stretches religiously every morning,\u2019 she says in her new book<\/a>, Being Old And Learning To Love It!: \u2018They were prescribed by a physio to hold back the effects of old age. But I hate them so much I have got the routine down to less than 10 minutes,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

Dame Prue reveals<\/a> her exact routine. <\/p>\n

As well as bouncing \u2018up and down on my toes until my ankles ache\u2019, she explains how she \u2018gallops\u2019 through the rest of her daily exercises. \u2018The drill consists of rolling your legs from side to side 30 times while flat on your back, then 30 leg lifts, 30 bicycling your legs in the air, 30 wiggling toes and feet, and so on,\u2019 she says in her book. \u2018That lot happens while I\u2019m on my back on the bed before I haul myself out of it in the morning. Then there are 10 squats and half a dozen standing leg and body and balancing routines, all done at a gallop. Better than nothing, I tell myself.\u2019<\/p>\n

As she\u2019s got older, Dame Prue\u2019s had to curtail her two great loves, tennis and horse-riding. \u2018As I\u2019ve got older, I\u2019ve reluctantly adapted,\u2019 she adds. \u2018I like to think I get plenty of exercise. I\u2019m on my feet a lot, in the garden or filming, cooking and so on. Once, I bought a Fitbit, thinking it would prove that I did plenty of daily steps. When it declared I only did 4,000, I gave it away \u2013 I don\u2019t like bad news!\u2019<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you find exercise boring or have made countless fitness resolutions only to break them, you\u2019re in good…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":632992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[38],"tags":[192698,2392,269973,1201,1198,3181,210,1200,269972,269971,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-632991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-192698","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-9c021057-f0f2-4f0e-b5c4-f253c80fa508","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-fitness","tag-hasproduct-true","tag-health","tag-locale-gb","tag-reveals-her-exact-exercise-routine","tag-shorttitle-prue-leith","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116174291490483731","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}