As she shows off her slender figure in a new photoshoot, Michelle Keegan admits eating healthily and focusing on her fitness has become her way of life.
But the former Corrie actress, married to fellow fitness fanatic Mark Wright, admits she was not always a gym bunny.
“I hated PE at school,” she recalls.
“I’d pretend I’d forgotten my kit because I used to get so embarrassed about always coming last in things. In netball, no one threw me the ball because they knew I couldn’t catch it.”
Now, however, her attitude to working out has completely changed.
“I love how the gym makes me feel,” she says.
“Fitness and eating healthily is my lifestyle now.”
She admits she would consider launching a fitness project like her husband Mark has, though adds: “A few years ago, I would have said no.
“A workout is such a personal thing – it’s you and your body – and I think I’m always going to have that self-conscious feeling.
Michelle, 33, says the past few years have seen her mature and feel more comfortable in her own skin.
“Turning 30 really changed my perspective on things,” she says.
“I’ve grown as a person and I’m a lot more confident now.”
Meanwhile, she complains that sexist attitudes mean that she is constantly bombarded with questions about whether she will start a family - whereas her husband Mark is not.
“I do think it’s different for a woman,” she tells Women’s Health.
“It shouldn’t be, but it is. I get asked about children whereas Mark wouldn’t, for example. Why haven’t I had a child? When am I going to have a child?
“I don’t know what they want me to say. I don’t know what the right or wrong answer is.”
Read the full Michelle Keegan interview in the February issue of Women’s Health UK, on sale now.
