Hi Ella, tell us about you and your work.
I’m the founder and creative director at deliciously ella. I started deliciously ella as a recipe website in 2012. In 2011, I had been diagnosed with a condition that impaired the functioning of my autonomic nervous system, and after a year in and out of hospital with no real improvement, I looked to a change in diet and lifestyle to try and manage my symptoms. The website went on to have 130 million hits over the next three years, and in 2015, I released my debut cookbook, which became the fastest selling debut cookbook of all time in the UK. In mid-2015, I started working with my now husband, Matthew, to start a plant-based food and wellness company. We now have a central London café; a range of food products in over 7,000 stores across the UK; five best-selling cookbooks; an app with over 600 recipes and 200 exercise videos; and a growing social media following of over three million people. It’s been a very busy few years!
How and why did your interest in gut health start?
The more I learnt about nutrition the clearer it was the gut health was intricately involved in our wellbeing, and I’ve definitely seen first-hand the benefits of improving my gut health too – once I addressed that I saw a huge improvement in my symptoms.
What are your top tips for looking after your physical health?
Do what you enjoy. A healthy lifestyle is a genuinely enjoyable one, one that you look forward to – find practices that you love and that make you feel good and never feel you need to do something just because someone else is. Look for long-term changes that enhance your life, not take away from it – fun not deprivation every time. For me that’s early morning family walks with our daughter and dog, time on my yoga mat for a good stretch and cooking delicious meals full of herbs, spices, veggies and flavour.
Stay away from rabbit food! Healthy eating should celebrate great ingredients, textures and flavours; it should be rich, colourful and abundant and it should satisfy you physically and mentally. Stay away from bland salads and drop any preconceptions that eating well is about just lettuce, grated carrot and cucumber. Instead think sautéed spices in coconut milk curries and dahls, miso marinated roasted veggies, peanutty noodles and banana bread.
And your mental health?
I think it’s very similar – what can you do that is genuinely manageable and achievable on a day-to-day basis that truly supports you? For me that’s a five-minute meditation or breathing exercise first thing in the morning, before I get my daughters up, and making sure I get some fresh air every day.
When have you struggled with your health the most?
When I was ill, I got to a really dark place and hit a true rock bottom. This was the turning point for me, it was when I knew something had to change.
How did you hear about Symprove and how long have you been taking it?
I went to see a nutritional therapist a few years after I changed my diet to get some advice on what else I could do to support my return to health. Alice recommended the product and I’ve taken it pretty much every day since then, which is about five years now.
What motivated you to get involved with Symprove?
I just love the product, my husband and I both take it every day and I truly swear by it.
What do you do in your ten-minute wait after you've taken your Symprove?
Make coffee! Coffee is such a ritual in our house, you just can’t beat a big, hot, frothy coffee first thing. I make us both a cup and bring it back upstairs.
Morning person, or night owl?
Morning person 100%. I’m useless in the evening and always most productive very first thing.
Mango and Passion Fruit or Original?
Original
