Alan Titchmarsh lifts lid on secret health battle after 60 years of gardening
Alan Titchmarsh has had to pay the price for spending his life beautifying the earth, after spending decades leaning over to tend to his shrubbery and flowers
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Alan Titchmarsh has lifted the lid on his secret health battle after spending 60 years hunched over gardening.
The ITV daytime star revealed spending decades leaning over, tending to shrubbery and flowers, has left him with a bad back.
Gardening expert Alan, 71, lives in a beautiful home surrounded by nature in Hampshire with his wife Alison.
The ex-Ground Force star told Wise Living Magazine earlier this year: "I live in a spot which is beautiful and which I hope I've made more beautiful.“
"Beautifying the earth on whatever scale is the most glorious privilege," he continued.
But Alan has had to pay the price for that beauty, admitting: "I get a bit of backache from 60 years of gardening.”
The pensioner was spotted looking better than ever earlier this year, after spending the nationwide lockdown trimming his garden - and his waistline.
Alan dropped more than a stone as a result of maintaining his acre of “proper garden” and three acres of wildflower meadow and his wildlife pond.
Due to the pandemic, the green-fingered telly host embarked on the challenge without his usual army of professional helpers.
He tackled it all alone since late March, every day from 9am to 6pm – and revealed that it has also been a wake-up call.
In 2014, the botany genius revealed he was taking statins to avoid the heart disease that killed his dad and other male relatives.
Alan revealed to the Mirror he had stared taking medication to lower his cholesterol levels.
He admitted at the time: “I’m on statins. I wish I wasn’t. I don’t like the thought of taking tablets every day, but I’m following my doctor’s advice. He thinks it’s a good idea.
“The thing is, the men in my family have had a tendency to die from heart disease at a relatively young age. My dad, for instance, died suddenly in 1986 from a heart attack, aged just 62.”
The telly star previously admitted that outliving his dad had forced him to think more carefully about his health and looking after himself.
“Outliving my dad has made me think about things,” he said.
“The truth of the matter is that I’ve decided to ease up a bit, and pace myself.”
Despite his vow to slow up, Alan was recently revealed as the frontman on an ITV show to rival BBC’s Countryfile.
Aimed at viewers who do not like Sunday morning politics or cookery shows, Love Your Weekend - which goes head-to-head with The Andrew Marr Show - is billed as a celebration of “all that is great about the British countryside, art, crafts, manufacturing and produce”.
Titchmarsh said: “It seemed to me it’s such an obvious gap on a weekend morning, where it’s either politics or cooking and you might not want either at the weekend, good as they are.”
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