Andrea McLean is most well known for being a panelist on Loose Women. But after being the longest reigning host on the show, last year the 52-year-old decided to make a leap and announced she was leaving.
“Leaving a show like Loose Women after 13 years was a scary jump, but it just felt like the right time to go. I don't keep in touch with everybody, but funnily enough I'm going to see Brenda on Thursday and I've seen Saira.
“It's definitely been a big adjustment, because obviously I'm now working for myself rather than working for ITV.”
During the pandemic Andrea and her husband, Nick, both trained as life coaches and launched their website ‘This Girl Is On Fire’, an online membership platform that helps women to feel good about themselves and teaches them how to think differently. Did she find it scary making this career leap in her 50s?
“It really was,” she insists. “I've made big leaps before career wise, but I was in my 20s. I really wanted to become a journalist, my parents had moved abroad, I was in a flat share with a girlfriend living up north and I packed up everything I owned onto the backseat of my car and drove to London. I slept on floors, I worked for free and then I got a house share. I did all of that to try and start a career in London with no contacts, so I’d already done that big career leap, but back then I had nothing to lose.
“It's really hard to make a big career change when you're in your 50s because you have a family to support, you have bills and a mortgage, there's a lot more people relying on you and I think that's why most of us don't do it.”
So what would her advice be to those women who want to be brave but don’t quite feel ready yet?
“Write a blueprint for failure. People are really obsessed with their vision boards and their success path and that's really important, but you also need to look failure in the face and say ‘Right what can happen if this doesn't work?’ or ‘Ok what if that doesn't work?’. Once you realise you have a solution it's not scary anymore.
“The worst thing that can happen is it doesn't work. But I would rather try and something doesn't work, than wish I'd given it a go.”
As well as inspiring women to take charge of their own lives, over the years Andrea has been a breath of fresh air when it comes to speaking up about the menopause, which she managed by having HRT. Although she tells us her honesty wasn’t well received to begin with: “I got a lot of trolling, which I've never really spoken about, from other women who were very angry with me that I was speaking about it.
"There were women who felt that the menopause is something that is totally natural and that everyone just needs to keep quiet and crack on, because otherwise we're seen as weak and I thought that was very sad. We wouldn't do that with pregnancy, you wouldn't expect someone to strap their tummy down and pretend they’re not having a baby, because you're going through a moment in your life and it's the same with the menopause. So for me, being open about it and getting help rather than just suffering in silence made a big difference.”
Anxiety is something Andrea has spoken openly about before, but she says this became increasingly worse during the menopause. Having HRT was the first step to managing this, but also learning to change her state of mind if she felt a sense of panic occuring.
“Whether I can feel my mind start to whirl with anxiety or whether I’m starting to slide and feel low, I change my state.” she says. “That can be anything, like putting some music on and jumping around to going for a walk, it’s doing something that actually moves your body, because what you find is when you start to feel anxious you tend to sit still and everything just stays in you. The biggest game changer is to move, because it actually distracts you a bit and then you start to feel better.”
There’s no denying Andrea was always glowing whenever she appeared on our TV screens, so of course we had to ask about her beauty secrets and how she keeps her skin looking so plump at 52.
“It sounds really basic, but staying hydrated from the inside is really important, especially during the winter where we sort of forget, so I always make sure I have a stainless steel bottle with me wherever I go.”
She also swears by Pure Skin’s PureHydro super-facial, an 8-in-1 high-tech treatment which includes infusing the skin at a deep level with serums, exfoliation, resurfacing and even fire and ice.
“When you get to 52 and you have a facial it's not like it was when you’re in your 20s where it's nice just to lie down for a minute and someone rubs creams on you and runs off, you actually want them to do something and make a difference. I've kept going with these facials because you can genuinely see a difference, you walk out and your face looks clean and glowing and you really feel like you've had a proper treatment.”
As well as being a life coach, a mum and a bestselling author, Andrea’s currently working on another book called ‘You Just Need To Believe It’, which we’re very excited about. Although the book is for everyone, she says it’s particularly for women who are scared to try something new or break old habits and has described it as “her most powerful book to date”. It’s due out early next year and will help women change their life in 10 days by doing 10 different challenges.
“It was inspired by a challenge that I put together for my community of women last January. So many women had contacted me after leaving Loose Women saying ‘You're so brave, I couldn't do what you just did, but I really want to, but I'm scared’. So I did some research and I put a 10 day challenge together to show women 10 different ways, one a day, that they could do to flip their mindset round and look themselves in the mirror and realise that they are brave. And it worked, so I decided to make it into a book and really dig more deeply into the research behind every challenge. It's tried and tested so I know it works. I can't wait for it to come out, it's going to be great!
Understandably, Andrea didn’t give anything away on the 10 challenges, so it looks like we’re going to have to wait until next year before we can give them a go ourselves. We can’t wait!
Pure Skin’s PureHydro Facials are available nationwide at local clinics, spas and salons.
Andrea's new book is available to pre-order now
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You Just Need to Believe It: 10 Ways in 10 Days to Unlock Your Courage and Reclaim Your Power
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