Speaking exclusively in the February issue of woman&home, cover star Ranvir Singh explains how she has undergone a physical and inward transformation over the past few months after overhauling her diet, fitness and mindset.
As well as dropping a dress size by sticking to regular weight workouts and a more mindful approach to eating, she told how she has squashed her inner critic by consistently reminding herself that she is a 'good person'.
As well as becoming 'kinder' and 'a better friend' to herself, Ranvir feels liberated by now being able to embrace the unknown.
She told us: 'The idea of this makes the future exciting. I don’t feel worried about embarrassment as much, I’m not worried about failure as much, I’m not worried about perfection as much, I’m not worried about whether I’m thin or fat, but just more about being true to my values. That’s more important now as self-talk than going, ‘You look like a pot-bellied pig’ or ‘you look like a whale today’ or ‘I don’t want to stand next to XYZ on the red carpet because I’ll look like s***.’
ITV shake-up
It’s five years since Ranvir first filled in for daytime telly queen Lorraine Kelly on her Lorraine show in December 2020. She went on to guest present during Lorraine’s holidays and regularly on Fridays.
But due to a money-saving shake-up to ITV’s daytime telly schedule, the popular programme air time has been reduced from an hour to 30 minutes and its run slashed to 30 weeks from 52. But although Ranvir will no longer guest present Lorraine, her hours will be extended on Good Morning Britain, which has been allocated an extra half-hour daily airtime.
At a time when short-form content can lead to the oversimplification of complex topics, Ranvir praised the breakfast show’s role as a trusted deliverer of information to its daily 700,000 viewers.
She said: 'It’s a competitive place for people’s attention, whether in magazines, television or film but what GMB has cemented itself permanently in doing for our audience is we’re always ahead of the curve.
'We’re explaining [what’s happening in] the world. It’s not a Tweet, an Instagram post or something on TikTok. It’s a conversation. You can hear people talking and the audience picks up on nuance in a way that you can’t in short-form media. That, I think, people still want. They also want people that they trust and who feel familiar to them talking to them and listening to them.'
Career goals
Her presenting gig on daytime show Lorraine is over, but with a new year comes new career goals and for Good Morning Britain host Ranvir Singh that includes landing a TV gig far away from ITV’s London studios.
In our exclusive interview, the journalist and TV presenter revealed: 'I’d love to do [Celebrity] Race Across The World. Anita Rani’s doing it with her dad at the moment, and I want to do it with my son Tushaan, so hopefully it’s still going in five years!'
Thirteen-year-old Tushaan and single mum Ranvir, 48, have travelled plentifully together over the years, specifically over Christmas when they’ve taken trips to the Caribbean, Abu Dhabi and Scotland.
Recently, Ranvir took part in Gary Lineker’s brand new ITV game show The Box, which sees celebrity contestants put in giant yellow containers and transported to mystery locations where they take part in challenges.
Admitting that competing in the programme, which has been described as a cross between I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and SAS: Who Dares, properly tested her boundaries, she said: 'The Box is bonkers and very out of my comfort zone, so it’s very different for me because you have to surrender to the unknown. Maybe that’s part of my evolution - not feeling like I need to know the outcome of everything.'
'A true gentleman'
Ranvir also paid tribute to her former colleague John Stapleton, who died in September at the age of 79, 13 months after sharing his diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease.
Speaking movingly about his motivating words of support over the years, she said: 'What a man and a true gentleman. He’d say to me, ‘Keep being you, love. Just keep being you. There isn’t another one out there like you so all you have to do is keep being you’. He also often said to me, ‘Always be the solution, don’t be the problem,’ and I’ve used that phrase so much, including with kids who are on work experience. If you’re disgruntled, always present a solution. He instilled that in me. He was a very calming, very motivating voice and presence and very supportive.
'The best thing was that I’d seen him eight weeks before. We’d had a lovely pub lunch - me, Ben Shepherd, John and a couple of the editors. It’s very hard to think of him as gone.'
Read Ranvir’s exclusive interview in the February issue of woman&home, on sale now.
