Summer series: Liz Ellis on embracing midlife like a queen

Published Dec 18, 2024, 2:00 PM

To kickstart the new year, we’re dropping the top episodes of 2024. Netball legend Liz Ellis discusses how she became the poster girl for midlife women and how she's embracing ageing. 

 

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Welcome to Extra Healthy Ish. Yes, we're living the extra today. You have tune into the Body and Soul podcast. This, of course is the big sister one to Healthy Ish. I am your host of Felicity Holley. Now to celebrate summer, we're dropping our top episodes from the year and wow, you listeners love Liz Ellis. We recorded this back in January yet a little while ago, when she was hosting Gladiators and the former netball legend she's actually the most capped Australian netball player in history. Discusses how she became the poster girl for midlife women and how she's embracing aging.

Oh.

Such an inspiring chat. So yes, we're giving it to you again. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed interviewing her back in jen Before we kick off on talking well about your inspiring midlife journey, can you share with this one Extra healthy Ish goal or tweak or something that you want to ache this year.

Yeah.

I think there's a couple of things that I would like to achieve this year that are sort of extra healthy ish, and one of them is always a perennial or just cut down on alcohol, and I always find that at this time of year, after Christmas.

New birth bat like, oh I really should. So last year I was pretty successful.

I decided I wasn't going to have anything to drink Monday to Thursday, and that makes it easier. Like when your kids are into every single sport, there's actually no time to have a wine, you know, Monday through to Thursday. But it's just about making sure that I don't hit Friday and go yeah but es Central and just you know, take that little bit easier. So and I find, you know, in my fifties this is a bit depressing. I'm sorry to admit this, but hangovers are worse so like, and I don't sleep well when I drink. So it's just about moderating, you know, a couple of nights a week that I do drink to make sure I still get a good night's sleep. And I do pilates once a week, and I'd love to sort of kick it up to twice a week.

Okay, well, let's talk more about it your plartis and I do have to add we actually had a doctor on Extra Healthy ISHU last year who discuss and I did ask him why the hangovers get worse as we age, and he basically said, because your body doesn't function as well as it used to when you're in your twenties. So there's the hop that hurt.

I was like, okay, that answer.

I know, telling it like it is. Anyway, let's talk about midlife. I mean, I feel like you're the poster woman for well, you're not reinventing yourself, you're just having your second act in midlife. How's this midlife moment for you? Is it what you thought it would be?

Like? No, not at all.

So in twenty one, I finished my contract with Channel nine calling the Netball and the rights went to Fox On. I thought this is the perfect time now to have a year off, and so we got the kids, pulled them out of school, bought a caravan and we went around Australia for just over nine months and it was the best thing we've ever done. So we did that in twenty twenty two and we left almost forty years to the day after My prayers did the same thing with my sister and I back in nineteen eighty two.

So I really liked the symmetry.

Yeah, it was great, and we recreated a few photos along the way, which was heaps of fun from our troop, and the kids got so sick of me saying, oh, back when we did this trip, this road was heaps worse than it is now and I'm.

Like, mom, so it's great.

But I got back from that holiday and I thought, I'm fifty, I've got gray hair. That's probably the end of my television career. And I signed up to seek to get all the jobs in my area. I live in rural New South Wales. I used to I used to be a lawyer, so I can go back and do something in that field. I'll figure out what I'm going to do. And then I got a phone call from Stephen Tate, who was the head of entertainment at ten, and he said, would you like to do I'm a celebrity and I said, nah, I'm not doing that, and he went back and forth. He said, let me send you just a sizzle reel, so all the highlights. And I made the mistake of watching it with my daughter, my twelve year old daughter, who said, Mom, you have to do this. I'm like, no, I'm not doing it, So why not? I said, can you imagine what people say if I just, you know, have finished netball and now I'm doing reality TV. And she's like, you know, you always tell us not to worry about what other people say.

And I was like, oh, you know.

You teach your kids good lessons and then they throw it back in your face in the end up in the jungle. So I really was a corner and I did celebrity and I just decided to be me and to not try and win it, but just we'll try not to embarrass Matthew and the kids. And I think a lot of what I said just resonated with women my age and you know, women who were thinking about, you know, embracing the silver hair or going through menopause and having hot flushes and all that sort of stuff. I think if you talk about that people, it resonates with people. And so yeah, I felicity. I am as shocked as anyone at my career change or career resurgence, whatever it is.

And I'm like, I'm on for the ride. I'll just see where we go.

I think, I mean there is something. Look, my family is a fan of that show. I think it's it's more than just reality TV. I mean, you hear those open conversations you're seeing you know, people that you can relate to. You know, there's always someone in there that one of us can relate to or that's on the kind of same page, whether it's an ex athlete, whether it's an influencer, whoever, of all different ages. So, you know, I think it was the perfect pick of reality show to go on.

I was just going to say one of the thing that really appealed to me if I was going to do reality, it was always going to be celebrity because we weren't pitted against each other.

There was no scheming and conniving.

I really liked the fact that we had to work as a team, and you know, I think that makes for good family viewing as well.

Yeah, and do insane challenges. I just want to ask you about one thing being one year on from I'm a Celeb. After the show, you said that a big adjustment for you was that you were a control freak, meal prepping, working mum of two. Now a lot of our listeners fall into this category. How is this playing out for you one year later?

I'm actually it has made me be more relaxed, right because I was away for a month and I cooked the meals and had them in the freezer for Matthew and the kids while the other way because I'm like, oh my god, my family has to eat healthy meals. And that was great. But I got back and there was still ten meals left.

You know, they've gone out and got burgers and fish and chips and things like that when.

I wasn't here. It actually just showed me.

It just gave me a little upcut to say, you know, they'll get by without you. You don't have to be controlling of everything. And I think it just made me pull back a bit. And so now I walk into the house and I just keep my eyes up and don't look at the stuff that's on the floor because the only person at upsets is me. You know, they'll eventually pick it up when they need it. So it's just made me pull back a little bit more. And you know, I think it's actually really good for my kids when I go away because then they have to step up. So just little things like they just started to make their own lunch while I was away in South Africa because they had to, right. Matthew's a farmer, he's got to get to do things. So it has made them more independent. So I think sometimes we think we're helping, but we're not when we get to you know, meal prep this that, have you got?

Have you got that?

Because for my kids, they learned through that time that if they forgot something, they couldn't ring Dad because Dad was often uncontactable up in the hills behind Liz More and Barra and Bay looking after his cows. So you know, the independence for them came through. So it just taught me just to just to step back a bit and just be a bit more relaxed.

Will we be back after this short break with more from Liz. How are the kids coping with this non sporting fame you're experiencing?

Well, you know, it was funny when I did Celebrity.

It was I found out afterwards that the first the first elimination night when I wasn't eliminated, Austin, my seven year old, just burst into tears because he.

Wanted me to come home. I know I will. He will forever be my favorite child. For that was I don't think Evelyn yeah that much.

But then as soon as he got to South Africa and it was going on, you know, jungle rides and looking at lions and elephants, it was pretty happy that I didn't get eliminated.

So yeah, so they thought that was really cool.

My husband when he turned up in the jungle, he was really excited to see me, and then he was like, I had to think twice about giving you a kiss after all the stuff you ate. I'm like, dude, I claim my teeth. It's fine. So they actually think it's cool, and they went to this.

They went onto the.

Set of Gladiators for one of the filming days and they were just riveted and they couldn't believe this show because they had no idea about what it was like. And it was Evelyn's birthday, actually it was her twelfth birthday and the Gladiator's got her a cake and sang her Happy Birthday.

So you'll never forget that, you know.

I think, yeah, no, they won't.

But they're just all they're impressed about with me and my career is that I can introduce them to people who they think are cool.

It's not me that's cool. I'm just I'm the gateway, not the fact.

That you had one of the most amazing sporting careers ever in Australia.

They don't care. You know. One day I came home and on my desktop.

I could see on my computer in the office, I could see this little thumbnail of a netball play with a gold uniform and I thought, oh, Evelyn's downloaded that to use on the background of her school thing. And I got up close and it was Sarah Klowr, who's the current goalkeeper in the Istralian netball team. And I'm like, she doesn't care about my career. She just cares that I know famous netballers. That's all they care about.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I probably can say the same for my kids. They don't care that dad was this amazing footballer. They just want to meet Isaac Haney and Buddy Franklin and all these always Isaac today Dad.

Yeah, you know, I've tried.

I don't know about Tom, but I've tried to share my kids YouTube with me playing netball and they're like, god interested.

Tom is exactly the same. He sits down there and so we're digressing for a minute.

But I just have to share this.

Sits and replays is you know to was it two thousand and seven Grand Final for Geelong against Hawthorne And the boys are like, thanks swimming not watching this.

Thanks for the lesson, dad, But we've got things on that, my kids telling him he and I should start up as support group exactly who kids don't?

Who's care?

Yeah, now back to you. I just need to talk about how inspiring your gray hair is. I mean, to have a TV host with this color hair. I mean, I think you're almost the first. I mean, you're a poster girl for gray hair. Was this how did how do you feel? How did you feel about going great? Was this something that you'd planned or it just kind of happened when you're in the jungle, or just got to happen.

So it actually happened during COVID.

So I've been going gray since I was in my twenties, so I've fought against it, and I got to the point, you know, before COVID, where I was going to the hairdressers every three weeks to get my little skunk line done. And then you know, if I didn't get there every three weeks, you'd do it going to hair and make up at work and they'd be putting mascara in your line. And I just thought, I'm spending three hundred bucks every three weeks and half a day to fight against something that is so inevitable. So when COVID hit and we couldn't get to the hairdressers. You know, my hairdresser still, I still love my hairdresser who's in Sydney, and I couldn't get down to Sydney to get my hair done. I kept watching it. I thought, actually, it's not that bad. I'm going to give it a go. So when I did, we did come out of COVID. I just got into put some blonde highlights in and we grew it out, and I thought I thought Channel and I had have a conniption. No one said a word, no one cared, like we've just been through a major pandemic. You know, your television host having probably helped that. I was hosting a women's sport, so you know, I'm an expert in my field. What color my hair was didn't really matter for my ability to call netball.

So that was sort of the soft landing. But you know, now that I'm not working on netball, it.

Does surprise me that that it's not an issue, because you hear so many Like when you speak to women who worked at television networks, particularly through that eighties early nineties period, you hear horror stories, and I think I like to think that perhaps the networks have grown up a bit, and you know, being at ten at the moment, our CEO is a woman, and you know, the head of the executive producer for Gladiators is a woman, and there's some really senior women and I think they just they doesn't bat an eyelid. So it makes me laugh at a bit of a poster girl for silver hair. I just am grateful to my mum that I've got her color silver. So it's actually not too bad. But the best thing about going gray and accepting your gray is the fact that your hair is thicker, because you know, it's really quite I mean, I do joke and say it's like puby care because it's all coarse, but you know, once you put the straightness through the pubycut, yeah it's fine. So yeah, I thought about it a lot during COVID, and now that it's done, I could not be happier. And that's not to say that if you are going gray you have to embrace. Some people will and some people if you do. It's not like I thought it would be the end of my career and the end of the world. And really, no one's batter than eyelid. Look, my husband thinks it's hot, and that's all that counts.

Absolutely. I think it's great because it just gives us an option, doesn't it. We don't feel like we have to go every three weeks drop three or four hundred dollars and that you know, if you do want to go, it's okay, and nothing will change. People will still admire you and love you for what you do whatever, in whatever industry you are.

That's right. The only person who doesn't like it is my hairdresser. He reckons I'm bad for business.

Yeah, now, just quickly, how are you staying healthy and fit now you're in your fifties?

A couple of couple of ways. I get a lot of my exercise through incidental exercise. So I live on a farm. Husband's a farmer. That makes me a farmer as well. So you know, running after cows when we move cows from sort of one paddic to another, it's my job.

My husband.

I don't know how this has happened, but he drives a car and I get out and chase, so you know, I'm rounding the cows up and pushing them through. So I'm like, you know, the mustard dog that does all the yapping and the work around the back.

So lots of incidental stuff.

I play tennis once a week when I can, I do pilates, and a couple of months ago, I just went on marketplace and bought a second hand gym set and I put that in the garage with some hand weights and an old exercise bike, and I just get out there as often as I can.

You know, sometimes it's when I get home from wherever.

If I'm out and I get out of the car and the handweights are right there, I'd just pump out some curls. Yeah, because it's just sometimes you don't have an hour or forty five minutes to put aside. So if you just do a bit here and there, you still get the same net results. So I'm very big on the incidental exercise.

Yeah, I like it. Now, just before we go, let's give a shout out to gladiators. Tell us a bit about it. Well, why you love it? Why are you host of the show. Have you got a favorite gladiator?

Look, I could say I've got a favorite gladiator, but they're like your children, you know, You're not supposed to have favorites. Although a little special shout out to Phoenix, who might be one of my favorites.

Well, you did just declare your favorite child earlier on.

I that's true. But I'm hoping everyone never listens to this. I've told my children I do have favorites. It just changes depending on who's behaving themselves. So I got the call to do Gladiators. I was so excited because it was such a massive show in the nineties and everyone talked about it.

It was like huge.

And I'd also watch that Netflix documentary The Muscles and Mayhem's so when you know about like the birth of the show and just you know, Mayhem's a really great word for it, and it's history, it actually was.

My first thought was what a privilege.

To be hosting something that has had this really long, really interesting history.

And then my second thought was it's going to be so much fun.

So bo Ryan is my co host, and I describe him he's like a puppy, you know, he's all energy, all energy runs off and he gets some attention from one person that he runs the next person and gets some attention, and you're sort of watching go around. But when it comes to the camera turning on the hosting juties. He's fantastic, and he taught me so much about hosting an entertainment show because I've hosted sports and sports shows, but never an entertainment show.

So I learned a lot. We had so much fun.

I really hope it comes across in the actual show on the telling how much fun we had. We just killed ourselves laughing from start to finish. It was long days filming, but it was so great. And at the heart of it, even though it's entertainment and there's lots of tongue in cheek, at the heart of it is a really good sport.

Contests between the gladiators who are superhuman muscles on muscles, just amazing.

You know, some of whom have been elite athletes, professional athletes, some of whom are massive in CrossFit, so they've all got that all bodybuilding, they've all got this great athletic background. And then the contenders turn up and it's David taking on Goliathe. But the contenders, it's like a World Cup because they're in this arena taking on these superhuman people testing themselves. So it was great to be able to lean into that athletic contest, but still have fun around it, so hopefully it translates onto the screen because I had an absolute ball doing it as.

Well, and well it was fun to watch. So all the best with that, and thank you for coming on extra healthy. You shouldn't have a great New Year.

Thanks to you too. Thanks Felicity.

She really is a midlife coeen, isn't she just a well of inspiration? If you didn't inspire you tell us rate and review this podcast. We'll subscribe to it or share this with a friend someone who needs some inspiration, friends, family, your group chats, Go on do it. If you do want anything else, head to Body and Soul dot com dot you cant follow us on socials and until tomorrow it stakes for Healthy