I sometimes feel like a cavewoman, or the last woman in the world who doesn’t give a crap about diets, food trends or bone broth. I try to eat most foods in moderation, but I don’t hate myself if I have a donut or a piece of chocolate. I barely drink, mostly because I got tired of hangovers. I work out, on average, four times a week and they are intense, sweaty affairs that leave me feeling exhausted and riding a wave of endorphins. Sometimes I eat at McDonalds. I love a good Caesar salad. All in all, I don’t really care – I just do whatever feels good to me and I try not to stress about food. I’ve never tried the Paleo Diet. I’ve never tried Atkins. I’ve never been on Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. I’ve never gone vegetarian or vegan for longer than a few days.
What’s the point of all this? I guess I’m trying to give you my state of mind as I was reading this absolutely bizarre interview with Elle Macpherson. Elle is a former supermodel, of course, and I’ve always believed she’s sort of crazy. Her description of her diet is… um… I don’t know what descriptors to use? Ridiculous? Exhausting? Tedious? With a streak of “girl, you need to find something better to do with your time.”
Elle Macpherson has a surprising secret to looking this good at 51 – and it involves her urine, of all things. The entrepreneur and supermodel told the London Evening Standard that she keeps a pH balance urine tester kit in her handbag at all times to ensure her body is in an alkaline state.
“I believe that most ailments come from having an acidic body,” she says.
The co-founder and co-owner of the premium luxury wellness business WelleCo told PEOPLE she keeps her body at the preferred pH level – said to reduce stress and protect bone health – by taking her brand’s Super Elixir Alkalising Greens supplement daily.
“I don’t worry about wrinkles,” she says. “I tackle internal ageing by nourishing my cells from the inside and the welcome by-product is looking and feeling good.”
Macpherson also credits her fit physique to exercise, drinking lots of water and a consistent healthy diet free of red meat, wheat and dairy.
“I move my body for at least 45 minutes every day,” she says of her routine, which includes a mix of hiking, water skiing, swimming and running on the beach. “And drink lots of water – 3 liters a day.”
Drinking lots of water is great. Having 45-minute workouts every day is great. Not eating red meat is okay – lots of people don’t eat red meat. Dairy? Sure. Some people cut out dairy too. Wheat? I couldn’t do that, but sure. But for the love of God… carrying a pH balance urine tester kit with her at all times? Testing her urine when she’s, like, out to dinner? I’m sure there’s some science out there, somewhere, to back up her diet. And I mean, more power to her, if that’s how she wants to spend her time, bless her heart. But now everyone knows that whenever Elle goes to the bathroom, she’s weeing on pH tester kit.
Oh, and apparently Marmite is fine on her diet. As is dark chocolate. Ugh, I hate both. One last thing: she’s totally lying about her wrinkles, right? Elle is Bo to the ‘Toxed.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
OMG people who preach and know nothing about science kill me. The Kidneys! Acid-Base Balance! Read up on these things, Elle!
Haha the “toxins in your body” scam has been a huge money maker and isn’t likely to go away soon sadly… if I have to hear one more woman I work with say she’s going to “detox”, I am going to cry
The next time someone says this, ask WHAT toxins?.. or even better, ask them what they think a toxin actually is. And press them on the details. Quiz them on the chemistry. It’s hugely enjoyable when there’s just dead silence.
Hellooooo! Toxins are everywhere–in our water, in the air we breathe, items we touch, the foods we eat. There is nothing wrong, or unscientific, about detoxing.
Right!! but they will be the first to tell you that your lifestyle is wrong!
I swear! When you read that crap it just doesn’t even make sense! And even if it did … why would you want to test your pee ? That would be a lot of tests considering she drinks 3L of water a day. These famous people (or former famous people) need to find more productive things to do with their time
Preach it! Real science over hocus pocus all day err day!
You are exactly right! Celebs who share their “medical?” secrets drive me nuts. From Jenny McCarthy ranting about vaccines/immunity, to Melissa Etheridge talking about how her acidic diet gave her cancer, and now this.
Urine can change pH throughout the day…depending on meals, when you ate, what you ate, if you haven’t eaten, what you’ve been drinking, if you are dehydrated, medications you have taken, etc. Urine is more acidic in the morning and becomes more alkaline throughout the day. What does it mean? Pretty much nothing to the average Jane or Joe, as in this case. The wonderful human body has a process called homeostasis. This is a self-regulating process by which your body’s biological systems maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival– If homeostasis is successful (which it is 99.9% of the time no matter what you are eating or drinking) life continues; if it is unsuccessful, you die. Obviously disease and/or unforeseen disasters can change the odds, but you get the picture.
There are a bunch of quacks, shills, and homeopathic nuts who are ready and willing to take your hard-earned money if you like, selling you body cleansing and fountain of youth products. Newsflash! Elle gets her good looks, great body and health from her genes…not much of anything she is doing is affecting the outcome. And another newsflash…everyone gets rid of toxins daily by urinating and defecating.
If you want more info on the myth of pH balancing, I recommend reading this great article.
https://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/your-urine-is-not-a-window-to-your-body-ph-balancing-a-failed-hypothesis/
Yes and yes! Exactly. If you have to say *I believe* before sharing your miracle cure secret, then you should just stop talking.
Yes yes and yes! If her “body” (blood) became acidic, she would die. Our bodies are amazing compensators. Let them do it.
No kidding, right?! But then this is the chic who thinks swallowing rhino horn capsules will help her skin.
There is so much woo in the world and so little time (and so few of us to counter it).
Who?
Time for a haircut, Elle.
Some celebs will believe, do, or say anything to sell their stuff.
You mean a Trip to the salon to Uninstall all that Weave
Yea, for real that hair is a bit much. I’m thinking it’s a security blanket type of thing.
Yeah, that hair is absurd. I presume she’s quite wealthy-you’d think she would be able to afford better extensions.
Is she still using rhino horn as part of her ‘beauty routine’?
As someone who is deeply concerned about conservation, poaching and the impending extinction of these animals, I wrote what I thought of her the last time CB had an Elle Macpherson story… but they wouldn’t publish my comment!
I refrained from using four letter words this time.
But I hope it’s OK if I call her a vain, pointless, lying, vacuous uneducated bimbo…
Fine by me.
Wow I had no idea any celebrities used rhino horn. We should poach you Elle Macpherson…everyone would know your name if your head was mounted to my wall.
I don’t know why she wasn’t arrested after admitting that (well, boasting about it, really).
Disgusting individual. So many people are devoting – and risking – their lives trying to save this species from a cruel death, but this… specimen… thinks it is OK to include the body parts of endangered animals in her ludicrous beauty routine.
Because she apologized if anyone misconstrued her statement. That we thought we took rhino horn if she said it keeps her skin fabulous. Or something idiotic like that.
Kath, Next time, use Risser Frasser Risser Frasser and F#@ker! in place of expletives.
A few years ago she was waffling on about taking rhino horn in capsule form for health, so yeah I might give her lifestyle advice a miss.
Considering the last black rhino died last year that is incredibly angering
She is sounding a lot like Goop..and didnt Goop date Elle’s hubby before they got married. Hmmm, someone has a type!
Yep…the desperate to stay young by any means possible and blabber on about it type. I think you’re on to something.
Oh, for the love of Pete. And her hair looks ridiculous.
Um. I was thinking Elle’s hair looked great. Nice full body hair. Just enough curl on the ends. None of that limp pin straight hair. With burned up ends. (cough*Goop*cough)
But I was also thinking… she is probably wearing a fall/wig too. Not all her own hair. Which is fine. There is something evil that happens to us older girls. Who have always had long hair. It starts to thin. And we lose a lot of out bulk/density of out hair.
(Which has lead to me taken Biotin. And it has actually helped a lot.)
I think it looks fake and too long and too in her face. There’s something wrong with me when it comes to really long hair like that. It just annoys the crap out of me, and I’m not sure why. I have searched my soul and can’t find the answer. I just hate hair that long unless you’re 16.
Her hair looks great…but she’s been wearing it this exact same way for, what, 30 years now? I guess she thinks of it as her trademark, but it does seem a little desperate to me.
I’m 30 and I thought that hair looked desperate too.
I’m sure her cigarettes are healthy, organic, non-cancer inducing as well.
What a horrible excuse for a human being. Yuck.
Kaiser – I concur. I eat pretty well but mostly as I please. My exercise comes through actual physical labour (mostly gardening). I don’t much care if I look older than I did last year. And, shock of shocks, I’m as healthy as my medical history could hope for and, most importantly, I’m a generally happy and contented person.
As for Elle – “co-founder and co-owner of the premium luxury wellness business WelleCo”. I think that tells me all I need to know about how much credence to give her.
That’s because celebrity diets aren’t about being healthy and strong, they’re about trying to be skinny and get your body to look a certain way (with hopefully the least amount of work possible). The truth is, there is no secret to long term health and weight loss – eat well, exercise, get sleep. But folks would rather hear about some magic pH balance.
It’s so true. I guess it’s just human nature to search for the magic bullet. It just seems a little disingenuous to have these uber wealth celebs who have had God knows what procedures etc try to shill something to a vunreble aging population as THE thing that has kept them looking this way. It just seems kind of sleazy.
I find it really offensive that these ‘celebrities’ waste their time testing their pee instead of helping people in need. Like you know.. Nepal right now could use a hand or two to help instead of using them to hold a stick and pee on it.
If I had her resources I’d be trying to help instead of releasing stupid statements.
I wish i could help more than with a donation.
You can do both. You can test your pee and be charitable too. You’re making assumptions. You don’t know if she donates to charities or not.
Yes, to the comment about her Botox and I’d say a few fillers found their way into her face, too. I think she did hold out for quite a few years, but it’s starting to look a little more obvious these days. I generally don’t take health advice from vapid celebrities who are trying to sell me overpriced snake oil.
Exactly. She’s probably selling the pH tester kits.
She talks about imaginary bodily toxins and acidity and then turns around and injects actual toxins into her face.
I. Can’t.
Imagine spending your whole life worrying THAT MUCH about how you look? Tedious doesn’t even begin to describe it.
She ‘moves’ 45 min a day..I’m moving right now..scroll, scroll, poke keyboard, scroll…break time…Why don’t some of these ridiculously beautiful women just own up and say ‘I came this way–genes’
Wow. What a load of BS… but coming from a woman who chooses her own beauty regimen over the future of an entire species, yeah… doesn’t surprise me at all that she wouldn’t even bother to get her facts straight.
By the way, if your body’s pH reaches unhealthy levels of acidity, you don’t need a urine tester to figure it out. You would literally be unconscious, because acidosis leads to a coma or death. The human body naturally has a pH of around 7.35, and the decimal points fluctuate SLIGHTLY, but the food you eat has little to do with it. Unless you eat a citrus-only, white bread-only diet for several decades, your body will be perfectly capable of continuing to regulate its own pH balance. And even THEN, you probably won’t have any symptoms… it’s incredibly difficult to shut down the organs and tissue that actually regulate it.
Does no one remember the major facelift she had about 8 years ago. Her face looked so weird until it settled. Sure it’s the balanced pee….. Sure
She has a great, youthful smile.
This sounds like a perfectly casual conversation to me. Not remotely like an endorsement at all!
I saw The Meredith Show where she was talking about this. Later on went into the interwebz to read on the subject, and some don’t recommend this “diet” or way of eating at all. So, I will try to drink 64oz of water a day, try to eat my 4 servings of veggies a day (which is hard!) and will try to eat when I have to … not drink coffee and eat my first meal at 2pm!!! … really working hard on that one… and do the proportions, you know, measure the food with the palm of your hand, adding the 30 minute a day exercise…. to pee on a stick, will leave that part to the other sticks….
Ummmm, how is an acidic pH level in urin bad? It kills bacterica, you know. Have fun with your infections, hon.
Also: pH-level in urin is not the same as in the blood (thank good, lol), so it doesn´t mean that “her body” is not acidic. This is so ridiculous.
If she is getting botox she needs to teach other celebs to do it right!
I used to know the receptionist at the botox clinic she attends regularly when in London…….
She’s been going for years.
It never ceases to amaze me that people can’t see an obvious weave/extensions like the one in all the above photos.
Actually, if you’re prone to urinary tract infections, an alkaline pH in the urine can be helpful (depends on what ails you, some cases benefit from acidic pH but more likely alkaline will reduce pain and also many pathogens don’t like alkaline). The pH of the blood is well buffered so it won’t vary much for good reason, the body needs it to stay within a narrow range. So ignore anybody who claims you can affect blood pH. But urine pH varies depending on what you’ve been eating and drinking. The metabolites that find their way into the urine alter the pH, so it isn’t obvious which foods affect it in which direction. For example, although fruit and fruit juice are acidic outside the body, the metabolites in the urine generally are alkalizing. Lemons are extremely alkalizing of the urine, as I accidentally confirmed when drinking 1/4 of a lemon in a glass of water for other reasons while on fire down below (put the fire out in about a half hour). If desperate, you can add a little baking soda (or Alka Seltzer) to water and that often reduces the pain, although I wouldn’t do that often.
If you think an alkaline urinary pH will help you, look for lists of alkalizing vs acidifying foods as a rough guide (make sure they are talking about just urine and not anything less believable). Some foods are clearly in one camp or another, but others can be listed either way because of the different test methods. But you can experiment with increasing alkalizing foods in your diet to see if it helps, especially when having pain while urinating.
Cranberry is actually acidifying of the urine, but it can help with UTIs for an entirely different reason: certain active ingredients, especially D-mannose (which can be purchased as a convenient powder), actually help E. coli detach from urinary tract tissue. Most UTIs involve E. coli as the pathogen. I read a research article presented at an American Chemical Society meeting (that’s the major professional organization for chemists in the US) showing how sufficient amounts of D-mannose in the surrounding fluid (urine) attracted the E. coli, which have mannose receptors, so they detached from the tissue and bound to the mannose molecules instead, even changing shape to spherical. Then they could be flushed away with the urine.
On another pH note: The mouth benefits from a neutral or slightly alkaline pH because the little buggers that promote cavities and gum problems like it acidic. But since acidic foods (not talking about metabolites here) soften the teeth temporarily, it is wise to wait about half an hour before brushing. However, popping a little xylitol in any form (even just 1/4 tsp of granulated) will help bring the mouth to neutral or alkaline and can be done right after eating. Also starves the little buggers because so far (after many decades in use to keep mouths healthy), they haven’t figured out how to metabolize it. Some foods also have a similar effect if eaten last (dairy or walnuts, for example). Check out Dr. Ellie Philips (Phillips?) protocol of rinses and xylitol to stymie the little buggers, since keeping that microbial population down makes a huge difference in teeth and gum issues. She’s a dentist who thinks people who seem to never get cavities are blessed with a naturally alkaline or neutral saliva, while those who are riddled with them naturally are afflicted with acidic saliva. People sometimes use pH test strips to try to figure out where they lie, but I just use her protocol and don’t worry about it since that’s been so effective for me.
D-mannose is awesome for bladder infections!!!
“I don’t worry about wrinkles…I tackle internal ageing by nourishing my cells from the inside and the welcome by-product is looking and feeling good.”
Says one of the most comically pulled, nipped and filled faces in the modeling industry 😒 Seriously, girlfriend is almost able to give Cheryl Teigs a run for her money! Ugh. I guess all of the “toxins” from Botox, fillers and silicone don’t count for these obsessive food-restricting loonies… *See also: Stacy Keibler