"I reached for the sugar"
"First of all, I gave myself time last winter. When you're breastfeeding, you're not allowed much caffeine, so I was exhausted as I was up all night, but I wasn't allowed to have coffee. So, I reached for the sugar instead. I needed a burst of energy and that chocolate bar wasn't a treat, it was habitual," Chemmy told us.
By the end of the season, that habit meant that Alcott was above her "natural fighting weight". After a history of serious injuries, carrying the extra weight mean that her pain levels were rising, and both her knees and ankles were hurting.
"I got to the end of the season and looked in the mirror and I knew I didn't look great, but it was more the pain," Chemmy admitted. "I've retired, I'm not a professional athlete anymore, I shouldn't have to perform in pain!"
"I needed to talk to someone like an athlete again"
Alcott decided she needed to lose some weight and I reached out to a friend of hers. The four-time Olympian went to three of those Winter Olympics with Sarah Lindsay – a speed skater for Team GB. Lindsay now runs Roar Fitness specialising in 'big transformations'.
"She'd said to contact her if I never needed support. And it was amazing, because I just needed someone to talk to like an athlete again."
According to Alcott is was Lindsay that "started that ball rolling" again: "It was all nutrition, rather than the gym - eating right, eating what I needed. I got big changes quickly: within three months, my body changed drastically. All I did was strip out the carbs and the weight just fell off."
"My weight fluctuated when I was racing"
Chemmy Alcott competed at four Winter Olympics. We wondered if the experience of being a racer on the World Cup and Olympic circuit had helped her with her diet.
"When I was an athlete it was quite challenging because we looked at the Olympic track every four years and thought "Right, at Vancouver there's loads of undulating terrain, you've got to be agile, you've got to be on top of it and you've got to be quick with your pressure".
"So for that course you didn't want to be heavy, but four years later at Sochi it was steep to flat and you want to have that gravity pulling you through the flats, so I had to get bigger. My weight fluctuated from 69kg to where I was trying for 83kg."
This winter Chemmy is going to ease back on her regime: "I'm not going to stay all winter searching for healthy options, maybe that will be my summer programme going forward, but I'm going to enjoy my winter."
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Chemmy Alcott is hosting 'Heli with Chemmy' – four days of backcountry and heliskiing in Alagna, Italy - with James Orr Heliski in March 2020. Find out more at James Orr Heliski
