Gisele Bundchen has revealed how changing her diet helped her overcome her panic attacks when she was a young model.
The 43-year-old made a glowing appearance on The View this week, with host Joy Behar jokingly calling her a ‘b****’ for looking as youthful as she did 20 years ago.
But during her interview, Gisele revealed that her early years in the fashion industry were scarred by her anxiety.
She started modeling at 14 and quickly found herself on a ‘hamster wheel’ in a career where she worked constantly and neglected to look after her health.
As a result, she ended up suffering from ‘severe depression’ and panic attacks in her early 20s – until an ‘amazing naturopath’ helped her turn her life around.
Gisele Bundchen revealed on The View how changing her diet helped her overcome her panic attacks when she was a young model
She ended up suffering from ‘severe depression’ and panic attacks in her early 20s – until an ‘amazing naturopath’ helped her turn her life around; pictured 20 years in 2000
‘I just felt very grateful that I had a job and I was traveling the world and I wasn’t really paying attention, you know?’ she remembered.
‘I was just like walking, like 100 miles an hour and until I started having severe panic attacks in my early 20s and I didn’t know what to do and it’s been over a year and a half and I was going to all these specialists,” she said.
Finally she found this amazing naturopath and he said to me, “Gisele, we need to change your diet,” and I said, “Diet? What does that have to do with my panic attacks?” and he says, “No, it has everything to do with it.”
The naturopath, who nicknamed her Adriana Lima after her Brazilian supermodel self, asked her to outline her daily eating habits for him.
Gisele told him about how she wanted to drink and smoke and drink coffee until the naturopath told her, ‘Stop right there.’
The man reminded her: ‘You are not sleeping. You are like in different time zones all the time. You’re like eating horribly all day.’
Gisele admitted that at the time she wasn’t picky about what she ate and would eat anything she could eat at the supermarket.
She also indulged in a significant amount of ‘comfort food’ such as chocolate and biscuits, due to the fact that she was ‘tired’ and ‘travelling’.
She started modeling at 14 and quickly found herself on a ‘hamster wheel’ in a career where she worked constantly and neglected to look after her health; pictured aged 14 at the 1995 Met Gala
Gisele is pictured in a campaign for Oxygene by Lanvin in 2000, the year she turned 20
One of her earliest claims to fame was as a Victoria’s Secret Angel; she is pictured walking the brand’s iconic fashion show in 2005 at the age of 25
The naturopath redirected her to a healthy diet, daily exercise and a minimum of eight hours of sleep a night – and the panic attacks stopped.
‘After having a year and a half of like, I would say, one of the worst times of my life, everything changed. As if I became a different person, Gisele wondered. ‘I start practicing meditation. I start doing yoga. I begin to practice breathing.’
During a recent interview with WSJ Magazineshe dished that she never allows herself to eat white sugar, which she considers ‘poison’.
The willowy clothes horse argued: ‘There are so many other ways you can sweeten up your stuff that are delicious. Honey, maple syrup, dates.’
Gisele is currently parents to her two children – Benjamin, 14, Vivian, 11 – with her ex-husband, football superstar Tom Brady.
On Valentine’s Day, she finally went public with her romance with her steamy jiu-jitsu instructor Joaquim Valente after they were dogged by dating rumors for over a year.