Those who enjoy sipping some royal tea have been having a field day with Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare. While not quite a tell-all, the book gives us a fascinating glimpse into the lives and lifestyles of the reclusive Royal Family. And, of course, we get insights into Harry and Meghan’s marriage that sometimes change how we view the controversial couple.
For example, even though a gentleman normally doesn’t discuss his wife’s weight, Harry made a shocking confession about how Meghan’s weight was an early obstacle to their attempts to have children. Just what was the issue, and how was Meghan able to push through this weight problem? Keep reading to discover the answers!
Meghan’s life in the public eye
At first glance, you might be surprised to discover that Meghan Markle would have had any kind of struggles with weight. After all, she is widely known as one of the world’s most beautiful women, and she achieved fame on her own terms well before marrying Prince Harry.
But that’s actually part of the problem: as a famous American celebrity starring in Suits, Meghan Markle always had to worry about looking her best. Rather than struggling with overeating and gaining weight, Meghan had the opposite issue: she didn’t eat enough, occasionally losing a bit too much weight. In time, that became a problem when she and Harry decided to have children.
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Her own royal engagement
Some people who don’t eat enough and constantly worry about their waistline can relax after they get married. It’s a simple enough idea: because most of us want to look our best in order to attract a romantic partner, it’s easy to imagine letting most weight-related anxiety go after tying the knot and getting a classic “happily ever after.”
That wasn’t the case for Meghan Markle, though, because she wasn’t marrying just anybody. By marrying Prince Harry, she entered into the British Royal Family. The eyes of the world were on her now, and she couldn’t afford to let her guard down. And in her estimation, she certainly couldn’t afford to stop worrying about her weight, although looking fabulous wasn’t enough to save her from the ravages of the British press.
Constantly making tabloid headlines
Meghan Markle has many things in common with the late Princess Diana, which is likely one of the reasons that Prince Harry was drawn to her in the first place. Unfortunately, one of those similarities is that Meghan, like Diana before her, was constantly hounded by the British tabloids.
These tabloids viciously went after Meghan at every turn, an issue that arguably reached its peak when The Mail On Sunday shared excerpts from a letter that Meghan had written to her controversial father. She went to court over this matter and emerged victorious, but the entire incident underscored that the press was constantly looking for any angle with which to attack Meghan. Once again, she had that much more reason to worry about her weight, and Meghan hid the pain of this by becoming something of a weight loss guru to the world.
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Meghan’s famous weight loss tips
Even before Meghan married Prince Harry, she would dispense diet tips and special recipes on her now-defunct lifestyle blog The Tig. She let the blog go before she tied the knot, but the royal marriage didn’t keep her from continuing to share her wisdom about food, exercise, and weight loss with a now-global audience.
According to Express, Meghan has inspired many fans with her different tips. These tips included replacing coffee with green tea and balancing the occasional indulgence (she really loves eating fries, for example) with a more responsible regular diet (at one point, she followed a vegan diet during the week but not the weekends). In fact, “balance” is at the heart of her dieting tips: she believes people shouldn’t feel “deprived” but should instead find a way to balance exercise, healthy eating, and even the occasional fulfilling vice.
Meghan’s own favorite vice is wine…as she put it, “Of course, I’m going to have that glass of wine – it’s delicious and I enjoy it.” She did have to give up the wine ahead of trying to start a family with Harry, but that was when they learned that her love of wine was the least of her concerns.
How Meghan’s weight got in the way of having children
By the time Harry and Meghan were ready to have children, all of the stress of the recent past had started to catch up with Meghan. According to Yahoo!, Harry wrote in his memoir that “she’d lost a great deal of weight in the last year” without really trying (a problem that many of us would no doubt like to have) and that they worried this could affect her chances of getting pregnant.
They went to an Ayurvedic doctor who gave them the good news and the bad news. The bad news was that they were correct and that Meghan’s low weight might negatively affect her conception. The good news was that the doctor promised the couple that if Meghan could “gain five pounds…you’ll get pregnant.”
With the full blessing of the doctor, Meghan began eating more so that she could put on those five pounds. Not only did she gain the needed weight, but it wasn’t too long before she became pregnant with Archie, the couple’s first child.