Great British Bake Off star Nadiya Hussain has issued a devastating health update with fans, tearfully urging others to always ‘listen to your instincts’.
Hussain, 39, rose to fame after winning the sixth series of the Bake Off back in 2015, having since gone on to forge her own TV career with a number of cooking shows.
In an emotional video on Instagram, she told fans that she had suffered a ‘really tough year’ after becoming ‘quite unwell’.
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Hussain said she’d been undergoing a series of tests to try and work out what the issue was, having now been diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases.
With tears in her eyes, she began: "I cannot express enough the importance of taking care of yourself. I am the kind of person who burns the candle at both ends, takes care of everyone else's needs but my own. I don't take time out for myself. I don't really know what that means or what that feels like.
"Not really. And when I do take time for myself, I feel incredibly guilty. And usually when I take doing things outside of the house or away from my family, it's always because I'm doing something else but it's nothing to do with my relaxation or my well-being."
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Hussain said this was something she'd been thinking about this year - the year she hits a milestone age.
"I'm very aware that when you turn 40, you have to do that MOT at the doctors and they check everything out," she said.
Hussain continued: "Recently - mostly this year, but over the course of two years - I've been quite unwell. I've just been getting quite sick. And over the course of the two years, I've been diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases, which I'm not going to go into now.
"I will go into in the future when I know more about it and when I have a better handle on it and when I understand it a little bit better. But 'til then, like I cannot express, like I cannot express the importance of listening to your body, of taking care of yourself."
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The cook called on people to 'take more time' on their well-being - mental and physical - adding: "It's been a really kind of really tough year because of all the tests and trying to work stuff out and getting my head around things.
"But I feel like it's really important to come out the other side and like really be grateful for and feel blessed that although, you know, it'd be great not to be sick, I'm here.
"And that's really what matters is that I'm here and I need to do all the things that I can to positively impact myself mentally and physically. And that's all I can really do. But I just think it's really important that my takeaway from all of this, I always have, is listen to your body.
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"And I really want to come on here and share that with you guys, because I think we don't say that to each other enough. And I certainly don't. I think mums don't say it to each other. I think women just are not very good at it. And I know the mums that I know are not very good at it either."
Hussain added: "So take care of yourself. Listen to your body. Listen to your instincts and press push. If there's something not right, press push. Make sure you get to the bottom of it. And I don't think I would have got to the bottom of it if I hadn't pressed and pushed because I could feel that there was something wrong.
"So press push and follow your instincts and know that what you're feeling is not in your head. And you're probably very well right. So just trust your own instincts and take care of yourselves."
Topics: Health, Great British Bake Off, Celebrity, TV And Film, Food and Drink
Jess Hardiman