Fitness influencer Alice Liveing admits her clean eating regime ‘ruined her health’ as her hair fell out and her periods stopped – and reveals she feels ‘guilt’ over her former ‘fitspo’ persona

Alice Liveing, a fitness influencer who encourages her clients to build strength over how they look, has revealed she regrets making a living being a clean eating influencer.

The 30-year-old Instagram star and author of Give Me Strength now runs a fitness program that focuses on how clients can build muscle to get stronger, regardless of aesthetic considerations.

However, she is also the author of The Body Bible, which she published under the name ‘Clean Eating Alice’. This book was marketed as ‘a guide to embracing a better way of life’.

Now, speaking to The Sunday Times, the London-based influencer has reflected on her previous ‘Alice-with-the-abs’ persona, which saw her share her Instagram content with a muscular yet petite frame – revealing that her weight had dropped so low, her periods had stopped.

Despite becoming a hugely successful cookbook author and receiving publishing deals that celebrity chefs would envy, Alice has revealed that her commitment to so-called ‘clean eating; left her sleeping poorly, with thinning hair and ‘terrible’ skin.

She has revealed that she was 25 and had just met her current husband Paddy when she visited a fertility specialist to find out why her periods had stopped; but she was shocked by the doctor’s verdict.

“She said to me, ‘You’re not eating enough and exercising too much, your body is in a stressful state and if you continue with this you won’t be able to have children.’ Those words changed my life,” Alice said.

After learning that she would struggle to conceive, Alice began a program to gain 20 pounds, which involved exercising less and eating more. But as she slowly gained weight, the influencer revealed that she struggled to stick to the program consistently and occasionally relapsed into “bad behavior.”

Alice, who now dedicates her career to helping people be healthy regardless of their weight, admits her former Instagram persona was ‘smoke and mirrors’

The fitness influencer (pictured at last year’s National Television Awards) now runs the Give Me Strength app

Not only did her life change, her career changed too. In 2017, Alice deleted “Clean Eating” from her Instagram caption.

Now, Liveing’s page is filled with encouraging images of a healthy-weight woman encouraging others to improve their strength and fuel their bodies accordingly.

She has just written her latest book, Give Me Strength (which is also the name of her fitness app), but has revealed that the writing process was ‘painful’.

Alice said: ‘I bear a great responsibility for perpetuating a potentially damaging narrative.’

She added that she was not aware that what she did was “wrong” but that she can now “admit her mistakes.”

Reflecting on her life as Clean Eating Alice, the influencer shared that she was often exhausted and avoided social events involving food on her own. She also made excuses by saying that she had already eaten when she did go to a dinner party.

It was around the time Alice met her current husband Paddy (right) that she was warned that having children could be difficult. Pictured with Marvin and Rochelle Humes at Wimbledon

Yet Alice acted differently online, sometimes posting snaps on Instagram of herself eating pizza with her friends (even though she had ordered a salad for dinner).

“That’s what I feel most guilty about: I lied and I was dishonest,” she said, adding that her previous Instagram life was “a smokescreen.”

The influencer believes her issues with food stem from her time at drama school.

After a year of drinking and eating junk food, as many students do, Alice claims one of her teachers told her she had to be “body aware” if she ever wanted to get serious about show business.

The words clearly stung when Alice took personal training, started dieting and went from a size 12 to a size 8 in a matter of months.

She opened her Instagram account alongside her body transformation and quickly gained thousands of followers. At 22, and in her own words, with “no qualifications to write a book,” she was offered “life-changing money” to write books about healthy eating and weight loss.

As Alice embarks on a new mission encouraging people to live healthy instead of eating ‘clean’, she has indicated that some people within the ‘fitspo’ community are struggling with the same nutritional issues she used to face.

But for Alice herself, she finds “joy” in both life and food.