CHRISTINE McGuinness has confessed she used to survive on less than 300 calories a week during her battle with anorexia.
While working as a dancer in Paris in her teens she admits she ate just a 90 calorie Cup-A-Soup every other day – dangerously under the 2,000 recommended for women per day.
But Christine, 33, has said she has “no regrets”, despite the toll it took on her health.
The Real Full Monty star said: “The only thing that got slightly out of control was my eating disorder. No one was keeping an eye on me, so I barely ate.
“I was dancing and burning a lot of calories, and I never took a dinner break.
“It was easy for me to get away with not eating, because no one was watching me.
“I’d have a Cup-a-Soup, which was 90 calories, every other day and that was it. Nothing else, bar loads of water.
“So, it wasn’t great for my health, but it was one of the happiest times of my life.
“I have no regrets, and at the time it was my own little rendition of my favourite film, Dirty Dancing.”
Christine lived in Paris in her late teens and made a living dancing on podiums in nightclubs.
She was at home in Liverpool for the weekend, modelling in a bikini show during a tennis tournament, when she met Paddy, then 34.
At 21, she was 15 years his junior but they hit it off and later kissed on their first date.
Writing about her time in Paris in her autobiography, A Beautiful Nightmare, she said: “Life in Paris soon became addictive, I was making so much in terms of tips. The dancing did so much for my confidence, too.
“In hindsight, what happened to me when I was 13 [sexual abuse] did affect me and stayed with me, but when I was dancing, I was in control.
“I’d taken ownership of my sexuality. No one was touching me and I was earning my own money – cash that went straight into my bank or back home to my mum.
“We worked hard. We’d get picked up in a mini-bus at 6pm and dropped back at the hostel at 6am every morning. Then we’d sleep all day.
“The modelling industry is fickle and you’d get picked apart if you’d put a bit of weight on, or your hair wasn’t quite right.
“But dancing in the club was the complete opposite. I was in a place where I loved the music playing every night and I was working with a bunch of girls that I got on with and I was earning amazing money, and again, no one was touching me.”
Christine and Paddy married in 2011 when she was 23.
Peter Kay, his childhood friend, was best man and Rick Astley performed.
She has admitted she understands she had been anorexic from the age of eight.
They have three children.
