#LadiesOfLondon “Hey Cinderella!” Julie Montagu Is Lady Of The Manor, A Flexible Foodie, and Bravo Star!
I fell in love with Lady Julie Montagu last season while watching #LadiesOfLondon with the rest of America. Her story would make an excellent Romance novel, or Lifetime movie of the week. Not many girls can say they went out with a normal guy, and woke up with a prince! But Julie did.
From the Daily Mail-
Julie first arrived in the UK aged 22 on a post-graduation holiday with her parents – it was her first ever trip abroad. Returning two years later to work at a start-up (before becoming a TV producer), she met Luke through friends, but had no idea about his noble background. ‘We’d been dating for about three months when we went to the Isle of Wight for the weekend and I saw Luke pay for the ferry tickets with a card that said Viscount Hinchingbrooke.
“I was, like, Hang on a minute, that’s not yours – you’re Luke Montagu.” Of course, he then had to explain all. I remember saying, “Do earls still exist? Really?”’ Fast forward another month and she was arriving at Mapperton for the first time, ‘Can you imagine how nervous I was? We were on the driveway and I saw this huge house – I couldn’t believe this was the place where he grew up.’
Mapperton is an exquisite Jacobean manor in Dorset, which is currently home to Julie’s in-laws John and Caroline Montagu, the Earl and Countess of Sandwich. Like most stately homes, it is opened to the public in order to support the enormous and unending upkeep. There is a café and a gift shop and Luke now spends four days a week at the house to help support his parents – there is a five-year plan to slowly take over altogether. Julie is planning farm shops and kitchen gardens and maybe a yoga retreat, and certainly Mapperton JUB balls.
Mapperton in Dorset
Julie Montagu pictured with “Ladies Of London” co-star Sophie Stanbury
She may have married Prince Charming, but a 4th pregnancy and child almost derailed Julie’s fairy-tale. Her husband Luke suffered long-term side effects after being over-prescribed mood altering drugs by his trusted physicians and became deathly ill from the withdrawal. Julie faced her own challenges when she suffered a bought of postpartum depression/exhaustion and decided to make her family health issues priority one. Lady Julie began reading everything she could get her hands on regarding healing holistically, with an emphasis on the foods we eat, and regular exercise. Julie explained her nutritional philosophy to the Daily Mail,
‘Having a fourth child almost put me over the edge; people try to tell you it’s no big deal going from three to four children but, trust me, it is! I was exhausted and surviving on caffeine.
‘I’d always been fairly healthy, but it wasn’t until that point that I’d really thought of food as medicine.’ After selling her TV production company and training as a yoga teacher, she studied for an online nutrition course followed by a Cornell University course on plant-based nutrition, and at that point ‘became completely obsessed’.
‘To me these “I quit sugar” or “I only eat paleo” diets make no sense. In fact the word “diet” has such bad connotations. Some of them recommend, for example, eating no fruit whatsoever, and I disagree with that – we are designed to eat whole-foods, to eat dates, to have honey or maple syrup.
‘Our ancestors thousands of years ago would have eaten fruit and they were strong, not overweight – they were fighting off woolly mammoths! Fructose is not the enemy.’ What is? ‘Refined sugar and processed food – doughnuts and cakes. But blueberries? Are you kidding me?’
There is much more to Julie Montagu’s obsession with healthy eating than just preparing meals for her and her family. This lovely Lady is turning entrepreneur with her lifestyle brand website juliemontagu.com. In it Julie showcases her vast super-food knowledge, nutritional advice, yoga classes, recipes, and a private course taught by Julie herself called “The Flexi-Foodie Academy” outlined below.
In the shopping section Montagu’s Yoga DVD and Best-selling book are also available!
How does Julie find time to film Ladies Of London in the middle of running her burgeoning health empire, raising 4 children, and teaching daily Yoga classes? I’ll let the future Countess of Mapperton tell you in the BravoTV.com clip below.
http://www.bravotv.com/ladies-of-london/season-2/videos/meet-the-new-ladies-of-london?clip=2890804#
Not another one telling us what to eat… jk I actually like Julie. She seems down to earth for a rich ass princess or whatever she is.
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