Ex-model lives in Germering and writes

Created: 01/17/2022, 09:50

By: Ulrike Osman

In a good mood, Monica Meier-Ivancan (l.) presented her new book in the bookstore Bookmark.

Much to the delight of the two owners, Helen Hoff (middle) and Katrin Schmidt (r.).

© Peter Weber

As a model, Monica Meier-Ivancan - known as the first "Bachelorette" and longtime partner of Oliver Pocher - never skipped a diet.

Today she is no longer a fan of giving up.

Germering – The 44-year-old lives with her husband and children in Germering, swears by alkaline nutrition and has written her own cookbook on the subject.

Similar to Claudia Schiffer, who was discovered in the disco, Monica Meier-Ivancan's career start came as a pure coincidence. She was approached on the street and asked if she would like to try modeling. Born in Stuttgart, she was still a teenager and, by her own admission, a 1.80 meter tall beanstalk, to which her Croatian grandmother liked to preach that she should eat more - she was much too thin. Her parents insisted that she complete her training as a wholesale and foreign trade clerk. Meier-Ivancan did that too, but the first shootings were already running alongside and brought in as much in one day as her apprenticeship did in a whole month.

In her early 20s she went to Italy – and there she had to be told by an agency boss that she was still too plump for a model and should lose weight.

Four kilos still have to go down.

"I didn't think it was bad at all at the time," Meier-Ivancan recalls.

It was only later that she realized that a false, unhealthy image of women was being propagated, which she would warn every young girl about today.

Iron Discipline

From then on, she exercised iron discipline in order to fit into the smallest dress sizes.

She tried everything from the pure protein diet to intermittent fasting.

In her early 30s, her body acknowledged the constant imbalance with an underactive thyroid.

"That's when I realized that my lifestyle wasn't good for the body," says Meier-Ivancan.

A funny incident led her to basic cooking.

After an argument with her sister, she saw an advertising poster in the window of a pharmacy with the inscription: "Don't you want to be angry anymore?" That appealed to her, says Meier-Ivancan.

“I went in and wanted to see what was advertised there.

It was an alkaline bath.” She left the pharmacy with the bath additive and two brochures.

positive experiences

In the meantime, the mother of two children (eight and five years) has trained as a nutritionist.

With the recently published cookbook “My Wonderful Basen Kitchen” – her third book after a Pilates guide and a fitness guide for young mothers – she has realized a project close to her heart.

Because she wants to pass on her own positive experiences with alkaline cuisine to as many people as possible.

"It gives us physical health, vitality and energy, a better mood and a better awareness of what is good for us," the fitness trainer is convinced.

It was only through the change in diet that she found herself.

And since then she has maintained her weight without counting calories.

Doesn't taste healthy?

"Unfortunately, the stubborn prejudice persists that healthy cuisine doesn't taste good," regrets the 44-year-old.

"And many people think that eating alkaline means only ever eating potato soup." It's all about the right balance between foods that are metabolized as alkaline and those that form acids in the body.

Vegetables, salad, herbs and fruit belong in the first group, animal products and processed foods in the second.

You don't have to leave anything out, emphasizes the author.

However, the acidifiers should not make up more than 20 percent of the daily amount of food.

That should be chips or a piece of cake.

On Saturday you could talk to Monica Meier-Ivancan about the topic.

She signed her book in the Germeringer bookshop Bookmarks.