Eula Valdes was ‘perfectly healthy’—until she wasn’t
All along, Eula Valdes was “perfectly healthy.” And then she turned 50 and she wasn’t.
One day, on the set of a drama series she was part of in 2020, the actress saw one of the assistant directors having his blood pressure checked by the on-site medic. Her sequences wouldn’t be shot until much later and she had some time to kill. So why not, she thought—might as well get her vitals assessed while waiting for her cue.
Suspecting that the initial reading was inaccurate, the medic repeated the test. And then again. After the third one, Valdes started to worry.
“‘Ma’am, how are you feeling? Anything out of the ordinary?’” the medic asked the actress.
“Well, I was fine, but now you’re making me nervous!” Valdes quipped.
To her bewilderment, the blood pressure monitor read 200/100 mm HG. How could that be, she wondered: “I don’t feel anything.” But still, the medic suggested that Valdes be excused for the day.
“I was crying on my way home because all my life I thought I was okay,” she told Lifestyle.
At the doctor’s office soon after, Valdes, now 56, learned that a person could actually have elevated blood pressure or experience a hypertensive crisis with no discernible symptoms. “That’s dangerous,” she pointed out.
It was a wake-up call—one that she should have seen coming from a mile away, given her family history with hypertension. “Nasa lahi namin (It’s in our genes). I grew up seeing my parents deal with it, especially my father, who was in and out of the Philippine Heart Center,” recalled the award-winning actress, whose maternal grandfather is National Artist Fernando Amorsolo.
Lifestyle changes
As such, as early as childhood, Valdes started avoiding the kinds of food that she saw her parents eat. But the thing with genetic predisposition is that there can be no escaping it.
“No matter how hard we take care of ourselves, we can’t really help it if something is in our blood … if we inherited something from the previous generations. Well, that’s unless you can physically squeeze your body makeup and purge yourself of those genes!” she jokingly said.
Now, all she can do is accept her condition and try not to let things get out of hand. In addition to her prescribed medication, she sought natural home remedies and made some important lifestyle changes. She drinks celery juice every day and observes intermittent fasting—both of which may help in controlling blood pressure, according to studies.
“I fast for about 16 to 20 hours. I drink celery juice 30 minutes before my first meal, which is at 1 p.m. My diet usually consists of cauliflower rice, vegetables and fish. I don’t eat pork and I rarely have beef. But I can finish a whole steamed pompano by myself, my favorite,” she said.
And so far so good, she said. “My blood pressure is well-managed. But I’m hoping and praying that I can reverse it. That’s my goal.”
She started hitting the gym and lifting weights two years ago. But she would be lying, she said, if she claimed that her decision was made purely out of health reasons. “I want to lose weight but still make sure that nothing is hanging or sagging,” she said, laughing.
Valdes, who once graced covers of men’s magazines, works out thrice a week and devotes extra time to tone her butt and thighs. “Some people focus too much on the upper body, but it’s the opposite for me. I want to keep my lower body shapely,” she said.
Fine lines
It was also when she turned 50 that Valdes started to get more conscious about her looks. All of a sudden, she started noticing fine lines here and there. And for a while, she dreaded looking at herself in the mirror. Aging is real—and it’s staring right back at her.
“It was a problem for some time because I got disappointed when I looked at myself. For the first time, I was, like, ‘Oh, I look different now.’ My mom didn’t tell me it happens this way. What am I going to do now?” she said, jokingly reenacting the initial panic she felt. “Sometimes, I wish there had been social media back in my youth, so I could have taken lots of photos and posted them!”
Pointing at the finest of creases under her eyes, Valdes said, “These become more prominent when I smile. That’s why, for a time, I trained myself not to smile so wide.”
But in hindsight, Valdes’ attitude toward aging had nothing to do with physical appearance, but about its allusion to mortality. Call it morbid, Valdes said, “But what comes next?
“When I see other celebrities getting old, I’m like, ‘There’s really no escaping aging. You can’t do anything about it. Your time will come, and eventually, you will die,’” she said. “That’s what makes me sad … that I will go next. I just joke about it, but the thought can be depressing, ah.”
‘Lilim’
Luckily, such scares are nowhere similar to the ones her new movie, the horror flick “Lilim” (Viva Films), promises to unpack. She plays Marga, the head nun of a secluded orphanage, which is built on a miraculous site. And there, Issa (Heaven Peralejo) and her younger brother, Tomas (Skywalker David), find shelter, after the former kills their abusive father in self-defense.
But as it turns out, Marga and the rest of the nuns aren’t really nuns. And together they warn their weary, unsuspecting guests that within the walls of the orphanage lives mysterious, malevolent forces that will threaten their lives.
Directed by Mikhail Red, “Lilim”—previously shown at the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands—opens in cinemas on March 12.
If there’s anything positive to be gleaned from the story, it’s that people shouldn’t allow fear to consume their lives. It’s a mindset Valdes has always held on to.
She travels long distances on her big bike and rides ATVs in the mountains. She plays volleyball and badminton. She takes up boxing and Muay Thai. She’s an army reservist. She hikes, she skis. She goes bungee jumping and skydiving. She loves the thrill of heights and has a need for speed.
And she isn’t about to let the possibility of having wrinkles, or perhaps even of death, hold her back from pursuing the things that give her joy.
“I just tell myself, ‘Eh kailan ko pa gagawin ‘to?’ We don’t want wrinkles, but I won’t limit myself just because of that. I won’t stop what I love just because of that,” she said. “May sunscreen naman!”
