When I used to teach yoga in Bangalore and Mumbai, I noticed many clients struggling to cope with their weight. During some days, they would come in with plans to work out harder than usual because of events they'd have to attend later that week. The insecurity of appearance is something everyone goes through... even I.
I know what I have to do if I want to lose weight and stay healthy: eat a proper diet and exercise. All I've got to do is apply it.
With my first, I gained 40 pounds; in the second, I gained 35, and with Stella, I gained 25. My thing is to get most of your weight off, or at least get into good eating habits and exercise routinely, the sooner the better.
The first thing I did on my diet was take the batteries out of the remote control and make myself get up and change the channel. That's probably the hardest exercise I did.
We are being accused that some models are anorexic. But we as fashion designers cannot be blamed, because you know, when I talk to women around the world, rich and poor and young and old and intellectual and not, what they want to be is skinny. You ask them, 'What is your dream?' It's to be skinny. That's all they want.
I wanted to drop the weight class to go to the 125s, and I played it off on how easy it was going to be. 'I can do this, no problem, I always cut weight.' I pushed my body to the extreme.
I'm sure there were people who were disappointed that I got slimmer, but as one gets older one does often get a bit thinner. There was no great mystery: I had some puppy fat and I lost it.
When I turned 21, I started losing weight - again, a normal thing for any girl my age. I did not take a conscious decision to reduce my weight.
I'm very short, so I just have to watch my weight because I have a big appetite.
When I'm at the greatest odds with my body, it's usually because I feel my body's betraying me, whether that's been in the past, struggling with my weight and feeling that I couldn't eat what I wanted to eat, or that I couldn't get my body to do what I wanted it to do.
I feel comfortable at both weights. I feel I could fight at 130 or 135.
I'm like everybody: I gain the Christmas 10 or so, and then I try to exercise more and dial it back.
People tell me if I don't eat vegetables, I'm going to get scurvy. Well, what the hell. But I was never overweight as a player. There was a clause in my contract that said I had to weigh in at 270 every Friday morning. I always made it. I'd have dinner on Monday, and then I wouldn't eat until Friday.
When I was 16 years old, I weighed 176 pounds.
[To lose twenty pounds] is not even about how much I lose and how fast, it's so much about being healthy.
It takes about four days of virtuous living to create a little weight loss. That also happens to be the time required to get used to eating less. In other words, if you can get past day three of a fitness regimen, things improve.
I try not to diet because it never really works for me, if I tell myself I can't eat something then I tend to want to eat everything in sight.
For the first time ever, overweight people outnumber average people in America. Doesn't that make overweight the average then? Last month you were fat, now you're average - hey, let's get a pizza!
Every January we see these fad diets promoted. These aren't promoting healthiness, these aren't promoting a way of embracing exercise and eating fruit and veg and doing things which will actually help people.
My father offered me a dollar for every pound I would lose as a kid. It didn't work. And it doesn't really work in the long run. Who are you competing against? It's you. You need to be doing this for you and only you.
I'm certainly not 10 pounds away from being an ingenue! Of course I would love to lose 10 pounds. I would never lie and say I don't think about it, but I don't think about it on a daily basis. I love my body. I don't like wearing clothes that hide or cover it. I love wearing costumes that show it off.
I gained 60 pounds during my pregnancy, but I didn't say, 'I want to lost 10 pounds every month!' Instead, I said, 'I will lose two to three pounds.' I eventually saw progress, and that made me work harder.
My advice for anyone looking to lose weight is to not make it feel like a job.
The thing I care about is my weight - I'm as fanatical about it as a member of Girls Aloud. I weigh myself every morning. I know exactly what I want to be - 82kg - and I try to stick to it.
Since I never get on a scale, I have no idea how much weight I've lost!
