How this simple three day ‘supermodel diet’ helps me look like this at 57: Real Housewives star KELLY KILLOREN BENSIMON reveals how to instantly drop ‘water weight’ – and drink wine WITHOUT piling on pounds

All my life I’ve had both a toxic and romantic relationship with food. Now, I love it, but for many years it was the enemy.

You won’t be surprised to learn that as a former model who’s appeared on the covers of Elle, Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan, I’ve tried almost every diet going.

I was just 15 when I was first ordered to slim down after finishing runner-up to Cindy Crawford in a modelling contest. The competition was sponsored by Elite Model Management who were quick to tell me that I had to lose 10lb. Those 10lb became my nemesis. I was sporty, tall and thin as a child and didn’t even know I was pretty. But when I started modelling, for the first time in my life, I hated the way I looked. Suddenly, I felt big and ungainly compared to the other girls.

One diet that other models and I used to do when we were 19 and living in Paris was called the ‘white diet’ – where we ate nothing but white food such as rice and potatoes. Then I tried eating only fruit. It sent my sugar levels haywire, with incredible highs and then crashing energy lows where I couldn’t do anything.

Luckily, I never tried the trick of eating tissue paper to feel full, but I know models who did.

None of these crazy diets work in the long term. I loved running and did it almost every day because it made me feel good and I think that definitely stopped me from developing a very serious eating disorder as I needed food for fuel.

In 2009, when I started appearing on The Real Housewives of New York City, I realised that nothing had really changed. All everyone talked about was being skinny and how models were basically scarecrows with really pretty hair.

I have two daughters – Sea, now 27, and Teddy, 25 – and couldn’t bear the thought of my beautiful, healthy girls being subjected to the same scrutiny, and so I decided to write a book called I Can Make You Hot!: The Supermodel Diet.

I wanted women to feel that they weren’t alone and to know that I’ve been through things, too, because as a model you’re never thin enough, your hair is never right, your feet are too big. There’s always something wrong. I wanted women of all shapes and sizes to feel beautiful.

I’m 57 now and even though the book is 14 years old, the principles still work. Today, at 5ft 10in, with narrow hips, a 34C bust and smallish waist, I’m a UK size 10. I eat healthily, exercise regularly and I lead a really busy life, working in TV and influencing and doing real estate sales across four states.

But getting and staying in shape hasn’t always been easy. After I had my second daughter, Teddy, I just couldn’t lose the weight. My then-husband, photographer Gilles Bensimon, was taking photos of his ex-wife, Elle ‘the body’ Macpherson, jumping along the beach, and of Madonna doing back-flips… and there I was, 30lb overweight.

Another time, I did a shoot for Elle magazine in California wearing beautiful Armani dresses. After seeing the shoot Mr Armani invited me to Italy to do his runway show, but they then wrapped me in duct tape because they didn’t realise I had boobs and wanted to flatten them down. Even then, when he saw me, he said, ‘Who is this girl? This is not the girl who was in the magazine’ – and I didn’t do his show in Milan.

Fortunately, later in Paris, Azzedine Alaïa introduced me to Vivienne Westwood who put me in a kilt and told me how beautiful I was at a time when I really wasn’t feeling it.

Eventually, I felt that I needed to take control and put my body in my own hands. I’d read a book called Fit For Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond, which was all about eating fruits in the morning and having a diet that was high protein, low carb, with lots of vegetables and legumes, and limited sugar, which I started to follow.

The message I really wanted to convey with the Supermodel Diet is that beauty from within helps you become beautiful on the outside. People mostly look at just weight, but I believe that a relaxed face, beautiful smile and clear eyes are equally important. When you’re eating clean, you’re going to the bathroom regularly, you’re sleeping well, you’re more energised and active and you’re no longer sluggish.

I’d be lying if I said that if you follow the principles of the book, you’ll look exactly like me, but why would you want to? I remember seeing Khloe Kardashian at a party in a skin-tight dress with this gorgeous bum that you could have used to serve tea on, and I have to admit, I was hugely envious. But I could never achieve that, it’s just not in my genetic make-up to be that shape. It’s about enjoying and working with the body you have.

Last summer I opened Swim Week in Miami walking in Melissa Odabash’s show. I was modelling swimsuits with girls in their 20s and thinking: ‘What am I doing here?’ But they were coming up to me in disbelief that I was 57, which I must admit made me feel pretty good.

The Supermodel Diet isn’t easy – you have to put in the work – but if you want to look and feel good at any age, here are my personal tips for looking hot.

Defining ‘Hot’

Hot for me means Healthy Options Today… and tomorrow and every day. It’s a back-to-basics style of eating, with an emphasis on high quality proteins and carbs that provide all the energy I need for a very busy, active lifestyle full of travel and work.

Daily life already has its stresses, so you don’t need to add more by not eating for two days or surviving on just coffee. With so many variables in the world, if you can control one thing by making sure you eat well, then that’s definitely going to help.

Stock that store cupboard

Planning your meals in advance and shopping for the foods you’re going to need for the rest of the week will help keep you on track and ensure you don’t substitute a healthy option for something less healthy just because it’s staring you in the face at the supermarket.

Every week I buy food such as chicken, fruit (oranges, bananas, blueberries), vegetables (tomatoes, celery, spinach), avocados, eggs, dairy products (butter, yogurt) and whole wheat pasta.

When my girls were younger, I couldn’t help it if they ate pizza at school, but I’d always know that when they were at home, they were having at least one or two meals a day that were based on good food choices. If you’re organised when stocking your cupboards, it means that you can tweak if necessary. Sliced carrot with some truffle salt on it is still better for you than some chips.

In the same way some people dress in a uniform every day for work, I have a food uniform – I eat the same way every day apart from Sunday which is my ‘Funday’.

Consistency is the absolute key. If you eat well six days a week, then pizza or a burger on the seventh day is not going to affect you. It’s when you eat well for two days, then have a big steak and fries, then only drink water for a couple of days that your nervous system gets out of sync.

I was born in the Midwest in Rockford, Illinois, so I grew up on meat and potatoes. But one thing that the book Fit For Life argues is that combining proteins (meat) and starch (potatoes) in the same meal leads to inefficient digestion. Keeping those two food groups separate really made a difference to me.

Energy Economics

I’m not a big breakfast person, so I’ll eat something like a plate of mixed berries if I’m not going to be very active, or bran cereal or a high-fibre cereal with almond milk or unsweetened coconut milk if I’m riding or going on a long run that morning.

I also love smoothies and make them all the time as an easy breakfast alternative. The So Smooth Smoothie in my book is just strawberries, blueberries, a banana, orange juice, low-fat yogurt and ice cubes run through the blender.

The point is that no one should ever leave the house in the morning without something in their stomach.

Lunch is my biggest meal because I need the energy to get me through my busy days. I might have brown rice with vegetables and a protein such as chicken, tofu, or fish. I call this Energy Economics because I’m eating what my body needs based on the action of the day.

In the evening your body needs less energy, so you need less food. For dinner, I’ll eat something light like a salad and a protein, or soup and a salad.

I stay away from starchy carbs in the evening, such as pasta, potatoes and rice, because I know I won’t be actively burning these foods off. If I don’t eat this way, my body either goes into inflation mode (where I have too much energy when I don’t need it), or recession mode (where I don’t have enough energy in the bank to draw from).

The key is to create economic equilibrium – eating well, so that you feel good.

You can’t be a hot couch potato

Exercise is crucial to your everyday life and I’m not going to lie, I’ve never met a smoking hot couch potato. Even the smallest tweaks count, such as walking up the stairs instead of taking the lift or a few minutes of marching on the spot while watching TV.

Not a gym person? No problem. Do different things such as going for a run or a bike ride, or a fast walk with friends, but give yourself 20 minutes to just do something different because it’s going to affect how long you live.

Perhaps go for an easy 18-minute run and then do two minutes of ballet squats, lowering your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then stand up straight and repeat the squat. If you want to really feel hot, do your squats wearing high heels.

Sunday is Funday

Make Sunday your Funday and eat whatever you want. If you’ve been making good choices and moving your body the other six days, you get to ‘fall off the wagon’ once a week.

You can’t ask a person to be perfect, so on your Funday make a big pasta dish for your friends and family, make your cakes and biscuits, or go and get that fish and chips or have a pub lunch.

Don’t worry that you’ll suddenly go out and eat your body weight in spaghetti bolognese. If you’re eating consistently well for six days a week, your body naturally understands what it can and can’t eat.

The KKB three-day supermodel diet

This is the mothership – the reset you can do over three days when you want to lose a few pounds quickly, maybe to prepare for a wedding, a date, or to get bikini-ready.

Cut out oils, sugar, nuts, salt, caffeine and alcohol from your diet – no cheating. For breakfast, have a couple of oranges or something I call the Kelly Green Juice (which is kale leaves, broccoli, mint, parsley leaves, lime juice, orange juice and water combined in a blender till smooth).

At lunch, have brown rice, chicken and vegetables with no sauce. For dinner, have steak, chicken or shrimp with steamed spinach and a squeeze of lemon juice. Serve your dinner on a smaller, side plate to help with portion control. Remember: ‘Carbies don’t make Barbies!’

Chew your food eight times instead of three or four to make it easier to digest.

Drink around eight glasses of water a day, and do 20 minutes of light exercise – biking, walking, Pilates – per day. And make sure you get your eight hours of sleep every night.

By eating very clean food your body will recalibrate and will feel relaxed and calm. You’re passing all the toxins through your body so you may notice physical changes too – less puffiness in the face, waist, abdomen and hands – as all that bloating just goes away. You’ll shed at least 2lb in those three days because you’ll lose the water weight. It’s great for resetting the body and look, it’s only three days, not a lifetime.

Managing menopause

My mum had a really bad menopause with terrible migraines, so when I was in my 40s, I was driven to be healthy because I didn’t want to be debilitated for my kids. I had very severe postpartum depression with my first child and I was so concerned that my menopause was going to be very difficult that I was laser-focused on my health at that time.

I upped my protein and noticed that my brain felt less foggy. Exercise-wise I ran the New York City Marathon at 40. I was taking a lot of cycling classes and I was doubling up – working out in both the morning and the night. And by that I don’t mean I was running 15 miles each time – I would just do two different activities throughout the day to constantly trick my metabolism, such as running in the morning and doing jumping jacks at night.

I know that people just don’t want to do it and I don’t blame them: I didn’t want to do it either. But I had no choice. I was either going to have an awful menopause or take my health into my own hands.

Wine on the rocks

Alcohol is toxic, but what can I say? I love a glass of good wine and if you want to go have margaritas, I’ll be right there next to you – I just can’t have five of them.

Every time I have a drink, which isn’t often, I drink a glass of water. If you’re eating really clean, you’re going to get drunk a lot faster, so just keep constantly hydrating. You’re not going to get fat from having a few drinks a week. You will get fat if your routine is to drink, eat late and then lie around watching television the next day, and making bad food choices.

One of my favourite things is a piscine [meaning pool in French]. I take a giant wine glass, put tons of ice into it and top it off with a glass of rosé or a beautiful white wine. It’s very light, chic and low in calories. Apologies to all you beautiful European vineyards. I love you, but I’m still putting ice in your wine.

As told to Lina Das