Natalie Bridges: With a chef, I can also be Posh

Apparently Posh Spice's latest food fad is a single teaspoon of pollen for breakfast each morning. Supposedly it's crammed full of spectacular vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

But pass me the hot toast slathered in butter and jam any day of the week.

Or maybe not. I can't help but feel a little bit jealous of old Posh. She's just turned 40 and looks extraordinary in her latest Vogue shoot. It's hard to not look at the photos of her, head to toe in designer gear, gazing into the distance, lips full and pouty, four children later, and wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Why can't I look like that? She is a picture of calm in the shoot, and the accompanying interview says that, too.

Well, if I'm honest, the other day, before I got to a 10am meeting in Papamoa, I managed to eat four slices of white toast, smothered in butter and jam, two coffees with full-cream milk, a large packet of those chewy (really bad and sugary) milk bottle sweets. That's not all. I also managed to eat some cashew nuts and a piece of banana cake. I mean, really. There's no chance I'll look remotely like Posh if I carry on like that.

Okay she has a chef, who creates a green concoction for her to drink around 10am - that's after training at 5.30am and her teaspoon of pollen - and sushi is delivered to her most days for lunch. Maybe if I went nowhere near a kitchen, ever, I could lose the 5-10kg I've been meaning to for the past eight years.

It's all about discipline and simple maths - calories in versus calories out. I'm not a big believer in fad diets, only because I know a few people who get sucked in to doing them all the time and they yoyo more than an actual yoyo (in fact they often put on more weight than the previous time, so they gradually get larger and larger).

Plus, it's all about changing your habits so that they become a manageable, sustainable lifestyle. Punishing diets hardly ever work - you can't stick to them forever.

It's not easy either, given my little boy is almost two-and-a-half, and I make the excuse of having wee choccies in the house because he likes them. I end up popping them in my pie hole - the quicker you eat them, the less it counts, right?

Posh proclaims that she often does her own food shopping and doesn't pick at her children's meals, she is as disciplined about that just as she is about her exercise regime and life in general.

What makes me laugh about many of us women is how we'll cut a piece of cake to have half, only to get into the other half moments later - but it's like eating it in two goes doesn't make it quite as bad.

I'm a Bridget Jones knicker-wearing gal. Always have been. Maybe I need to embrace that and enjoy my little treats. It's all about personality anyway, isn't it?

- Natalie Bridges is director of Tauranga communications agency Blink Public Relations www.blinkpr.co.nz