Kelly Brook has said that she has learned to accept her body, although she said that a recent weight gain “was just a nightmare”.
The presenter and model, 40, said that she is happy with her current figure at a size 10-12, after previously being a size 16, and that she feels it is “much more fashionable for people to be kinder to themselves, to embrace their bodies and find an inner happiness and confidence”.
She told The Mirror: “But I was unhappy. And I think if you’re unhappy at a certain size it’s fine to do something about it.”
Brook said that she accepts her curves more now that she is older, but that ageing has also had an impact on her body.
“I can’t eat what I want,” she said.
“I used to be able to, but I hit 35 and my body completely changed. I was just putting on weight year after year.
“I think it’s hormonal, your metabolism, getting older and not moving as much.
“I crept up to a size 16 and a lot of my wardrobe didn’t fit me any more. My bras didn’t fit me and it was just a nightmare.
“I was never used to being that big and I thought, ‘Well, maybe this is just my size now!’”
She said that moving to Kent to live a quiet life with her partner, Jeremy Parisi, was partly why she gained weight, and that moving back to London and having more work “helped me lose weight gradually”.
Brook said she is a “happy size 10-12”, adding: “I think even if I was a bit smaller I’d be happy and if I was a bit bigger I would too. I feel better in my clothes and I like to run and exercise.
“You accept it for what it is. I always say, ‘Appreciate the body you’ve got now, because it’s the body you’ll want in 10 years’.
“We can be so hard on ourselves, but 10 years from now we’ll be like, ‘What was I worried about? I looked so good then’.”
Brook is best known for being a model and appearing in magazines in her younger days, and she appeared as an actress in US TV sitcom One Big Happy and films including Fishtales, Piranha 3D and Taking Stock.
She is currently a presenter for Heart radio.