Jools: 'I tuck my tummy in my jeans'

With a chef for a husband, it is hardly surprising that Jools Oliver piled on the pounds while pregnant.

But unlike other celebrity mums she has refused to embark on a strict diet and exercise regime to regain her svelte figure.

Instead the wife of Jamie Oliver has refreshingly admitted that she is still struggling to lose the weight she gained after the birth of daughters Poppy Honey, three, and Daisy Boo, two.

And the former model insists it is nothing to be ashamed of.

'Since having the girls I have had to tuck my tummy into my jeans,' she confessed. 'But it just reminds me of them so it's fine. 'I've always been skinny and didn't notice putting on weight during my pregnancies until I saw the pictures in the press and thought, "Look at the size of my face".

'But I found it funny - it's natural to put on weight when you're pregnant for goodness sake.'

Jools, 29, displays a remarkably different attitude towards her weight than stars such as Anna Friel. Last month the former Brookside actress told how she is under pressure to lose weight for a nude scene to be shot in October, even though she is expecting her first child in July.

Victoria Beckham was pictured five weeks after the birth of her third son Cruz, looking skinnier than ever after losing two stone on a strict diet combined with regular algae wraps.

And Elizabeth Hurley went into hiding with a nurse, nanny and personal trainer to shed the five stone she gained while pregnant with her son Damien.

Jools admits she ballooned from her normal size 8 to a size 14 whilst expecting for the first time. In an interview with Red magazine, she added: 'I didn't do any exercise after having Poppy, but after Daisy I hired a personal trainer. I only lasted six sessions.

'I'd ring up with excuses that I'd had a bad night with the girls, which wasn't true.

'I've joined a gym with a friend but we end up chatting in Starbucks instead.' Jools documents her struggle to become pregnant and her happiness at becoming a mother in her book Minus Nine to One: The Diary of an Honest Mum, which was serialised in the Daily Mail last month.

In it she describes how she was diagnosed with polycystic ovaries as a teenager and warned she might have problems conceiving.

Following an operation to correct a problem with her fallopian tubes and a course of the fertility drug Clomid she and Jamie were delighted when she became pregnant with Poppy.