What it's really like to eat like a Victoria's Secret model

Following the diet for a week was no catwalk in the park

(Getty Images for Swarovski)

When these YouTubers decided to eat like a Victoria’s Secret model for a week, they were in for quite a shock.

While it’s pretty obvious that it takes more than a portion of kale a day to achieve the angelic physique required to walk the Victoria’s Secret runway, Michelle Khare and Candace Lowry weren’t prepared for the weeklong state of hunger that ensued.

Khare and Lowry based their diet on a regime created by New York trainer Stephen Pasterino for two Victoria’s Secret models, Blanca Padilla and Nadine Leopold.

This diet was specifically designed for the supermodels in preparation for this year’s annual Victoria’s Secret runway show, which took place in Shanghai.

The last time Khare and Lowry gave a Victoria’s Secret dietary regime a go, the programme was a couple of years old.

The biggest difference between the updated diet and the old one was the delightful addition of a shot of apple cider vinegar every morning… which both the YouTubers seriously struggled with.

Another aspect of the diet that impacted their daily lives was the lack of salt.

While both women found it refreshing eating fresher produce than usual, trying to avoid dishes with salt while eating out proved quite tricky.

Other unusual ingredients included a grapefruit sprinkled with cinnamon for breakfast and tea infused with dandelion root.

(Michelle Khare (Michelle Khare)

Judging from Khare and Lowry’s reactions, it’s fair to say that it would be far near impossible to sustain this sort of diet on a daily basis.

While the prospect of looking good was an appealing source of motivation, they found that the levels of hunger they constantly felt made it hardly justifiable.

“I feel a constant frustration doing these Victoria’s Secret diets that I have to find and accept peace with being uncomfortable and being hungry,” Khare admits.

(Michelle Khare (Michelle Khare)

“I’m motivated by wanting to look good, but I don’t know if I want to feel hungry all the time in order to do that. It feels fake.”

Even though both women found it hard to follow the restrictive diet, they confessed that it proved how hard models work when preparing to work the catwalk.

“It just shows that this requires a lot of work and a lot of dedication to the weeks leading up is that you really are on lockdown and there’s no room to kind of wiggle out of it,” says Lowry.