Kate and Pippa's diet secrets!

The svelte Duchess of Cambridge and her equally stunning sister have the Dukan Diet to thank for their enviable figures.

As Kate Middleton walked down the aisle towards Prince William in April, she looked fabulous – and it wasn’t just her bridal glow people were commenting on. The one thing royal watchers wanted to know was how normally sporty Kate, 29, transformed her athletic 173cm figure into the lean lines of a fashion model almost overnight.

Now Woman’s Day can reveal the secret behind her svelte shape. Kate followed the Dukan Diet, alongside mum Carole and sister Pippa who both tried out the same eating plan to get in shape. And, boy, did it work for them. Remember Pippa in that bridesmaid’s dress? This wow-look-at-us-now diet, devised by French nutritionist Pierre Dukan, is taking the world by storm and has been since it was translated into English and eight other languages ahead of the royal wedding.

With a tagline “Five million French people can’t be wrong”, it’s an eating plan that has put Dr Dukan’s 30-plus years of experience in the nutrition industry to great use. Backed by science – not to mention scores of skinny ladies – Dr Dukan’s diet kick-starts your metabolism with an intense protein-only phase, before you slowly reintroduce other foods. Soon after that, followers can go back to eating what they want forever, provided they have one pure protein day a week. Its creator claims it is the “most effective and easy-to-follow diet available”. And while no-one would have called the Middletons overweight before, a modified version of Dukan provided the key to speedy and safe weight-loss – to help you lose 5kgs fast.

For those of us with a few more to lose, Dr Dukan’s regime, devised a decade ago, is made up of four phases, each of which is detailed in his bestselling book The Dukan Diet. These stages are essentially four mini-diets that form the overall plan. Like the famous Atkins Diet of the 1970s and 80s, the plan is meant to put your body in a state of ketosis, meaning it uses up its fat reserves in the early stages. Unlike its high-protein pal, The Dukan Diet bans fats as well as carbs in the initial stage of the four-phase regime.