Stars who shine in their swimwear

Celebrity bikini bodies

Certain celebrities can really carry off a bikini. Here are 10 stars who shine in the holiday season, with tips on where you might find them sporting their swimwear and how they achieved that enviable figure.

By Katy Ellis 

Demi Moore

Last summer, the former \'Charlie\'s Angels\' star proved, at 46, that she\'s still every inch the Demi Goddess she has always been. Demi looked trim and toned frolicking in the surf with toyboy hubby Ashton Kutcher on a romantic getaway.

How: Mum-of-three Demi admits to keeping her options open after \'gravity and nature takes its toll and everything heads south\' but, as anyone can see she has natural beauty on her side. Apart from a healthy diet of vegetables and lean meat, plus litres of water, Demi swears by regular but gentle exercise. \'I don\'t kill myself any more,\' she says. \'I used to love running and ran a lot but I have replaced that with brisk walking. It\'s less impact on the bones. I also do Pilates to stretch and elongate the muscles, and some light weights.\' As for those surgery rumours: \'It\'s irritating. And it isn\'t true.\'

Cheryl Cole

Cheryl certainly needs a break this summer and when it comes to bikinis and the kind of body you\'d want to show off she knows what to do. The Girls Aloud singer\'s striking green cutaway swimsuit by designer Melissa Odabash set a high-street trend in 2009, while her amazing body puts many of her fellow beauties to shame. 

How: Cheryl\'s beach body is a product of her newfound philosophy - a little of what you fancy is fine. She says she doesn\'t diet any more and exercises when she feels like it. More than anything though, she has accepted the good and bad of her body. \"There are loads of things you wish you could change, but I went through all that in my late teens,\" she says. \"I got to a point where I thought, actually I like that, I don\'t like that, I don\'t mind that and rather than dwelling on the negatives I just thought nobody\'s perfect, nobody\'s ever going to be so I\'ll focus on the stuff I like instead of the stuff I don\'t like. If somebody sees a bit of cellulite on my legs that\'s been circled in a magazine and it makes them feel comfortable then I\'m happy that I\'ve made that one person at home go, ‘Cheryl\'s got cellulite, it\'s fine\'.

Britney Spears

Brit looked every inch the yummy mummy as she showed off her post-Circus tour body on a day by the pool in her favourite hot spot recently. The 27-year-old pop icon loves to lap up the California sunshine in a skimpy bikini that shows off her pop princess figure of old.

How: Her Circus antics have got her super fit but it was her work before the tour that put Britney on the road to recovery. Working with personal trainer Bobby Strom, the mother-of-two crunched her way back to shape and now watches her slovenly ways - especially her diet. \"I did let myself go. I was lounging around, eating and lazing about but I\'ve done something about it,\" says Britney, now a nimble 9st 2lb. \"I\'m the healthiest I have ever been.\" Britney supplements her cardio with a strict 1,200-calorie-a-day diet. \"I don\'t eat fruit or even drink juice because of the sugar,\" she adds. \"I eat chicken and salmon and rice. I\'ll have egg whites for breakfast and sometimes turkey burgers for lunch.\" But there\'s still some of the old Britney inside that killer body. \"I love junk food, and occasionally I know I will still splurge, but I am trying to eat sensibly,\" she says. \"Now I know I have to do the things that keep me in shape.\"

Katy Perry

Curvy Katy isn\'t your usual beach babe type but that\'s why we love her. The 24-year-old \'I Kissed a Girl\' loves to show off her natural charms in Miami with or without husband Russell Brand.

How: \"I don\'t have a trick or a program,\" Katy says of her beach body secret. \"I mean, drinking water is like the easiest trick in the game; drinking tons and tons of water. I drink maybe eight bottles a day when I can. Sometimes, I\'ll add a little bit of cider vinegar.\" And as for working out...\"One thing I can swear by is jumping rope. I hate working out, but I love jumping rope. I think it\'s like dancing. There\'s a rhythm. And I love going out dancing. I\'m a really good rope jumper. I can double jump, I can cross, I can do all of it. I look like Rocky when I jump rope.\"

Bar Rafaeli

When it comes to bodies there is one as sickeningly perfect as beautiful Bar. The 24-year-old girlfriend of Leonardo DiCaprio always looks stunning in any one of her freebie designer bikinis.

How: Bar looks so good it hurts - herself mainly. \"I don\'t like working out at all. Not even a little bit - but I have to do it,\" says the Israeli beauty on her no pain, no gain approach to the perfect body. \"I do a lot of cardio and I work out with a trainer and do crunches and just the whole horrible disgusting things that you have to do to stay in shape. I also sleep well, drink a lot of water and be happy.\"

Jessica Alba

Eighteen months on from giving birth to baby daughter Honor, Jess has shown she is back to her gorgeous best in the skimpiest and stripiest of bikinis. And she may well be heading for her favourite Malibu beaches in 2010.

How: Jessica\'s yummy mummy look has taken a while. Now she\'s a dab hand at diapers and bedtimes, the 28-year-old actress has been able to find a little me-time. \"I actually put on weight right after I gave birth,\" explains Jess on her mini body-battle. \"So I had to head to the gym to start working out to try and tone up again - and I hated it. But now Honor is up and running about I have a lot of exercise running around with her and keeping an eye on her which helps.\"

Cameron Diaz

You can\'t really have a top ten beach bodies countdown without Hollywood\'s number one surf chick Cameron. Summer starts in May for the bikini A-list with Cameron usually the first to break out and bare almost all.

How: Cameron and bikinis go together like Cameron and quirky romcoms and she has no problem with admitting it. "I\'m in a bikini half the time so I have no worries about showing off my body," she says. "It\'s not uncomfortable to me because I don\'t associate any shame with it. That\'s the trick. I try not to be too worried about my body image." Cameron\'s toned body comes from a long-standing addiction to exercise. "Working out for me is a big part of keeping mind and body together," she says. "I hike, snowboard and I go surfing a lot. Those things are a major part of just keeping my sanity. I admit I do hire a personal trainer - that\'s my one celebrity indulgence. He comes in three times a week. I still love my food. I eat burgers, whatever. It\'s all about balance."

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Jessica Simpson

If heartbroken Jess is on the hunt for another man following her split from NFL star Tony Romo she certainly looks her best on the beach. The singer and actress looks in amazing shape for a day at the seaside.

How: Rather than wallowing in ice cream and cake, Jess got over her heartache by hitting the gym. She\'s not about to get back to the Daisy Duke figure she once struggled to achieve for the big screen but she is in fantastically curvy shape. \"It\'s not fair that women look in the mirror and feel disgust because of what society has made them believe about beauty,\" says the 29-year-old on her new body image. \"I\'ve been through it myself and understand the pressures. We\'re all facing the same struggles together, whether you\'re a celebrity or not.\" Jess is using a little military discipline to get her body beautiful. She started her boot camp regime for flop flick \'Major Movie Star\', and keeps up elements of it now - when it suits her. \"I have been working out with a great trainer, Harley Pasternak, who trained Halle Berry for \'Catwoman\' and he\'s amazing,\" says Jess. \"He really motivates me. I\'m addicted to it now. It\'s given me a butt, because I have white-girl syndrome. I have to do as many squats as I can to get a little booty. I do a lot of Pilates. I work out with weights to get toned but not muscular. I don\'t want to be beefy, I want to look feminine. I have to be diligent. I\'m a curvy girl. You don\'t want to see me not working out!\"

Beyonce Knowles

Beyonce is something of a shrinking violet when it comes to summer so it came as a surprise when last summer she showed so much of her bootilicious bod while on a luxury yacht off the Croatian coast. And not only did Bey wear a skimpy black and red bikini but she embellished it with a sexy bit of bling in the form of a belly and neck chain. Expect her to set sail again soon.

How: Beyonce\'s curves are all down to her DD secret - diet and dancing. The sexy singer is not big on working out but makes up with a healthy diet. \"My meals are pretty boring,\" she says. \"I have cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and fish with vegetables for dinner. Sometimes if I\'m not being disciplined - which is usually a couple of months after my record has come out and I\'ve done my videos - I start hitting the Dunkin\' Donuts. With the dancing and the same diet and staying away from food that is bad for me - most of the time know - I can stay in shape. I just do the same as everybody else has to do if they want to lose weight.\"

Cindy Crawford

At 43, still-super former supermodel Cindy looks catwalk-worthy and she shows it to full effect on her annual holiday in the south of France with husband Rande Gerber.

How: \"The secret is that there is no secret,\" says Cindy on her body secrets. \"I\'ve worked with the doctor I developed my skincare range with for 12 years now so that is the routine I always do for my skin. The reason it\'s called Meaning for Beauty is that I want it to actually do something and be meaningful which it is. For me personally, being in the fashion business there is a lot of pressure to look good but that does make you aware at a very young age that you have to exercise and look after yourself. And I have done that for the past 20 years. My routine has changed but it\'s essentially the same. It\'s eating well and looking after yourself. I also don\'t smoke, I try to get enough sleep, I\'m not a party girl - it\'s a combination of all that and most of all being happy. There\'s no magic pill.\"