Gwen Stefani Says She's Always on a Diet

Gwen Stefani gets a lot of grief about the fact that she usually has both her hair and makeup "done" prior to leaving the house, but as she reveals in the latest issue of Harpers Bazaar that she dresses to face the photographers.

"If you had paparazzi outside your house, you'd make sure you looked good, too," the singer and fashion designer says.

She admits she stooped to extremes while expecting Kingston last year and she was "dying to get out of the house." She admits: "I had to sneak into the back of my brother Todd's car – eight months pregnant – and lie down on the floor. Just so we could go to Target."

As son as baby Kingston was born last May, she immediately set about losing her pregnancy pounds to get back into peek performance form.

"It's so much work afterward to get the weight off," she says. "If you just do it, it comes off. And when you're nursing, like I am, your metabolism is like whoosh!"

Like many of us, she reveals that her weight has been a struggle even before Kingston's birth. "I hate talking about it, but it's true," she says. "I've always been on a diet, ever since I was in the sixth grade. It's an ongoing battle and it's a nightmare. But I like clothes too much, and I always wanted to wear the outfits I would make. And I'm very vain."

She tries to surround herself with "all the healthy stuff, but I let myself cheat once or twice a day with a cookie or pizza."