While waiting for a train the other day I wandered into the nearest newsagent looking for some reading material for the journey.

I was faced with rows and rows of glossy celebrity magazines, each one seeming to offer the same "exclusive" stories about the loves, lives and losses of the latest stars of stage and screen.

How would I choose which of these shocking and scandalous reads would brighten up the next few hours?

It was easy really – one of them had a four-page pull out on celebrity diet secrets. Jackpot.

If I could find out how Cheryl Cole stays in shape and I follow suit then surely a multi-million pound career, footballing other half and international fame will be mine for the taking? It's so simple I fall for it every time.

It doesn't matter who the celebrity is, from Madonna to Kat from EastEnders, I'm fascinated by the before and after photos, watching the transformations and reading the all important secrets that will reveal how I too can join the ranks of the glamour pack.

But whatever the closely guarded secrets may be, deep down I know it's a hopeless case, not least because in the same way that I want an instant hit of trashy gossip from 40-odd pages of star secrets, I want the celebrity body now.

We're the "buy now, pay later" generation, we can have everything at the click of a button, so why can't we lose half a stone overnight?

Is it because we're the same people so fixated on appearance that we'll also go along to a takeaway in Filton and attempt to eat Bristol's most calorific burger?

Extreme stories can only fuel this futile quest, stars pictured weeks after giving birth, celebrities packed off to fat camp or worse to undergo the surgeon's knife.

Liposuction aside, surely there is really only one way to get these results, eat healthily and exercise, a regime that experts tell us should be habit rather than passing trend.

But knowing that is far easier than putting it into practice – while I'm fine with the exercise part, I certainly can't remember the last time I had a craving for broccoli.

Recently Southmead Hospital announced it would get £1 million to help become a regional centre for weight-loss procedures, funding gastric bands to help those who are beyond help.

But doesn't that just add to the confusion – you can eat now and diet later?

Why not give everyone free exercise and nutrition classes before it's too late? What has happened to our self control?

So until someone invents air brushing that works in real life or a chocolate fix equivalent to one of the five-a-day, I'll take the glossy mags for what they are, an escape from reality, and I'll get off my backside and hit the gym.