Will exercise alone make you slim?

We’re currently in Portugal at the tail end of our holiday so apart from my nightly Fitness Challenge on Twitter, I have had a rest from blogging and most things to do with work. I feel rested, relaxed, I’ve caught up with my sleep and I’m now re-energised and ready to go back to work and get cracking again.

Yesterday the Observer carried a feature headed ‘Why exercise won’t make you thin’. It concludes that exercise alone will not make you lose weight unless you diet as well. Well! There’s a revelation!

When I read articles like that I get pretty frustrated. Research study after research study is commissioned to prove or disprove facts that are plain, straight-forward common sense.

Being overweight is dangerous to our health. Being unfit is dangerous to our health. Being overweight AND unfit it VERY dangerous to our health! Fact!

To lose weight we need to eat fewer calories each day than our body spends in living and going about our daily lives. If we eat more than we spend in energy, we gain weight. It is not rocket science. Every time we walk a mile we spend around 100 calories. If we drink half a bottle of wine or eat a Mars bar, we need to walk three miles extra to burn it off if we don’t want to gain weight. But if we eat a bit less cereal at breakfast, eat one less sandwich at lunchtime and cut our evening-meal portion by 20%, and try to be as active every day as we can, we can get away without having to walk the extra three miles. It is about choices and a desire to be slim.

Being physically active burns extra calories, helps our heart and lungs to become fitter, reduces our cholesterol and blood pressure and helps our joints. If we could take a pill that gave us the benefits that exercise gives us, we would all be taking it. We really do not need anyone to give us any discouragement to exercise and that’s why articles such as the one in the Observer, make me mad. We need encouragement to exercise and we need to build it into our everyday lifestyle so that we don’t see it as a chore but part of living. Eating healthily, and a few hundred fewer calories each day while we are trying to lose weight, will transform our health, our figure and our confidence. But we do need to do both diet AND exercise to see fast, effective and transforming results that will encourage us. That’s why 17 years ago we launched Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs to teach exercise within a slimming clubs to encourage faster weight loss. And it works. It really, really works!

And when I read today the story of our Mr and Mrs Slimmer of the Year, Maria and Toby Webber, running in yesterday’s Great North Run having lost 18 ½ stone between them, I feel very proud. They epitomise what ‘diet’ AND ‘fitness’ can do for you. Brilliant!

What a fantastic night!

The sun shone, the countryside looked magnificent and the crowds arrived. The villagers marshalled, the farmer mowed the car park, the bands played, the Pimms flowed and the guests opened their purses and wallets for three great charities.

Music in the Meadow is a fun night out for all the family held in the grounds of our house which nestles in a valley in the east of Leicestershire. Surrounded by mature trees our quiet little village that houses only 80 inhabitants suddenly was rocking to the sound of music - and lots of it!

Last Saturday night we raised £27,500 for charity from a relatively small pop concert. Around 600 folk enjoyed their picnics, drank a few bevies and danced the night away to great music in aid of a charity called Steps that helps children with celebral palsy and Down syndrome (http://www.stepscentre.org/); a 25 year-old young man who had his neck broken whilst training for the under 21’s England Rugby team five years ago, (www.matthampson.co.uk); and the village hall and church of Ashby Folville where the event was hosted.

A ‘Mega Raffle’ is the main fund raiser with no less that 10 holidays or breaks to be won from South Africa to Turkey, Center Parcs to the Marriott County Hall Hotel in London, from Ragdale Hall to Stapleford Park both in Leicestershire. Then there’s the Tombola to beat all tombolas. Hundreds of super prizes up for grabs with a great chance of winning as we up the stakes from one in ten to one in six chances of winning. No one goes away disappointed.

But this year we’d been given a diamond necklace by Goldsmiths, a CAT watch by Lumbers and a crystal flying dolphin by Swarovski, so we ran an extra raffle for the night which raised an extra £500.

The key to our event raising so much cash is simply that there are no expenses deducted. The bands (four of them: three local and one from the USA - Don Watson and his band who flew in specially from Vail, Colorado for the event), all play for free. The marquees are provided by Owen Brown. The toilets and the generator that enable the event to happen are paid for by Raynsway Properties. The electrics, staging, lighting and technical back-up is given by Hawthorn. Then there’s the insurance, printing, website, design, publicity and much more – all given for free.

Even the Pimms and the wine that’s sold during the event is paid for by a sponsor. There are no expenses.

The end result - a fantastic night of fun and everybody wins. Long may Music in the Meadow continue and long may we dance and laugh, spend and smile and enjoy every moment of a very special event. Thank you all for coming, helping, supporting and giving. It was fun!

To view the pictures taken during the event (thank you Lionel Heap) and for the winners of our raffle prizes, log on to http://www.musicinthemeadow.co.uk/.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME, EVERYONE WHO GAVE AND EVERYONE WHO MADE IT FUN!