Get Fit with Fido!

This week I am visiting Crufts not once but twice! I’ve never been there before but, due to my unconditional love of our canine friends, I am looking forward to it.

I have been seconded, invited, enticed?..I’m not sure which ... to head up the Get Fit With Fido campaign which has been created as there are too many overweight dogs and far too many overweight owners. In fact, it is proving that the fatter the owner, the fatter the dog is likely to be! And that’s doubly tragic as it really shouldn’t be like that. We have made a series of videos to help get you and your dog active. Click here to view the first in the series and click here to view an interview with the Kennel Club to find out how to get involved in the campaign.

Owning a dog is one of the healthiest things we can do for our health and our waistline. Not only do dogs offer unconditional love and companionship, they absolutely love walking. Walking is not only good for them, it is positively miraculous for their owner. Every mile we walk – which takes only 20 minutes – will burn 100 calories, increase our fitness levels, burn fat, increase our metabolic rate and put 2,000 steps on our pedometer towards our daily 10,000 target. Dogs also need mental stimulation so attending an obedience or agility training class could be perfect for both of you.

We own three dogs – Waise the lurcher ‘princess’ who is extraordinary and the most frustrating and wonderful dog I have ever owned, plus two young black Labradors called BB and Sky who officially belong to my husband, Mike, as they are trainee gun dogs. They are beautiful, greedy and naturally obedient because they will do anything for food. In fact, they represent the human race remarkably well. BB and Sky are the type of characters who think about food all day long, will eat anything that’s going – I even saw BB eating a rocket leaf on Saturday! – at a rate that would win prizes on the TV. On the other hand there is Waise (pronounced ‘Visor’), who will eat at a quite leisurely rate and who will just walk away from her dinner bowl when she’s had enough. If she’s been very active, she’ll eat more. If she’s had a lazy day, she leaves food in her bowl. She has a brilliant ability to eat just what she needs and no more. And that’s why she stays slim.

For dogs, going for a walk is the equivalent of going to an aerobics class. Interaction – though they tend to communicate by pee-mails – is incredibly rewarding for them and for us. The joy of seeing them trotting along with a spring in their step is just a joy. How Waise can wee 16 times in one walk is beyond me but hey, she absolutely loves walking on a public footpath. For us women, we just love to chat and commiserate and congratulate our weight loss achievements.

So, yes, we do need to take responsibility for our own life and for those around us – those we love hugely and who we would miss more than words can say. So let’s get our family and our pets in good shape. We will all benefit.

I’m launching Get Fit with Fido on Tuesday 8th March at the Crufts Press Launch and I’ll be there on Saturday too. I’ve delayed our holiday by a day specially for it because I feel the message is so important. If you want to sign up just go to www.thekennelclub.org.uk/getfitwithfido

If you want to lose weight faster than you imagined possible, join one of our Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness classes or join http://www.rosemaryconleyonline.com/, and go walking further and faster with your Fido!

Removing Temptation!

There’s nothing quite so focussing on ones weight than putting on a freshly washed pair of jeans.

I’d sailed through Christmas and New Year. Had the odd chocolate and mince pie – nothing excessive. Nothing out of control. Lots of walking and activity. A feeling in fact that, for the first time in years, I had actually managed my weight remarkably well, that is until I put on my freshly washed jeans! Ouch! I could hardly zip them up, and if I did, the overflow would have looked horrendous! ‘OK! Focus. Get on with it’, I said to myself.

Mike, my husband, has been away skiing in Colorado for the last seven days so now was my opportunity to get back on track and lose a few pounds.

I don’t weigh myself because it has a perverse affect on my psychology and I gain weight (I accept I’m peculiar) but I do measure myself with my Magic Measure. I had to move my ‘slim’ tag up one inch which was humiliating. My weight gain was real, and not just that the jeans being washed in some stupid shrinking washing powder!

So I embarked on my week. Back to teaching classes on Monday – two classes which I thoroughly enjoyed and at which I burned loads of calories – and because Mike wasn’t at home, I had a smaller supper.

Next day I went ice skating and skated on my new Christmas-present-ice-skates which was a nightmare. It was as though I had never skated before – but stress burns calories! Then on Tuesday afternoon I helped launch the Active Together in the Workplace initiative in Leicestershire and had to teach an aerobics workout to a very mixed group for 30 minutes. Challenging to say the least but great fun! And great for the weight loss!

Wednesday saw me sitting in the car for 6 hours as we drove to and from London for QVC shopping TV channel. Fortunately my products almost sold out during our slot so that was great news but during the feature I tasted some soup cooked in my wok. The problem was it was boiling and I nearly choked on air, totally burning my throat! Excruciating and still painful now – Sunday!

Home for 7 30pm and ready for two writing days. No treats in the fridge. No treats in the cupboards. And it made me realise that had I had a yogurt in the fridge, a mousse or some ice cream in the freezer, I would have been right in there. But there wasn’t and by Saturday morning I could see in the mirror a big difference. I measured myself with my Magic Measure and a whole inch had gone from my waist. I was so happy. I tried on my jeans and they zipped up and I went shopping and felt I was walking on air. Yes – it really is true - nothing tastes and good as being slim feels!

It is still newly into the New Year and the opportunities are there for the taking. Check out our website for everything you need to help you find a new body for 2011. If there’s one of our classes near you, join it. Click here to find your local Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness class. There is not a better class in the land because we teach exercise as well as weight loss and all of our franchisees are professionally qualified and outstanding. If there isn’t a class, try Rosemaryconleyonline.com. It is an outstanding service and every one of the coaches is an ex-franchisee, fully qualified and totally experienced to help you reach your goals.

And if you want a diet to help you succeed, look no further than my Amazing Inch Loss Plan book. It really works. Look in your local supermarket or buy it online. But if you want to succeed, just get rid of temptation!

Inspiring times

Every year we run a special RC week at Ragdale Hall when I pop along each day and give a talk or teach a few workouts to the group who have booked in for a four night stay. Lots of folk return year after year for their annual dose of inspiration and motivation to encourage them to adopt healthier eating habits, lose a few pounds and become a bit fitter. And it is delightful.

I love watching the sheer delight at ‘being back’ on those familiar faces, and the look of eager anticipation in the eyes of the new ones. By Day 3 they are all buzzing and everyone is loving every moment of their special treat week. I love it too as in the five days of tuition that I give I feel they have genuinely learned something that will set them up into the future. That’s what I hope anyway.

Last Friday was a very special day. We had seven successful slimmers come to Quorn House for a make-over and photoshoot. These ladies had been selected from the vast number of before and after photographs we are sent by our franchisees with a view to them appearing in our own magazine but we have so many we cannot include them all. We are constantly being asked by women’s magazines for success stories so every now and then we organise a photoshoot of some slimmers who are specifically selected for the national press. They have to have lost a massive amount of weight (over four stone) otherwise the media isn’t interested so these lasses were an impressive bunch.

I met them all at M&S where we selected gorgeous outfits that thrilled them to bits, in colours and styles they would never have dreamed of wearing. Then it’s back to Quorn for hair to be styled and make-up to be masterfully applied by a top make-up artist. Result? Seven gorgeous girls looking so fabulous they cry when they see their finished photographs. I so love these days.

Between them, this selection of seven had lost around 46 stone! The ladies in the trying-on department at M&S were fascinated and inspired by their successes and showered the slimmers with compliments. Then one came up to me and said, ‘You know, your slimmers are always so toned up. You’d never know they’d lost so much weight. How do you do that?’. ‘Exercise’, I told her, ‘it’s healthy eating combined with exercise that’s the key to a good body’.

Our whole business is based on teaching healthy eating and encouraging physical activity and exercise. It makes a massive difference to the end result – that slimmer body that’s toned up and looks like it’s never been overweight in the first place. And that, after all, is what we are all looking for.

Be inspired and start your shape-up campaign today so you can enjoy the sunshine and warmth this summer, and get out there to exercise in the sunshine. But you will need some personal help so try joining your local RC Diet and Fitness Class and you will transform your body and your life, (www.rosemaryconley.com). If we don’t have a class near you, try our online slimming club, (www.rosemaryconleyonline.com) where our team of special support staff will help you on your journey. It really works.

And remember, nothing tastes as good as being slim feels!

Spring time and a new beginning

It is now officially Spring and Easter has been and gone and hopefully, very soon, we will start to have some beautiful warm weather in the UK. I’m currently in Portugal where we really are appreciating the warmer weather and realising how good it is to feel the sun on your back.

I love the Spring-time with the trees breaking into life and the flowers looking so bright and cheerful. There are fields at the end of our garden at home and at this time of the year the lambs are very entertaining. They jump and skip, and at 5 o’clock each day they have races. They chase each other in groups and have a really fun time while their mums graze away contentedly. It is fascinating to watch and it is totally inspiring. It makes you want to go outside and be amongst it. And that’s good for us.

The after-Easter period is the second busiest time in the dieting calendar (January is the peak) as people become inspired to lose weight ready for their summer holidays. The good news is that we do feel more inspired to do something as going out and about on a bike, for a walk or run, or to the park, is significantly more pleasant than doing it in the freezing cold and wet. Lots of people will be signing up for Race for Life and now is the time to start training. To help you, we have included on www.rosemaryconley.tv a Race for Life Training Programme which you can log on to each week for that week’s training schedule. Designed by our very own fitness expert Mary Morris, it helps you progress your fitness to enable you to run or walk the Race to the maximum of your capability and fitness.

If you want to be fitter and slimmer for your holidays, make a pledge right now to make some small steps towards your goals. Log on to www.rosemaryconley.com for details of your nearest Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Club classes, and if there’s not one near you try our Online slimming club, our magazine and much much more. We are here to help you so just do it – for yourself!

So the best diet to suit us could be found in our genes...

In a report of some research carried out in the States, it would seem that our suitability for a particular diet could be determined by our genes. For some, low-fat works wonders whilst for others there is a real preference for eating a high-protein-low-carb diet. I think this is interesting and I will watch with interest to see how further research develops.

As you know, I still take a couple of classes a week myself and this year there was great excitement when my Amazing Inch Loss Plan diet was launched in all of our classes. I can honestly say that neither I, nor our Rosemary Conley Club franchisees, have ever seen weight drop off folk so fast in the first month of new members joining. For most, our confidence in our claim that you could ‘lose a stone in a month’ was met, and in many cases, exceeded. But not for everyone. A few felt they had been strict in following the diet but had lost ‘only’ eight or nine pounds. Maybe they should follow the high-protein options within the diet and not eat so many carbs? I don’t know.

What I do know is that we all lose weight at different rates, we do different things in our very different lives, and our portion sizes vary, our exercise activity can be extremely different from one to another and yet we all believe we have also been ‘religious’ in our adherence to the diet and a positive ‘slave‘ to the exercise routine. The fact is that in reality, some will have been totally dedicated to maximising their weight loss and others will not have been quite so determined. Unless we literally keep them in a room in a laboratory and feed them through a hatch, we will never know.

Whilst my Amazing Inch Loss Plan is designed to encourage a big weight loss in the first four weeks and then a steady 1 – 2 lbs a week thereafter, there is no doubt that for many it is working completely brilliantly. When you lose a good chunk of weight in the first month and drop a dress size, it certainly gives you the determination to carry on eating a calorie controlled, low fat healthy diet combined with exercise thereafter so that you really do reach your goal. And that’s why we make the claim ‘lose a stone in a month’. To give you the determination to make a big effort for just four weeks to motivate you to carry on and then keep on going at a steady rate thereafter.

Over Easter try to avoid the Easter eggs and ask for flowers or make-up instead if you’re a woman, or maybe a bottle of wine if you’re a guy. The problem with eating chocolate at Easter is that you can get the taste for it again and re-breaking the chocolate habit can be tough. For me, I want to be slim more than I want an Easter egg and I know I can’t be trusted with chocolate so there’ll be no Easter eggs for me!

Happy Easter everyone and look forward to getting slim for summer at our classes after Easter or at www.rosemaryconleyonline.com. We’re here to help so go to www.rosemaryconley.com for all the details.

What an achievement!

Over the last couple of days we have been celebrating the achievements of some wonderful folk who have lost massive amounts of weight to be crowned Slimmers of the Year. For the first time we are giving awards to slimmers in different categories because it is impossible to place all great achievers on a level playing field. So in January we will be announcing our Yummy Mummy Slimmer of the Year, our Mr and Mrs Slimmer of the Year, our 40+, our ‘young’, our ‘student’, our Male, our Super Fit and our Action Woman Slimmers of the Year 2010! All of them are amazing and all together the eight winners will have lost in the region of 75 stone!

Because of lead times in putting together our new year edition of our magazine we have to get well organised ahead of time so, over the last couple of days, we have shopped for the clothes that the winners were to be photographed in and then they have enjoyed a total make-over of hair and make-up before being photographed yesterday by a top photographer. It is one of the most exciting days in my calendar. Hard work? Yes, certainly, but so very, very satisfying.

One of the winners lost all her unwanted weight in just this year and when she looked at the shots taken of her today on the computer afterwards, she was visibly shocked. “I cannot believe that’s me!” she exclaimed. “Do I really look like that?” and the tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at this stunningly pretty, super-slim gorgeous creature looking out at her. And this is not an uncommon reaction.

It happened on Tuesday too. We were in M & S trying on loads of different dresses for the women, dinner suits for the men and assorted outfits all round. Every one of the female Slimmers of the Year said ‘I would never have dreamed of trying on this – but it looks lovely!’. The men were more reserved but obviously felt comfortable and confident in the clothes I had selected for them. And they were smiling!

Losing massive amounts of weight doesn’t happen overnight – nor does it go on that way either. It is a ‘work in progress’, either up or down! If you would like to be a potential Slimmer of the Year for 2011, why not start to turn your life around right now! Whether you have 10 stone or 10 lbs to lose, we all have to start somewhere. These amazingly successful slimmers lost their weight through attending Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs. It worked for them, and it can work for you too. Check out www.rosemaryconley.com for details of your nearest class or www.rosemaryconleyonline.com if there’s no class near you. You will be so glad you did.

I used to be a binge eater!

Yesterday I was chatting to Professor Raj Persaud for a project we are working on at the moment. Raj writes for my magazine and is an eminent psychologist and psychiatrist who I first met on ITV’s This Morning with Richard and Judy. I am fascinated by the whole subject of psychology, particularly relating to the subject of weight loss.

Among many other topics that we were discussing, ‘binge eating’ was an obvious subject to be covered, and one that I was particularly interested in as I used to be a serious sufferer of the condition.

I first became overweight in my teens, having been a skinny child due to being a chronic asthmatic on the one hand but always pretty active too. As I left school just before my 15th birthday to go to secretarial college, I became fairly sedentary and my weight started to creep on. When I took at job at an American company where they gave you a half pint cup of all milk coffee and a Penguin bar each morning, it didn’t take long for the pounds to pile on. I slimmed down to eight stone for my wedding at 21 and then took a Cordon Bleu cookery course which taught me how to cook gorgeous food which I couldn’t stop eating. Then my weight problem really started. I started binge eating and the more I worried about my weight, and the lower my self-esteem became, the more I binged. It was as though my mind was fixated on becoming slim but my mouth was determined to eat as much ice cream; toast spread with lashings of butter and heaps of marmalade; bowl after bowl of cereal; any left-overs – even off other people’s plates and chocolate.

I would eat until I felt sick and then promise that the next day I would skip breakfast to compensate. Then, as I continued to binge, I would vow to skip lunch and then, later, dinner and have a fasting day! I felt so utterly miserable and totally stressed by what I was doing. I would get on the scales the next day and my heart would sink. I’d have gained lbs. As I skipped breakfast and lunch I still felt miserable, and by five o’clock I was starving and by six, I was in binge mode again. It was a relentless cycle of self-destruction and one that I battled with for years. By age 23 I was 10st 4lbs and at 5’ 2” tall I looked very overweight.

I managed to reduce my weight to an acceptable eight-and-a-half stone through enormous effort and at age 25 I had decided to help others who struggled with their weight and start my own slimming group with six of my neighbours. This was the start of a business that would change my life. But I still binged, right up until I had to go on a low fat diet for my gallstones in 1986. Going on a low fat diet transformed my eating habits and I haven’t binged for over 20 years!

I learned that by eating three, regular, meals a day I could eat a sufficient quantity to satisfy my appetite but, because the food was low in fat and therefore lower in calories, I could keep my weight at a lower level. I even dropped six pounds in the first three weeks and have pretty well maintained my weight at around eight stone ever since.

But there was something else I learned to do and that, I believe, is the reason for that success. If I did have a binge, I made myself eat my normal scheduled meal anyway – even though I was no longer hungry. By not starving myself to compensate, I stopped the binge-starve cycle and I have never looked back. And that was exactly the advice given by Professor Raj Persaud yesterday. So, if you are a binge eater, you are not going mad, you’re just trying too hard to compensate. So, eat more meals and, hopefully, you’ll stop your binging.

For more help with weight loss, have a look at my website at our Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs and Rosemary Conley Online services. Have a good day and eat your meals!

Being more than you thought you could be

Yesterday was a very enjoyable day. It was the photoshoot for the slimmers who will be appearing in our Christmas edition of my magazine, Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness. These days are always special but yesterday was particularly so.

Just after Christmas, my final fitness DVD will be released. It is my 30th and I have no regrets that it is my last one. They involve a huge amount of time and energy but each one has been special. Yesterday we photographed three of the girls who feature in this last DVD - a mum, Sue, and her twin daughters, Cassie and Caroline. I class them as friends because we spent a great deal of time together earlier in the year when we rehearsed and perfected our routines before going into the studio to record the DVD. Every one of the seven of us worked our socks off, as well as our fitness consultant, Mary Morris, and the crew . There was a camaraderie that developed between us all as we gave the DVD our best shot and the result is an extremely effective DVD which tens of thousands (hopefully) of folk will work-out to for many weeks and months from next January. If they do, they will become healthier and fitter as a result. It works and the three girls who came for the photoshoot today are testament to that fact. They have lost five stone between them and have maintained their weight loss for over a year and today they looked stunning in their fabulous clothes and professionally created make-up.

Another member of my DVD team also called in yesterday - 19 year old Allyson Wicklen. Allyson is stunningly pretty and 5’ 11” tall and she used to be a size 22. Now she’s a size 12 having lost 4 stone. Today I introduced Allyson to Pat Keeling, the proprietor of the Pat Keeling Model Agency in Leicester. I have known Pat for almost 30 years and, having worked with her recently on a charity event. Pat came along to Quorn House for the shoot just out of interest and to meet the girls. I introduced Allyson to her. Allyson is model material and I hope that one day she will carve herself a career that will capitalise on her natural assets.

Another successful slimmer who was invited to the shoot today was Cheryl from Wales who had lost 4 ½ stone with our Online Club, (www.rosemaryconleyonline.com). Cheryl is a mature student who is studying Egyptology for a Masters degree and, as there is no Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Club in her locality, opted for our online service instead. Cheryl looked fabulous. With an enviable figure and now wearing size 8, it was an easy task to dress her to look stunning.

As I looked at the five folk who had visited us that day, I felt a real sense of pride. Not that I had created a diet or fitness regime but that, somehow, through the wonderful team with whom I work, we had provided the facility to enable these lovely people to make a choice to change their lives for the better and live it to the full. That, is brilliant. And it is that, that makes me want to get up in the morning. And long may it continue!

Motivation is the key

As unique individuals on this earth we are all motivated by different things and some folk are more motivated than others. In my field of work – helping people to lose weight and become fitter – motivation plays a massive role.

As I read the amazing before and after stories of the successful slimmers who appear in my magazine, there is usually one particular situation which happened that triggered the motivation to start dieting and to do something positive about their size and health.

I remember the mum of a little two year old who was on the park with a friend. It was a big park but it was next to a busy road and, without warning, the toddler was running straight for the traffic. Mum desperately attempted to run after her child but at 16 stone she couldn’t run more than a few yards and became very distressed as her child ran nearer and nearer towards the road. Fortunately, her friend was slim and fit and was able to cover the ground quickly and when she caught up with the child, she managed to scoop him up and return him to his devastated mum. She was devastated as she realised that if her friend hadn’t been there, the story could have had a tragic ending. The mum joined one of our classes that week. When I met her she was a finalist in our Slimmer of the Year competition and had shed seven stone and turned her life around.

Many dieters don’t have such dramatic stories to tell. Getting stuck in the turn style at a football match, having to have an extension for their seat belt on a flight, getting stuck in a chair in a restaurant, breaking a chair when they sat on it in a friend’s house have all been reasons why one day the overweight, intelligent, sensible, normal human being decided to take their own life in hand and turn it around. And we need those embarrassing situations to happen to push us in to action sometimes and as long as we act upon them, we have to look back at them with gratitude even though, at the time, we wanted the floor to open up and swallow us.

Getting our mind in the right place is crucial to successfully sticking to a diet and we should never lose weight to please someone else. We will only be successful when we are losing weight for ourselves. Our decision. Our timing. Our way. Once you have decided you want to slim down, the proven best way to do it is in a group, and that’s why we enjoy such amazing weight loss successes in our Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs classes and with rosemaryconleyonline.com you are not alone and you will be losing weight with others just like you.

If the time is right for you, check out our website and we will be only too happy to help. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Make the most of it.

When the going gets tough!

When we embark on a weight loss and fitness campaign we have big ambitions of achieving significant results quickly. In fact, the first three days of a diet are the easiest because there is a novelty element and the excitement of having a goal. We know where we are aiming and we know it will all be worth the effort in the end. After day three it gets tougher and we start missing certain foods, we feel slightly hungrier and our enthusiasm is challenged somewhat. But now is the time we should dig deep and try desperately to hold it together as we will now be burning fat from our bodies and progress will be real.

People approach dieting in different ways. Some stick rigidly to the diet and are determined about their fitness and yes, they do lose most weight. Some folk just cannot be that strict and make a 70% effort and that’s ok but, if this applies to you, don’t expect to lose weight so fast. You need to be patient with that rate of progress and just keep plodding on. But without doubt the most satisfactory way to lose weight is if you are given support and encouragement from others, and it has been proven that dieters attending classes definitely lose more than those going it alone.

Whilst slimming clubs offer a weekly meeting and the camaraderie of your fellow slimmers, they are limited in their effectiveness because they do not offer exercise or fitness advice. When we launched Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs 17 years ago, we committed to offer weight loss advice, motivation and a workout taught by a professionally qualified exercise teacher. A little later we developed our nutrition training into an accredited qualification, which all of our instructors receive. This means that anyone attending one of our classes receives the very best professional advice available and the combination of diet and fitness is what every GP, nutritionist, dietician and, indeed, the Department of Health, recommends.

Check out our website for details of classes held in your area and if we don’t have one, consider using our online slimming club – http://www.rosemaryconleyonline.com/ where you will receive all the advice and support you need from professionals who really care about you.