Happy New Year!

Well, at last it is the New Year! And a very happy and healthy New Year to all of you!

I love January because it’s the time when our business is at its busiest. We announce our 2011 Slimmers of the Year to the press on 5th January in London at a glittering ceremony and on 6th January my latest book is published – my Amazing Inch Loss Plan in its new paperback version that has many chapters added to it and lots of wonderful testimonials from slimmers who have followed the diet over the last 12 months and transformed their lives as well as their bodies. At only £6.99 I know it will fly off the shelves. You’ll find it in your local supermarket or bookstore  - no doubt at a very low loss-leader-price  - or, of course, you can buy it from our website.

This year’s Slimmers of the Year are outstanding. There are 10 winners have lost 100 stone between them. Four of them have lost all their weight over the last twelve months on the Amazing Inch Loss Plan diet at their local RC Diet and Fitness Club. Because we teach exercise as well as weight loss at our classes, their bodies are amazing. Toned up, sylph-like and looking as though they have never been overweight in their lives. I so love the moment when the press meet them in the flesh. The photographers often say to me, “Your Slimmers of the Year are always the best because they are always so toned up”. I am like a proud ‘mum’ as I show off these wonderfully transformed, confident folk to the world. It is what we work towards all year! This is what we do. We help people to lose weight, get fit and live life!

All of our Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Club franchisees will have been walking miles over the last week or so delivering leaflets advertising their classes because January is the time when most people join a slimming club. Just think -  the four Slimmers of the Year I mentioned earlier who, this time last year were embarking on their own war on their weight - it you could be you standing in their shoes next January! They will be rewarded with not just a cash prize of £1000 each on Wednesday but they have a new body that they didn’t think could be theirs and instead of wearing size 28 they are wearing size 10! Money can’t buy a new body but with the help of our wonderful instructors at our classes, or our coaches on www.rosemaryconleyonline.com , we can support, nurture, encourage and motivate you to success – success that is sweeter that you could ever imagine.  As one of my own members told me before Christmas, ‘I can now get into my old wardrobe of clothes I haven’t worn for three years. I can’t believe it! It is so exciting’. To find your nearest Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Club click here.

We are also launching our Solo Slim range of ready meals that can be delivered to your door or purchased at our classes. In a Solo Slim trial we asked 30 folk to stick to the Solo Slim plan for four weeks. They lost 32 stone between them! That means that the average weight loss over a month on Solo Slim was 1st 1 lb. That’s amazing! Just check out our website for more details. It’s the easiest, foolproof way to lose weight healthily. There’s no tie-in tricks or hoops to jump through, you just select what you want to order, add fruit and veg and your preferred breakfast and you lose weight like never before. You decide how long you want to stay on the Solo Slim plan or you can dip in and dip out. It’s dead simple. My new Amazing Inch Loss Plan book has a couple of chapters offering menu suggestions where I have done all the calorie counting for you for your accompaniments or alternatively,  you will get a free booklet at our classes or when you order a 28 Day Solo Slim food box. It really is so easy.

So, yes, I am excited about January and I hope you are too. It’s a time for new beginnings - making a decision to look after our body because if we don’t, no one else will!

Judging our Slimmers of the Year!

On Monday we had our judging session for our Slimmer of the Year Contest. There was a massive file full of applicants who had lost over 8 stone. That’s what I weigh! I cannot imagine what life must be like carrying that sort of weight everywhere you go.

We were spoilt for choice and will shortly be inviting our Regional Slimmers to attend a ceremony at Quorn House for for us to make our final selection. It should be a very special day.

On Tuesday we had our Low Fat Food Awards and representatives from many of the companies came along to Quorn to receive their awards. It was exciting and rewarding as all of the awards were voted for exclusively by our readers and members. Well done to all those who received awards. Look out for the results which will be published in our next issue of Rosemary Conley Diet & Fitness Magazine out on 11th November.

Last Friday we had a Roadshow in Maidenhead and we had a great day. The weight losses of some of those present were awesome and two were entrants for our Slimmer of the Year awards. It was exciting to say the least.

Today we had a photoshoot for the cover of our Christmas edition of our magazine. Our cover girl is such a beautiful girl who looks like a fairy princess in her Christmas party dress. We also photographed other successful slimmers who also looked stunning! I love these days.

The pups are growing fast and are giving Mike and I so much joy as they are just lovely and Waise adores them so everyone’s happy.

If you want to lose weight, check out all that we have to offer. If you saw as many successful slimmers as I did, you would join our classes and transform your life! That’s what they did!

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!

From morbidly obese to fitness instructor!

Two years ago Gill Butcher, from Northampton, went to work and every day on her way home she called to see her elderly mother. Once home, Gill would cook for her husband and then spend the evening on the sofa watching TV before collapsing into bed at the end of another exhausting day. They never entertained or went out socially because, apart from visiting her mother and going to work, Gill had become a recluse because she was ashamed of herself. Gill weighed over 20 stone and hated the way she looked. It was destroying her self esteem and her life.

Then Gill, who was then in her mid 40s, made a very big decision. Gill decided she had to do something to save her life so, she went along to her local Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Club to join. But when she arrived she was overwhelmed by fear and daren’t go through the door to enrol. She went home again, feeling very despondent and a failure. Next week, she plucked up enough courage to go along again. But as she stood near the entrance door, watching the other members walk in, she felt too fat and inferior to step over the threshold. And she went home again.

The following week Gill gave herself a good talking-to and decided this time she would join. As she drove up she was determined to see it through this time but, unfortunately, when she got to the door, she just couldn’t step through it. So she walked away and stood for a while, trying so hard to muster up the courage to make that life-changing step towards a healthier future. Fortunately, some of the members had noticed Gill on the previous weeks and one of them went over to her and, guessing what was the problem, said ‘Why don’t you come in with me?’. That was all Gill needed. Someone to help her into the room that was going to transform her life.

Once through the door Gill was welcomed by instructor Clare Hamblin, who runs classes for the Northampton franchisee, Diana Thomson. She was soon on those dreaded scales and the basic facts had been written down in black and white. When it came to the exercise, Gill felt nervous at moving around her large and unfit body to music but she did what she could and the instructor was kind and helpful as well as encouraging as she progressed through the workout. Gill didn’t feel at all pressured and wondered why on earth she had wasted the last three weeks!

Gill followed the diet and lost weight so fast over the following weeks and months. She adored the exercise and went to more than one workout a week. After 12 months Gill had lost 5 stone. Her body was toning up and Gill’s confidence was growing with every week’s weight loss. The true Gill was emerging and her life was changing.

After 24 months, Gill had lost an amazing 10 stone and was crowned our Slimmer of the Year 2009. Gill didn’t have the biggest weight loss of those who entered, but, in our view, she showed the biggest transformation, most toned body and the very best example of how you could turn your life and your body round. On top of that, Gill had decided she wanted to help others just like her so she started training as an Exercise to Music instructor so that she could take classes for her local Rosemary Conley franchisee, Diana Thompson, whose class she had attended.

Last evening, Gill sent me a message on my Twitter site to tell me she had just passed all her assessments and that she is now fully qualified to take our classes! How exciting is that! It’s a tough course and it takes a huge amount of dedication, hard work and confidence to qualify.

We love it when our members follow the diet and exercises and then become either instructors or franchisees for us. There is nothing quite like having someone who has been there, done it and then wants to pass that knowledge and encouragement on to others. WELL DONE GILL! Enjoy every moment of your new employment!

Please check out our website for details of how to become a franchisee, (or an instructor for one of our existing franchisees) or call Heather or Dawn on 01509 622000 for a chat.