Through Thick and Thin

Book excerpt: 'A sickly child not expected to survive, a chubby teenager and a binge-eating bride? The unlikely beginnings of a health and fitness legend.' Daily Express 'A story of glamour, success and achievement, mixed with vulnerability, near-despair and searing honesty.’ Rob Parsons OBE The doctor’s voice is sad but firm: ‘I’m very sorry, but I have to tell you that your little girl is unlikely to reach her 10th birthday.’ Years later, having defied the odds and become a teenager, the same girl discovers a medical report that tells her, to her horror, she is overweight. That was the moment the young Rosemary Conley decided to change her life. After leaving school at 15, training as a secretary and working as a Tupperware dealer, Rosemary started her own slimming classes in 1972 with an investment of just £8. In 1983 she published the first of 36 books that were to sell in their millions around the world, alongside millions more of her fitness videos, while also starring in her own TV shows on BBC and ITV. She became, in short, one of the most popular and successful diet and fitness experts the world has seen. But Rosemary’s life was not to be one of unbounded achievement and success. As well as the good times there were dark and distressing times, and here she tells of the sorrows and setbacks that were to come – as well as the joy she found, and still finds, in helping people live longer, healthier and happier lives.