Through Thick and Thin

'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.

Rosemary Conley CBE is one of the world’s most successful diet and fitness experts, with fifty years’ experience in helping people to lose weight and get fitter. Rosemary shot to fame in 1988 when she published The Hip & Thigh Diet, which went on to become a two-million copy bestseller. Since then, Rosemary’s books and videos have sold nearly nine million copies, the most recent being The 28-day Immunity Plan, published by Penguin in 2021.

In 2001 Rosemary was given the Freedom of the City of Leicester, the first woman ever to be granted this honour, and in 2004 she was awarded a CBE by the Queen for services to the fitness and diet industries. She now devotes most of her time to encouraging health and wellbeing among older people through a variety of radio and online initiatives.

Rosemary is an active Christian and is often called upon to give her testimony at events around the country. She also supports numerous charities and is most actively involved as Patron of Steps Conductive Education Centre, to which all royalties from the sales of her book will be donated.