New year, new you – right? Or not right? Well if you’re struggling for inspiration with dieting and exercise in the new year, you could do worse than draw inspiration from an incredible lady from Letchworth who became a champion dieter despite battling cancer and a series of hip operations.
Sue Wilcock has lived in Letchworth with her husband Jim for more than 30 years.
The couple met when they both worked as chartered surveyors in Essex in the 1980s.
Sue had struggled with her weight all her life and, because she suffered from hip dysphasia – a condition where the hip is deformed or misaligned – found exercising difficult.
She has undergone no fewer than four hip replacement operations since the year 2000.
But in 2009, Sue bumped into a friend who was looking slim and trim. She found out the secret of her success had been following the Cambridge weight loss programme and seeing a consultant to help her lose weight.
Sue acted on the inspiring meeting and called a Cambridge consultant the same day.
She weighed 16 ½ stone and says the programme was a ‘stunning transformation.’
She explains: “That day I unknowingly started a new path in my life as I started the Cambridge diet and felt so good that I wondered why it was such a well kept secret.
“I lost 3½ stone in four months and felt incredible.
“I decided that I wanted to share this as I’d become passionate about it and convinced it was the answer to many people’s problems.”
Sue was so successful she was offered the chance to deliver a Cambridge training programme herself.
She started out working a couple of evenings a week and Saturday mornings as she was still working a full-time job as a surveyor.
But when she was made redundant in 2012, Sue was able to focus all her efforts on her new career.
She also wanted to know more about eating disorders and why people become addicted to food and drink, and trained in counselling and hypnotherapy so she could help clients further.
Sue developed a 12-week programme to help people look at different aspects of their lifestyles, eating habits, relationship with food and to help then learn how to tune into their bodies and eat for health and wellbeing, not just pleasure.
But it has not all been plain sailing. Sue was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and has undergone chemo and radiotherapy and reconstructive surgery. She donated her hair to the Little Princess Trust to be used for wigs for child cancer sufferers.
Sue is in remission and her work was rewarded with a prestigious Above and Beyond Award from the Cambridge Weight Plan and was ranked in the top 50 consultants in the UK in November.
Now she has set up the Stevenage Weight Loss Centre based in the Business and Technology Centre which opens this month.
Sue says: “I’m hugely excited to be starting the centre which aims to not only run a Cambridge Weight Loss programme but also offer therapy to people who can’t use a diet at this stage of their life to help them come to terms with the eating and lifestyle loop.
“I am also starting to work with GPs to help them refer patients who can’t seem to lose weight in the conventional classes they offer vouchers to patients to attend, as Cambridge Weight Plan has shown in research to help people with certain conditions to turn their lives around and reduce or stop them having to take medication in many cases.
“Particularly successful are people with type 2 diabetes, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis and high cholesterol levels. It’s also has a massive effect in helping many couples who need IVF to improve their natural fertility for natural conception without the need for treatment in many cases.
She adds: “I am still delighted every day at how many people discover, through the programme I offer, that eating and drinking more healthily can make them feel physically as well as mentally so much better. Plus there’s not just one way of dieting with Cambridge. We have plan steps that range from replacing all food with nutrition products to part food part products. All aimed at 100 per cent nutritional needs.
“There are many people who like to comment negatively on a programme that offers to replace food with nutrition supplements, but none have actually tried it and seen for themselves what it can do. If you try it you’ll see the difference for yourself.”
For more on the plan go to www.cambridgeweightplan.com/how-cambridge-weight-plan-works.
To contact Sue directly and to arrange a consultation, visit www.cambridgeweightplan.com/SueW. Anyone who mentions this article will be eligible for 25 per cent discount in January.
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