Yes you can! Amanda & Nicki’s weightloss advice

TV gurus Nicki Waterman and Amanda Ursell are here to help you stay in shape with the latest news and advice

I did it!
Name Anna-Marie Osborne
Age 42
Before 17st, size 28
After 10st 9Ib, size 12-14

Anna-Marie, a singer and singing teacher from Llandudno in Wales, was shocked into losing weight when her doctor almost forbid her from flying to Egypt because of her size and blood pressure problems. ‘I realised that, for my health alone, I had to shed the weight.’
Amanda says: ‘Anna-Marie was eating around 5300 calories a day including 23g of salt, way over the recommended daily limit of 6g. She would tuck into sausage burger, muffin, scrambled eggs and a hash brown for breakfast, two chicken and bacon mayonnaise sandwiches with chips for lunch. Her afternoon snack consisted of a tub of hummus with four pitta breads and crisps, while dinner was garlic mushrooms, a huge portion of beef stroganoff with creamy Lyonnaise potatoes and a bottle of wine. Anna-Marie overhauled her diet, swapping to porridge or yogurt and fruit for breakfast, a large chicken or tuna salad for lunch and stir-fries, thick vegetable soups or fish and veg for dinner, with a fruit salad as a snack. This took her daily calories down to around 1500 per day and easily led to a loss of 4lb per week. She also took a supplement called Perfect 10, which she felt helped curb cravings.
Nicki says: ‘Anna-Marie was really fit doing tap, ballet and jazz until 18 when her father, her show-business mentor, died. She did no exercise after that. I suggested she start gently, walking for a mile at a time, which burns around 100 calories and would help her blood pressure. As her weight began to fall, I advised lifting weights at home, then moving on to a DVD workout that raised her heart rate, such as step or boxercise. I also encouraged Anna-Marie to get back into dance – ballet, jazz, tap and disco all burn up to 360 calories per hour.
Anna-Marie says: ‘Now I’ve lost the weight I feel fantastic, and my blood pressure is normal, which is great!’

What can motivate me to shift my weight?
Q I have been trying to lose weight for years and the only pounds I’ve lost are from my wallet! I’ve bought DVDs, joined gyms, and splashed out on fitness gear. I’ve been a member of slimming clubs and tried diets but I just can’t stick to anything. Please help.

A: Amanda says: ‘It doesn’t matter how many times you have tried before to shed the pounds. It’s what you resolve to do this time that counts. In America they have a National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) to monitor the weight loss of ‘successful losers’. When interviewing people about their weight, researchers discovered that on average people have tried to lose weight 18 times before finally keeping the weight off for good. So you can do it but you need to be in the right frame of mind and find the right way for you. First, be honest with yourself about why weight loss hasn’t worked for you before. Accept that you are not ‘going on a diet’ which you will then ‘come off again’ but are changing the way you eat for life. This is crucial to achieving a lower long-term weight. Successful losers on the NWCR have shared certain behaviour, which may help you: * 78 per cent eat breakfast every day. * 75per cent weigh themselves once a week. * 62 per cent watch less than 10 hours of television a week. * The average female loser follows a low calorie diet of around 1300 calories a day, which is also low in fat. * 90 per cent are physically active for an hour every day. Good luck!’

Nicki says: ‘You need to find simple ways to slot fitness into your life. A lunchtime power-walk is a great way to clear your head and will make you feel re-energised.
Exercising doesn’t have to mean going to the gym. Your best bet is to combine socialising with exercising – power walk with friends, or do a dance class. Any high-intensity class, particularly spinning, boxing or dance classes, is good for burning calories. A 45-minute class can burn 400-700 calories. Using incentives to keep yourself motivated is key to success. Set yourself short-term goals then reward yourself with a facial. You’ll soon look and feel fitter, slimmer and healthier.’
Tried and tested
Hannah Fox tries: Hooping
Remember hula hooping as a kid? Well it’s back without the ‘hula’. Hooping is the grown-up version and the hoops have got larger and heavier which actually makes keeping the hoop rotating around your waist a lot easier. It’s a great all-over body workout – especially for toning your stomach muscles, and you can burn up to 100 calories in just 10 minutes.
The instructor of my hooping class told us that you keep the hoop twisting by either moving your stomach from side to side or front to back. These movements are quite big when you first start – you end up looking like you’re having convulsions! However, as you improve the movements become smaller and mean you can dance around and do tricks with the hoop.
Once we’d mastered the basic twisting movement in both directions, we learnt our first trick, which involved turning your body around  360 degrees, in the same direction that your hoop is twisting. It wasn’t easy – once you’ve finished turning you need to keep moving so the hoop stays up.
We also tried twisting the hoop on each arm, which left them aching, before spinning the hoop back down to the waist (warning: keep your wits about you to avoid other people’s flying hoops) but it was great fun. By the end of the session, we were puffed out and aching all over, but I felt fantastic that I’d mastered some of the tricks.

• Polestars offers hooping classes in London – www.polestars.net; 020 7274 4865. Visit www.ukhoopdatabase.org for a list of classes nationwide.