Slimming World on the Fylde Coast: 'Fear stopped me a thousand times but there are people who can help and support you'

The nationwide weight-loss organisation now has a network of over 3,500 consultants who help the members of their groups dotted the length and breadth of the UK to reach and maintain a healthy weight by making better-informed culinary and nutritional decisions.

On-hand to help anyone and everyone with their fitness goals, Slimming World (SW) has just under 50 groups dotted across Lancashire’s various cities, towns, and villages as well as almost a million members nationally, one of whom is a certain Natalie Meadows in Fylde.

Before joining SW, Nat suffered from chronic pain and was in a wheelchair. She knew her weight, with which she says she had struggled all her life, wasn’t helping at all and so resolved to do something about it.

Despite being nervous and somewhat apprehensive, in December seven years ago she headed down to her local SW session and has never looked back.

“I spent the 15 years previous to joining Slimming World disabled with a chronic pain condition and I’d been overweight my whole life,” explains Nat, 42. “I’d tried every diet known to man, but I knew I drastically needed to do something. So I joined SW and the rest is history.

“I’m four-and-a-half stone lighter, no longer on crutches, and not in a wheelchair,” Nat explains. “I didn’t really have a real network of friends at the time, but Slimming World quickly became that for me.

“Around eight weeks after joining SW, I was in hospital for my pain and members of the group came to visit me,” adds Nat, who is from Blackpool. “That was just outstanding.”

Now a consultant for two SW groups, including the one which helped her lose four-and-a-half stone, as well as the area manager for South Flyde, Nat recalls how any initial anxiety she had about joining a SW group was immediately allayed. Straight away she was taken by the warmth shown to her by fellow members and by the community atmosphere of proceedings.

Slimming World has changed her life, but that crucial community feel has been missing during the Covid-enforced lockdowns over the past two years.

“In 52 years, we’d never closed our doors so Covid was horrendous,” says Nat, who started working for SW in 2017. “That community feel disappeared; it’s a lifeline for so many people from different walks of life.

“You can be sat next to one person who’s 75 and another who’s 17, but everybody’s there for the same reason: to lose weight and gain confidence.

“And that peer-support part of SW is vital from a mental health angle,” she continues. “When we went into the pandemic, we ran groups via Zoom and people were desperate to see their friends: people have got bridesmaids and godparents to their children who they’ve met at Slimming World.

“As soon as someone stays for the group element of meetings, they’re hooked,” Nat says. “It’s an hour of me-time which focuses on losing weight but which also has the bonus of friendship and support.

“And that’s the recipe for success: we come together in a safe place where there’s no judgement because losing weight is really hard. Our members are tough, particularly with what they’ve been through over the past 18 months.”

With people likely harbouring new fitness goals as we head into the new year, Nat has one thing to say to those thinking about coming down to a group.

“Don’t be scared,” she says. “Fear stopped me a thousand times but, on the other side of that door, there are people who are in the same shoes as you who can help and support you.

“We all have vices and stressful situations, especially now, but we can help change habits of a lifetime,” Nat adds. “You’ll leave feeling 10-feet tall.”