Up until my mid-thirties I never really had a weight problem. I was relatively active with regular rehearsals for at least twice-yearly musicals at the local theatre and although my lifestyle was tinged with slightly too many takeaways, chocolate and binge drinking I maintained a stable weight and a comfortable size 11 (somewhere between a 10 and 12) in clothes.

After the birth of my second child in the late 90s I was somewhat miffed that I couldn’t get back into my jeans 6 weeks later which I had had no problem doing 11 years earlier when my daughter was born. And so, the continued striving to lose weight started. I tried Zumba, legs bums and tums, running, egg diets, cabbage diets, fruit only diets, alcohol only diets, not eating diets but I just couldn’t shift the pounds and they continued to creep on and nothing seemed to work.

In March this year I went to buy a new pair of trousers for work. I went to M&S because they had a generous cut and was horrified to find myself squeezing into a size 16 and feeling mortified that I might have to consider going up yet another size. That was the motivation I needed to do something different.

And what I needed to do was staring right at me through one of my dearest friends who I can only describe as a gorgeous, mad, totally bonkers ‘slapper’ who goes by the name of Tracey.

Over the last 2 years I had seen her commitment and sweaty posts on Facebook, and witnessed the transformation of both body and mind and when a 21-day challenge to drop a dress size came up in April I decided to give it a go.

It worked.

Simple principles around balanced eating were easy to follow and I found myself making other more sensible decisions around alcohol and sugar intake too. My taste buds have shifted too moving my chocolate preference from Milky Bar or Galaxy to super-rich dark stuff which, by its very nature, means one or two squares (rather than bars) is satisfying.

I set myself a weekly target of attending the Metabolic Xcelerator workouts 3 times a week and have exceeded this on many occasions, and have found it easy to “transport” the classes to the terrace of our apartment in Kefalonia and the garden of our house in the south of France on holiday this summer.

The pounds dropped off relatively quickly and in just a few months I have lost over 2 stone and gone from a size 16 back to a size ‘11’!

I feel great, think I am looking better and have a whole new wardrobe of clothes. But as an added bonus one of my beautiful friends Helen has also signed up and is looking and feeling great too.

It’s been a fantastic journey to share and experience. The 5:45am workouts are just what I need to get me set up for the day. I have even more energy, sleep better, have better pelvic floor control and have become more of a morning person which means I get to see more of the weekend with my family and friends. I have seen myself progress with the different exercises over the weeks and consciously set myself a personal challenge periodically to push myself to achieve just a little bit more, like pushing the ab-wheel out further in Metabolic Circuits or moving my side planks from elbows and knees to hands and toes.

The informal friendly and always accessible support from both the trainers and wider PW family has been a huge support and if I am really honest I never really thought the 21-day challenge would work but just occasionally it is wonderful to be proved wrong!