Rosemary Conley has a huge amount to thank fitness for – not only has it brought her fame, fortune and happiness, she credits it with helping save her life, too.
“When I was two, I developed asthma,” explained the 76-year-old, who shot to fame with her Hip And Thigh Diet in 1988, later launching a nationwide chain of franchised Rosemary Conley Diet & Fitness Clubs.
“I was very poorly as a child and my parents were told I was unlikely to live beyond 10 years old. Thankfully, and obviously, I’ve lived a lot longer than that!”
In the decades since, she has made very good use of the “extra” time she’s had. As well as her clubs, which went into administration in 2014, she’s written books, made regular TV and video appearances, and even now still teaches exercise classes and keeps herself extremely fit.
Conley, who lives with her second husband Mike Rimmington in Leicestershire, continues to see a lung specialist regularly – and says he told her if she hadn’t become a fitness trainer, her life story would have been very different.
“I’ve been teaching fitness for 50 years and it’s been good fortune that I turned into a career of fitness, which has developed my lungs,” she reflected. “My specialist cannot believe that I do what I do with the lungs I have.”
She now has monthly injections of a new biologic asthma drug, which has “dramatically extended” her breathing capacity, as well as taking four inhalers every day, plus a bronchodilator.
“Right through my life, with inhalers, tablets, etc, I’ve managed my asthma,” she said. “I’ve never been hospitalised with it but it has very much been there. I’ve had to have steroids occasionally. I’ve had pneumonia, chest infections, and my body will react badly if I get a really bad cold.”
She also has the chronic lung condition bronchiectasis, which damages the airways and can cause excessive mucus.
“It all sounds incredibly gloomy but I have to tell you I’ve led an incredibly full life,” she says. “I still teach classes, I go for personal training twice a week, and I do a ballet class on a Friday. Normally, I walk for 30 minutes every morning as well.
“I work well in the gym, I really do. I invest myself in my fitness because I want to live – I want to live as long as I can possibly drag every year out of my life!”
Despite her age, she has no plans to hang up her trainers and is still full of infectious enthusiasm about the classes she teaches and their loyal members – some of whom are even older than she is.
“I do two classes every Monday night, I’ve been doing them for 50 years, and I have many members who’ve been coming for over 40 years and they’re still coming every week, bless them. I love them! They’re fitness classes, and we do some aerobics and some strength work, and I have three people who are over 80, and about 10 people in their mid-70s. We’ve all grown old together.”
She believes exercise is crucial whatever your age, and for people just starting a fitness journey, she suggests going for a walk.
She added: “It’s never, ever too late to change your lifestyle. If people in their 80s start exercising, the benefit will be enormous.”
Rosemary Conley is an ambassador for Asthma + Lung UK: asthmaandlung.org.uk
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