In September 2003, Tracey Appleby turned her life upside down when she said goodbye to a steady, well-paid job and launched her own business as a Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs franchisee in the Colchester area. Since then she has never looked back.
Tracey is a graduate with a degree in Manufacturing, Engineering and Economics. She was thrilled when she landed a job as a Scheduling Analyst with a major car manufacturer - a job that she had always wanted, or so she thought.
After a time, Tracey was not so sure it was the job for her. She says: "I had always wanted to run my own business but I was scared of leaving a good salary, a big pension and all the perks that go with long service at a major organisation. The security offered by the job kept me there for six years."
Within six months of meeting her partner, Owen, she had replaced trips to the gym with cosy nights in and swapped light dinners for fat-laden takeaways and huge home cooked dinners, Tracey’s weight escalated by 4 stone. Formerly a dress size 12, Tracey became a size 20 and Owen, too, had also put on over 4 stone. After watching a television interview with Rosemary Conley in December 2001, Tracey decided that she had to lose weight and promptly joined her local Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Club.
As Tracey’s weight fell off then so her confidence grew, until she decided to give up her job, train as an aerobics instructor and set up her own Rosemary Conley franchise. "Finding a way of running my own business, but with a little more security - that of running a franchise - clinched it for me. I had always loved exercise and losing nearly five stone proved that the Rosemary Conley formula worked. I wanted to do something I was passionate about, so taking on the franchise seemed like the perfect opportunity." "The first year was hard work but, if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen," says Tracey. "I knew deep down that I had done the right thing."
Tracey is continuing to build the business and now has 600 members attending her classes. She has expanded her franchise and taken on an employee instructor to run additional classes in her area.
Tracey is also managing to pay herself a healthy income. She says: "I have no regrets, not one!
I love the freedom that being my own boss allows me to have. I dictate my own hours, where and when I run my classes and I implement my own decisions and ideas.
"It doesn’t feel like a job. There’s lots of hard work to do but I can honestly say it’s been the best decision I have ever made."
Owen has also shed an amazing six and- a-half stone by following Rosemary Conley’s low-fat diet and, like his partner Tracey, he too has now reached his ideal weight.
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