Marie’s helped clients lose 260 tonnes of fat
THOUSANDST of people oweo their health to one woman after she helped them shed a staggering 2 260 tonnes of body fat. Put in simple terms, t the clients of slimming guru Marie Griffiths have lost the equivalent of 173 f family cars or 218 Asian e elephants or even four A Airbus A320-100s. And despite the stagg gering achievement, the 7 75-year-old is continuing with her mission after celebrating 35 years in the business. “I have always thought that the only failures in life are the o ones who didn’t try. That has always been my motto,” said Marie, who lives in Blaengarw, near Bridgend.
It was while working for a building company and part time for a slimming magazine in 1982 that she decided to take the plunge and go out on her own.
Dissatisfied with the diets on offer at the time, Marie, then 40, thought she could do better and started Slimtone.
“I had to swap a toaster I’d won in a competition for an old typewriter from my work because I had nothing,” said Marie.
But she used the old typewriter to put together Slimtone’s first diet plans, using the knowledge she had gained from trying and failing at other diets and the healthy eating strategies she had come up with herself.
She paid for printing with a £1,000 bank loan and got her classes started in the Bridgend area thanks to an acquaintance from her time with the builders.
“There was a contractor called Joe Murrell from Tiger Bay, as it was at the time, who used to bring in labour,” said Marie.
“I ran my idea past him and he said I should go for it. He even insisted on paying for my first set of scales for the classes.”
So, having left a steady job at the age of 40, Marie, supported by hus- band Gwyn, started her first class in Pontycymmer where one is still held today.
During the Miners’ Strike she let miners’ wives attend for free.
And, during those early days, she would spend her weekends writing off to manufacturers to ask for the nutritional information of their products as it was not printed on the labels as it is nowadays.
Marie, who has a son Alun, 49, still takes seven of the company’s 16 classes a week and uses some odd teaching tools to help get her message across.
“I have two plastic models – one is of 5lbs of fat and the other is of 1lb of fat,” said Marie.
“So when clients come for a weigh-in and say they’re disappointed they’ve only lost 1lb, I show them the model and say, ‘ Look, that’s what’s melted off your bum’.”