Vanessa Bailey

I was a slim, fit competition dressage rider, weighting 8.7 stone until six years ago. Then my career 'took off' and I became a Director in an International software development company. I had to spend much more time travelling, attend many business lunches, lots of drinking, and lots of sitting behind a desk, in a car or on flights. And guess what, I very shortly became a size 16, 12 stone lump with breast cancer, dry stringy hair, spots and osteo arthritis in my hip from a previous fall from my horse. This left me at age 48 feeling like an old lady. I also had asthma, which made me cough every time I breathed in to speak and Hay Fever.

After fighting off the cancer and struggling with my weight I finally gave up two years ago and gave away all my lovely slim clothes. I found Herbalife in Nov 2001, mainly because I was sick of my high-powered job. I realised that, although I was earning £7,000 a month, I would be spending it all on repairing my health if I didn’t do something quickly.

Wow, I went from a size 16 back to a size 12, in 6 weeks, over Christmas that year, eating Christmas dinner. I’ve since lost another stone and best of all, kept it off for over 15 months. More astonishing was the energy I suddenly had. Instead of flopping into bed or falling asleep in front of the TV, I was up doing ‘little jobs’, often until after midnight. Incredibly, my Asthma seemed to disappear within weeks and I never have a problem now.

Even better, within months I had no problem with my hip, I was up riding my horse again. Yes, I still get the odd twinge, maybe once a month, but in no way do they compare with how I felt almost 2 years ago.

In 5 months I had bought my dream car, a Mitsubishi Shogun automatic, 2.8, 7-seater, electric everything; big and strong enough to tow horses. At the 7th month, I had made £4,000 a month. I still haven’t reached £7,000 but it will not be long now before I exceed that.

I know that none of the Herbalife products are a cure for any of the problems I had except the weight, but it is amazing what really fantastic nutrition can allow your body to do for itself. I always think of the Thames, when about 20 years ago it was declared dead and the scientists said it would take 100 years to clean. What happened when they started to clean it up? It took 5 years before they had done enough for the river and nature to take over and accelerate the clean up until today we have a lovely living waterway again. That’s me, a lovely living waterway, and the side effect is great skin, hair, nails and oh joy of joy, I can wear high heeled shoes again and I do my work from my garden watching the birds, butterflies and bees do theirs.