Claudette's slimmers shedding a kilo a week

The island is 920kg lighter after 150 people following the national weight loss programme, L-iSfida Ghall-Kbar Biss, lost about six kilos each in six weeks.

The heavyweight group is inching closer to its goals and having surpassed the halfway mark of the 12-week programme is confident that healthy habits will become a way of life.

Popular television presenter Claudette Pace, who gave birth to this idea as part of her own mission to lose weight, has also lost six kilos and went down from a dress size of 20/22 to size 16 as a result of regular exercise.

To help her achieve her goals Ms Pace roped in Saint James Hospital, the Health Promotion Department, numerous fitness experts, nutritionists, psychologists, gyms and private entities that are all providing their services free of charge.

The results so far have been extremely encouraging and the programme has spurred people into getting excited and motivated about losing weight, without crash diets or starvation.

"My husband David and myself have completely changed our shopping list and introduced healthy eating in our daily routine. I feel so much fitter and healthier and the numbing pain I had in my back and legs has eased," she said.

Her mission has led to healthy eating for all the family and Ms Pace sits down with her daughter for breakfast and snacks on fruit and vegetables in between meals to keep hunger at bay and maintain her energy levels.

"It's funny but I guess I eat more now than I previously did. Before I used to go for the entire day without eating and then indulge in whatever comes to hand in the evening - there was no stopping me," she said with a hearty laugh.

However, despite being delighted at having dropped two dress sizes, Ms Pace is thrilled that so many others are experiencing the same satisfaction at losing weight and altering their harmful eating habits.

"There were some people who dropped out because they were not in the right frame of mind when they started, but those who have persisted are so happy and that's the biggest satisfaction - I'm sticking to this regime because of them and vice versa," she added.

Nutritionist Claire Spiteri, who is running one of the 12 groups following this programme, believes that these people will retain the good habits adopted during the programme.

"What I wanted to instil in these people is that healthy eating need not be boring. I wanted to change their mentality and relationship with food for life and not merely for a few weeks. I don't tell people to deprive themselves of food but to combine healthy eating with exercise," she said.

Ms Spiteri said the clients following the programme had come with many misconceptions such as their belief that pasta was fattening.

"It's all in the portion size. Some used to cook 500g of pasta for just three people when ideally a portion should be about 100g or just under," she pointed out.

Many were also unaware of the health and cleansing benefits of drinking water regularly to avoid dehydration and lethargy, among others. Instead they quenched their thirst with sugar-laden soft drinks and lots of caffeine-packed drinks that made blood sugar levels fluctuate and acted as a diuretic.

"Most did not have control on their eating habits and many were bingeing on all the wrong foods, especially when stressed. Fruit and vegetables were hardly ever on the menu and when they featured they were usually frozen. Now they have changed their attitude and the good thing is that they are passing on the advice to their families," she said.

Ms Spiteri said that the hardest change people had to face was factoring in exercise in their busy, daily family schedule, but once they saw the results it motivated them to get moving.

During the programme Ms Spiteri has focused on advising them on the best way of maintaining the vitamins in food when cooking and making healthy choices when eating out.

"I truly believe that these people will continue along this path. I think I have really drummed the message home," she said.

Encouraged by the reaction and overwhelming interest in this weight loss programme, Ms Pace intends to continue creating an awareness on obesity - a condition that is plaguing the Western world.

In Malta, statistics show that over 60 per cent of the population is either overweight or obese, while Maltese children were the most obese in the EU. Obesity has been recognised by the World Health Organisation as the "epidemic of the 21st century" with conditions including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and other chronic problems.

Spurred on by these scary statistics Ms Pace will be launching a television programme at the end of this month focusing on eating well, healthy restaurant menus and using pampering methods to alleviate stress. Called C'est La Vie, it will be broadcast on TVM.

"If people start demanding healthier food in restaurants and leading a healthy way of life the mentality will change and we can bring about this change."