WINS: Are You That ‘Girl-On-The-Go’?

With Christmas coffrets top of mind this week, we have found what I think is the perfect coffret to present this season and its called the Girl-On-The-Go Pack!

What is it and where does a girl go with it? Basically it’s the ‘don’t leave home without it’ pack especially if you are calorie counting towards that slimmer you in the New Year. The pack is what I call an Eat-Kit, something that you want to take everywhere with you and have around you especially when you are most tempted to satisfy cravings with that unhealthy muffin or that to-die-for Lemon Tart from The Landmark’s Sift Bakery or perhaps that absolutely mega-licious mouthful of freshly baked Portuguese Egg Tart (and no, that is not a healthy protein snack) from that corner bakery in Central.

The Girl-On-The-Go Pack is all about having a convenient snack pack ready and on hand, preferably in your desk drawer at work or even stashed in your handbag as its contents are small enough and feature a compact and airtight shaker bottle with 10 packets of shakes (in flavours like Mango and  Banana, Strawberries and Cream and Chocolate and Chocolate Mint) that serve as nutritionally complete meal replacements. Each sachet contains 138 calories, making that about one-third of a person’s average nutritional needs and is high in protein and packed with nutrients like calcium, zinc and iron. Just add 8 fluid oz of water or 227 ml of warm or cold water (depending how you like it) and shake it using the airtight shaker bottle.

Behind this clever starter-pack idea is Sarah Armstrong, Director of the Cambridge Weight Plan in Hong Kong who herself graduated from the Cambridge Programme having lost over 60 pounds in weight over 6 years ago.  And yes, she has kept it off beautifully.

 

I met Sarah and her team of successful slimmers who not only look good, feel good but also walk the talk by making their individual success with the programme into a personal business as programme Consultants who provide counseling and support to other users. Sarah advocates replacing meals rather than skipping them. She shares that the sachets are a a healthy alternative that keeps you satisfied with an overall a lower caloric count and at HK$27 each, they cost the equivalent of a cup of Starbucks (with much healthier benefits).

The Cambridge Weight Plan’s main point of difference seems to be in their ‘personal touch’ and the free weekly guidance sessions that the team provide clients with, providing counsel, motivation and helping clients to change eating patterns on a more permanent basis. A client is first given a health evaluation to make sure that they have no health problems that will make them unsuitable users and then if they opt to go on the programme, an ideal weight plan is agreed upon depending on different preferences and lifestyle needs. Each week, the client goes back for a chat with their consultant not just to ‘weigh-in’ but also to discuss challenges and hurdles. Sarah shares that this has proven so effective that her clients have all brought back friends and that the programme’s popularity has spread through word-of-mouth.

 

Sarah also holds an annual motivational contest for the most successful weight loss amongst her clients and that’s when an attractive, once chunky and now hunky Anoop Nainani (previously 141 kgs) now 30 kgs lighter scooped last year’s win and an all-expenses paid trip to the UK along with a professional styling session from one of Hong Kong’s leading style experts, a new wardrobe along with a gym membership to maintain his new trim figure.

Similarly, Jean Hudson (2010′s Successful Slimmer winner), Sai Kung  resident, mother-of-two and now a Cambridge Consultant also shares that before starting the programme, she was overweight scheduled to go for knee surgery and suffered from migrane. After the programme and phenonmenal results all her earlier sympthoms started to dissapear. She too has since kept all the weight off and made it her own mantra to help and counsel other serious slimmers like herself.

Some customers apparently use the plan just because their jobs don’t allow them the luxury of a regular meal time on they are literally on the go all the time, like 20-something Abby de Beer, a fitness trainer who looked like she had absolutely no need to slim down but uses the programme to just substitute the meals that she has missed in between her heavy client and training schedules.

Convinced, I gulped my first sachet down this morning, a delicious cold Banana shake, shaken not stirred … and like any of us girls on the go, I am going to see if this gets me back into that LBD that I have stashed at the back of my closet, in time for this New Year Eve’s Countdown Party. I have 9 more sachets to go and if this works, I will indeed be back for the Chocolate Mint, the Strawberries and Cream and a weekly date with Sarah.

If you want a free consultation and to find out more about the Cambridge Weight Plan in Hong Kong, please see: www.cambridgeweightplan.hk or call 2525 7165.

And .. in celebrating the spirit of the season .. together with Sarah and the lovely team from the Cambridge Weight Plan in Hong Kong, Simply Fab is offering all our Hong Kong Readers the chance to bring home ONE ultra-handy and super delicious GIRL-ON-THE-GO PACK

(complete with one 10 flavoured shakes, one Shaker Bottle and a Manicure voucher to visit the Feel Good Factor Spa in Central).

The winner will be drawn by lucky draw so please send in your name, email address and a phone number

by 28 November 2011 to simplyfabulicious@gmail.com