

Weight loss guru shares her new slimming secrets

Everywhere you turn, there's a new weight loss fad.
But one Queensland weight loss guru is proving you don't have to fork out big dollars or make radical changes to slim down.
Annette Sym was an ordinary, overweight mum when she decided to come up with her own meal plan. 
Weighing 100kg, a candid photograph of her at the beach changed her life forever. 
Ms Sym went from a size 24 to a size 12, just by tweaking her favourite family meals to make them lower in fat.
She launched her first cookbook on Channel Nine's Extra program 20 years ago.
Six more followed and she has now sold an astounding four million cookbooks worldwide.


"With all the crazy diets I've watched over all those 20 years, I'm still doing it the way I do it," Ms Sym told 9News.
She has now revamped her recipes to bring some of the them up to date.
Also coming up with her own breakfast shake, her message is still the same: slimming down doesn't mean missing out.
"It's not about missing out and that's what's important when you're trying to lose weight," Sym said.
"You still want to have your lasagne, your cheesecake and your hamburgers but you're doing it my way, it means you get all that, but it's healthy," she said.
For the successful weight loss author, it's all about swapping ingredients.
Instead of butter, use apple sauce and bi-carb soda. Evaporated lite milk is a substitute for cream, while low-fat cottage cheese and lemon juice can be used instead of sour cream.
Melissa Radford lost 50kg using Annette's diet plan and recipes.
"I can have really nice food and healthy food without having to just eat lettuce," she laughed.
Ms Sym's biggest tips for success are not waiting too long between meals and making healthy snack choices, while choosing low-GI fruits such as apples and pears to keep your hunger at bay.
The inspirational slimmer has still kept off the 35 kilos she lost all that time ago with her motto, "when you lose it, you say 'don't be coming back'". 

Send your photos, videos and stories to 9News

Auto news: Great Wall buys GM's last factory in India -