As many slimmers have discovered, it can be hard to shed the pounds - but what if exercise is out, which means you're left with just a diet? Women's Editor Sarah Foster meets a woman who has the answer.

YOU wouldn't think it seeing her now, but June Macfarlane once was large. Like all too many British mums, she gained the pounds when she was pregnant - then found they didn't seem to shift. The upshot was, she ended up being more than three stones overweight.

"I didn't particularly have a weight problem after the first one - it was more after I had my son David, who's now 26," says the 48-year-old, who is a grandmother of four. "I started to try everything. You try all the diets and the potions and everything, but they didn't work. Eventually I tried the Slimming World diet and I did lose weight on it."

She ended up being a consultant - a job she held for about five years - but then she left the organisation. She planned to branch out on her own and use the knowledge she had gained. "Myself and my sister, Mandy, who always did the same diets, decided to start a business of our own with weight loss in mind," says June. "We sat down and had a look at what worked for us and then we wrote our own eating plan. We were called Changes at Slimfit, and were based in Darlington, but the classes were in various locations throughout the North-East."

The club began in 1998 and was successful for many years, with June and Mandy leading classes and passing on their diet tips. But then, last summer, June had a health scare. "I've had a lot of problems with my joints for a lot of years but you tend to shrug them off," she says. "Then I had an extremely bad episode. I had to go to hospital because, one morning, I collapsed in pain and passed out. I couldn't continue working. Since then I've attempted to go back but I just can't cope."

Severe arthritis meant June was forced to leave her home - now she and her husband live in a safer ground floor flat, in central Darlington. While she still monitored the classes, she did effectively bow out. "My sister still does them with one or two other ladies," says June. "Currently, I think there are about five running."

From having always been quite active - "I used to go to the gym as much as anybody," she says - she found she couldn't really exercise, so soon began to put on weight. At first she wasn't really worried, but then it didn't seem to shift. "I think I knew but I was dealing with the health thing at the time - I didn't really want to think about the problem with my weight," admits June. "I think I just presumed that it would come off when it was ready. Then I literally started to push out into another size and that's when I decided I needed to address the problem again."

She found the Changes diet helped but that her progress was quite slow, so keen to maximize its impact, she started doing some research. "This time I got into different foods and what foods work best - lots of bits and pieces that you can do that can help you to lose weight a little bit quicker. I went to the library and got books and studied on the internet and just collated all the information I could find and then used it myself to see what worked and what didn't work. I started to find that my weight started to come off regularly again, which it wasn't doing before that."

While she admits there's no quick fix, she says certain foods can help, including so-called superfoods such as blueberies. "The enzymes in certain foods work very well to help your digestive system," says June. "It needs to be working at its maximum to get rid of all the various toxins. As well as superfoods, I also looked into things like spices, which can actually speed your metabolism up slightly. Iced water is fantastic for helping to flush out the toxins in your body."

The end result of all her efforts is a detailed slimming book, The Ultimate Booster Diet Plan, which takes the basics from the guide she first came up with for her classes and adds the latest information. June says that anyone can use it, but hopes especially to target those barred from exercise like herself.

"What I have found is that people give up on getting to the weight they want to be because they can't manage the exercise thing - like older people, for example," she says. "I've always said that, yes you can lose weight through diet alone, it's just a bit of a tougher road, which is why I'm trying to make it a bit easier for people. Once they know that they can do it, that you can lose the weight without exercise, the belief is there and all they need is the right direction to go in."

In terms of losing weight herself, June says she hasn't reached her goal but is quite happy with her progress. One thing she's keen to get across is that, with any kind of diet, the key thing is to be realistic. "People have an idea that certain weights are what they should be for no particular reason," she says. "They will say things like 'I want to weigh nine stone' and my view is 'why do you want to be that? When was the last time you were nine stone,' and they usually say 20 years ago. It's like everything else - you're not going to look the way you did when you were 18."

As well as writing the book, she also has a website, which has a forum for the public for the sharing of ideas. "It's nice because I can help anyone who goes on the website immediately and it's all free," she says. "I know which foods work the best - it's just about getting the right combination."

* www.ultimateboosterdiet.com

June's book, The Ultimate Booster Diet Plan, is available to download from the website.