From bags to riches: Louth slimmers go for gold and raise €4,050 for cancer society

So confident they’ll never need their larger sized clothes again, slimmers across Ardee and Dundalk have raised €4,050 by donating the clothes they’ve slimmed out of to the Irish Cancer Society.

The Ardee and Haggardstown Slimming World groups collected 135 bags of clothes as part of the Big Golden Slimming World Clothes Throw.

The bags will be donated to the local Irish cancer society shops as part of the national fundraising campaign, which this year goes Gold as Slimming World celebrates it’s 50th birthday year.

The Slimming World Clothes throw aims to raise awareness of how keeping a healthy weight can reduce the risk of developing some types of cancer. Each of the filled bags is worth around €30 to the charity, and this years campaign is aiming to beat the total raised in 2018.

Lynne Mc Cormack who runs the Ardee and Haggardstown groups is delighted to have raised so much money for the charity.

"I can’t quite believe how many bags we managed to collect, I knew my members would get behind the campaign as Cancer touches so many of our lives.

"Seeing members donate their too big clothes is just amazing and I find it a real privilege to help support members on their weight loss journey to achieve their target weight."

According to Lynne, group members learn to remove the feelings of guilt around food and instead feel empowered by all the Free Food they can enjoy on Slimming World’s healthy eating plan food optimising.

Through food optimising they learn to change the way they think about food by making changes to the way they shop, cook and eat, and still lose weight without ever feeling like they have to restrict a thing or go hungry.

Members also make friends in group, lynne says, they celebrate success together and are there for each other in more challenging times. As the weight drops off and the energy levels soar, many of the members start to get more active like walking, swimming, cycling, playing with the kids and grandkids, there really is no stopping them.

Lynne adds: "So many people don’t know how much of a difference losing weight can make to health including the risk of developing a range of problems including some types of cancer.

"Hopefully this campaign and our efforts for charity will help inspire more people in Ardee and Dundalk to improve their health and change their lives by losing weight too."

Anyone who would like to find out more about Slimming World you can get in touch with Lynne on 087 9839776 or Facebook Slimming World Ardee or Slimming World Dundalk, Geraldine’s GAA

Ardee - Tuesday’s 7:30/9:30/11:30am, 5:30/7:30pm
Haggardstown Dundalk - Thursday’s 5:30/7:30pm. Friday’s 9:30am