Happy Christmas 2010 – from Zoë & Andy xx

Hi there!

If 2009 was the year of leaving corporate life, 2010 was the year of knowing I will never go back! Andy got there 10 years before me.

There is one major thing for which we will remember this year and that is the publication of the book I’ve always wanted to write and thought many times over the spring and summer would never quite get there. The Obesity Epidemic: What caused it? How can we stop it? came out on the same day that all the Chilean miners did – 14 October – and I cried for joy more about the miners than the book, which is saying something!

Andy and I now pretty much work full time together, which is scary from the ‘early stages of a business/no income point of view’ but very exciting and enjoyable. We are both nutty ‘get things done’ types and we look back on this year with a real sense of fulfilment:
– We have set up our own publishing company, Columbus Publishing, because the only way to make anything from books is to at least get the publisher and author cut (Amazon take 65% and there’s a distribution chain and production costs, so the maths is not tough!)
– We have cracked the challenge of ebooks and are now working on getting our range of books on the ever growing mediums of Kindle, iApps, Smashwords and so on.
– We have launched a wonderful on-line club, for followers of The Harcombe Diet. It is regularly praised by members as the friendliest and most supportive diet club ‘out-there’ and it is a pleasure to spend a lot of our time and love keeping it that way.
– Club members initiated a series of get togethers during the year. The first lunch was held in London in February; then Andy and I hosted a ‘fans’ BBQ in June and we hired a function room for the October London meet. The next meet is already being planned for Manchester next February – seeing people lose stones between each meeting has been wonderful. Some walk in and we hardly recognise them!
– We publish a club magazine every fortnight with recipes, diet tips, a video and a couple of weighty articles on the big issues in the world of diet and obesity. It is wonderful seeing parents, IT programmers, chief executives and maths teachers in the club learning about cholesterol, thermodynamics and what human fat tissue actually is.

It’s been another incredible year for PR. I actually tried to shut myself away from January to July, to do nothing but work on the book, and articles still came to us, including the first mention in the Sunday Times in April. The media page is pretty up to date and you can see the impact of the Daily Mail article in November. South Africa, Germany, Romania, Greece, Australia all picked up the story; then the NY Post (Sunday edition) called and Cynthia and I did a tailored article. I was raking leaves that Sunday afternoon when Andy came rushing out to say that NBC had been in touch. I’d barely stopped squealing when Fox News followed shortly behind. I was a whisker away from being flown to NY to do NBC, but ended up doing Fox & Friends from the London studio instead. Scariest and most fun thing I’ve ever done and Andy got a taste of “The Green Room”!

I said in last year’s Xmas letter that the most fun of 2009 had been the learning, researching and writing that I had been free to do. 2010 was more of the same. It has taken nearly two years to write “The Obesity Epidemic” – the 400 references alone took most of that to read. Almost every day of researching and writing I was in shock. I just can’t believe some of the things that I came across and the extent of the lies that we have been told about diet and nutrition. To the extent, with apologies to my friends who may still be vegetarian, that I started eating meat again on Good Friday. I picked a memorable date shortly after a conference I attended, after which I knew I would never be vegetarian again. Healthy as I felt before, I feel even better now and Andy is loving steak, lamb or pork every night. (As an interesting twist, I am speaking next March at the same conference that ended my veggie’ness!)

Wales went Ryder cup mad in October and we live 5 miles from the Celtic Manor, so we got caught up in the local hospitality fever. When Graham McDowell won the Wales open and then the US Open we got a call from a friend of ours, Justin, asking if we were anywhere near the golf, as his bessie mate had unexpectedly qualified for the Ryder Cup! Turned out Justin was GMac’s best friend and his dad and GMac’s dad were best friends. We hosted Justin & Rory and they got us tickets for the opening ceremony, which was wonderful enough (we bunked Max off school for the day – hence the photo on the Xmas card). Then our Irish guests managed to get 2 tickets for Magic Monday, so Andy went along with our brother in law (another Andrew) who is a seriously good golfer. I ended up dog sitting and staying glued to Radio 5 live all day. What a memorable event it turned out to be – for wet and wonderful reasons. The logistics were awesome. Funniest bus slogan: “you wait 77 years for a Welsh Ryder Cup bus and then they all turn up at once.”

We managed to sneak in a skiing holiday in February (Video below!) I spent most afternoons writing, as the weather was unseasonably harsh and it was an inspirational place to make progress on the book manuscript. We then had a hugely needed break in Majorca at the end of August. The book was with the reviewers by then and I was utterly drained. I don’t think Andy has ever had such a quiet week from me! I really hadn’t appreciated what it had taken out of me – if you get to read it, you may understand why!

The boys are both now past 6 foot – Gez is learning to drive and Max is 15 in the New Year. Girls, grub and gadgets are all that interest them! Both rugby mad, but Gez is awaiting surgery in the new year after a recurring injury. Max does football and golf, as well as the beautiful game. Maxwell and Roxy are as adorable as ever and getting on so well. We find them curled up in Roxy’s basket together when we sneak down in the cold mornings. Check out my beautiful god daughter who started school this year! Larry and Simone are such terrific parents – Brianna is a little darling.

2010 may be remembered for the year that France were a bit good in the 6 nations and England were a bit rubbish in the world cup. Chile were rather wonderful at rescuing miners, but NZ tragically didn’t have the same good fortune. Amy Williams slid to Olympic gold on a tea tray and Jack Bauer slipped out of our lives forever. For us, 2010 will be the year of a book, the likes of which I will never write again!

That’s it for now. Here’s hoping 2011 is a healthy, fulfilling and contented year for you all.
Zoë & Andy xxx