It was over a year ago that I wrote about Romany Romany, Magician, Entertainer and Believer of all things ‘magic’ and introduced you to her.
At the time, I had emailed her curious about whether I was using her name correctly. It seemed a bit odd that she had the same surname as her first name. “I’m not telling you” she emailed back. “You have to read my book.” So I did. I opened it after boarding the plane whilst travelling down to the South Island here in New Zealand. With a busy ski season and snow covering the runway, there were the usual flight delays. But I’m so thankful for the snow … and the delays. Because, I found out why she changed her name. I couldn’t put her book down. You see, I was ‘that girl’ as well. I’m sure many of you were too.
With the growth of West-End musicals in London (thank you Andrew Lloyd-Webber) the performing arts scene grew in popularity in the 1980’s. When Romany mentioned that she stood outside the Pineapple Dance Studio’s looking in longingly with hopes and dreams of working in the performing arts, I resonated with doing this as well. However, at the time, I was working as a nurse in London and Romany (who wasn’t known as Romany back then) was working in an office. But we both needed an ‘outlet’ for coping with our new working lives as young women in the 1980’s. With the physical landscape changing and women’s fitness programmes emerging in gyms around the world, like me, she became caught up in the endorphin-fueled world of aerobics and high-intensity exercise.
The difference was, that Romany was told she was overweight. And over the years following, like so many of us, her thoughts and actions become focused on ‘calorie-burning’ and weight loss. It made sense that Romany’s thoughts, actions and behaviours became centred on this (very wrong) world view of constant exercising, disordered eating and guilt. However, although this notion of dieting was a constant shadow following her everywhere, I couldn’t put her book down, because it was replete with, well, …. MAGIC! Every stone she turned over, every obstacle she faced, led her towards her dream job – that of a professional magician. As she says, ” the book tells the story of how I left my corporate job after having a breakdown aged 26 and followed my dream. It’s the book, I wish I’d read at 26.” Me too, Romany.
A year has now passed and I caught up with Romany the other day via email. “How are you?” I wrote. It’s been a busy time for her, not only navigating a new life outside of entertainment, but also navigating new-beginnings and a new life for herself post-pandemic. She’s been busy fund-raising to get a beautiful dog from Romania and re-homing it. She is busy writing as well (hopefully there is another book coming!) and of course, enjoying her new found freedom from worrying about her menopause weight gain and lack of sleep.
“I’m very well, thank you. I’m delighted to say that I hop onto the scales each morning and they seem to be going down despite me eating whatever I please from your food guides! I know you’ll trust me when I say this has NEVER happened in my life before! Today they said 63kg. When I panicked last year and started your programme they were 68kg! The biggest thing is that worrying about my weight has stopped being an issue in my life, i.e. when I’m not overweight, or struggling with the kilos going on it’s such a WEIGHT off my mind!
I’m walking with Ruzha for an hour in the morning over the hills, delighted to say that she now controllable on a lead so i can actually have a good walk. At first she was all over the place and I was disappointed that my new fitness coach (the dog) was rubbish! I have no idea why the weight has kept coming off. Probably my body has got into balance as a result of your programme and the fact that I’m not stressing about my work as an entertainer, but the other reason is that you’ve taught me not to do all the exercise that I used to do as I can see now how that was stressing my body too and causing the wieght gain.”
It’s been amazing to ‘meet’ Romany through the MyMT™ programme. When she came on board with me, I had no idea of who she was. But I do now. It’s a privilege to have helped her restore her energy and sense of fun and have her share her story with you all too. But you must read her book too and follow her on facebook and Instagram. She does a much better job of posting there than I do.
“It would be really wonderful if you might mention www.romanymagic.com/shop where they can find the ebook or follow my blog”, she mentioned to me. So, here I am, telling you all. I hope you can check in with Romany on here. For now, here is what she has to say to you all …
“I’m a magician and big believer in real magic, meaning that the signposts towards what you wish for will reveal themselves if you keep an eye out.
When a Facebook ad for Wendy’s programme popped up on my feed, I watched the free webinar and immediately knew that it was for me. I was desperate, putting on weight, stuck on the sofa with increasing anxiety and brain fog, plus waking up all through the night with hot flushes.
Everything hurt. The more exercise I did, the more I ached and nothing was shifting those extra kilos.
After struggling with an eating disorder for three decades always watching my figure so that my costumes fit, I didn’t know what to do and was getting more and more unhappy.
Then Wendy appears! Ta-da! Magic!
The course has so much meticulously researched and accurate information. It’s not a quick fix, but at the end of the MyMT™ programme, my aches and pains were gone, I’d mastered sleeping through the night without a pee and best of all, my sense of fun and humour were back.
I hadn’t realised that I had stopped laughing while I was affected with all the horrible symptoms.
The other amazing thing was that I’ve been on over-exerciser since my teenage years. I believed that I needed to do lots of hard exercise to keep my weight down. But at 51 years old, it wasn’t working anymore. On Wendy’s programme, I just walked for an hour a day. I so enjoyed the peace and pleasure and ease of my morning walks. And guess what? My figure is the same as when I was doing bootcamps and daily hard HIIT sessions.
Covid has meant that my work as an entertainer on cruise ships and events has stopped for a year at least. After doing Wendy’s course, I felt so much better that I felt inspired to set myself a Manifest a Million Readers Challenge to get my book, ‘Spun Into Gold – The Secret Life of a Female Magician’, into the world.
It’s the book I wish I’d read as a young woman struggling with bulimia and anxiety and tells the story of how I left my corporate job after having a breakdown aged 26 and followed my dream of showbiz until I finally became the first woman ever to win the Las Vegas World Magic Awards. It’s also a book about persistence since it took 17 years of magical adventures until I won at the age of 43!
My vision is that everyone who will be helped and inspired by reading it will find a copy in their hands! I was so pleased that Wendy enjoyed it too! I’m on the Rebuild my Fitness course now and looking forward to feeling better than ever!
I am now Wendy’s fan for life and so grateful for her work in bringing this knowledge of menopause health to improve the lives of so many women.
Romany Romany, Professional Magician, United Kingdom
Romany’s book, Spun Into Gold is available worldwide on Amazon, perfect for daily walks! Links below.
Book Depository free worldwide shipping.