SUPER slimmer Joyce Ridsdel is celebrating losing almost half her body weight in just over a year.

Joyce, 53, of St Stephen's Road, Acomb, York, has slimmed down from 20st 7lb to 11st 10lb, and from a dress size of 28 to size 14, by following a diet and exercise plan over 13 months.

She said: "I've always been big and I've been yo-yo dieting all my life. This is the first time I've felt in control of it."

Joyce, a customer services officer with First bus company, said she had done it with a combination of diet and exercise, including more walking, aerobics, riding a bike for the first time and running.

"I feel wonderful. I would like to say to those people who say they're too old to be losing weight, no you're not. I'm 53 and I feel like a 24-year-old.

"I feel so much more confident. I've always been all right on the phone because I'm not directly talking to anybody. Now I can talk to people in the street who I would have shied away from before."

Joyce said the difference in her appearance had been so dramatic that one of her relatives did not recognise her at a recent family party.

She said she would like to thank her slimming club leader Helen Howard-Mawer for her support as well as husband, Ian, sons, Peter and Stewart, daughter, Helen, and daughter-in-law, Lorraine.

Joyce will be one of several slimmers in the Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Club (York), who have all lost more than four stones to receive awards in a ceremony at the York Novotel later this month.

The other award winners will be Jackie Thompson, who has lost 5st 4lb in 17 months; Nicola Lightfoot, who has lost 4st 4lb in 18 months, Erika Bracegirdle, who has lost 4st 2lb in six months; and Dorothy Postlethwaite, who has maintained a loss of 4st 5lb over two years.

Updated: 11:10 Friday, April 12, 2002