When Rosemary Conley Food and Fitness went into administration recently, I recalled how, when I interviewed the guru of low-fat dieting in 1995, she'd insisted that Jesus set her course.

"I wasn't sorry to lose my SAGG [Slimming and Good Grooming organisation] back in the 80s," she said, sipping tea with skimmed milk in Quorn House, her HQ in Loughborough. "It'd been a very fraught involvement. I'd worked very hard, my first marriage was wrecked. I gave everything and I got gallstones. But everything is for a reason and through suffering gallstones I discovered the hip and thigh diet. I think the Lord put his hand on me. That I discovered low fat, I honestly believe came from the Lord. I can't deny that. I was chosen to spread the word."

I asked why buttock wasn't included in the bestseller's title. "I think mine is more acceptable, it rolls off the tongue better. But it certainly reduces the whole area. More from the seat than the hips, to be honest."

Conley had risen at 5.30am – to read the Bible, feed the cat, then prepare prunes and half a slice of toast. "I struggle with my weight," she said, "because I'm from a family where food was a very important and enticing temptation. But I didn't enjoy it much at home. Only when I left I enjoyed it, when it wasn't prepared by my mother. I became a compulsive eater – it was gluttony. Before I was born again."

But did people in Christ's time worry about their bottoms? "No, because they walked everywhere – unless they had an ass, of course."

Has Mr Rimmington [her second husband and manager] ever said anything rude about your bottom? "Neither of my husbands, in fact, have ever made any comment."