TOBY YOUNG: Not even Joe Wicks can get rid of my love handles

Toby Young, 54, is a journalist and writer. He lives in London with his wife Caroline, a travel writer, and their four children – Sasha, Ludo, Fred and Charlie.

I’ve been on a diet for the past three months with the enthusiastic support of my wife and four children.

‘Are you clinically obese?’ asked my 14-year-old daughter at the beginning of the year. No, actually, I wasn’t.

My body mass index was 27.4, which is 2.6 points short of clinical obesity. But still. If you’re only 5ft 8in, weighing nearly 13st is not a good look.

Toby Young admits he has been working out to a Joe Wicks video in the morning in the effort to lose weight which has so far drop from almost 13 stone to 11 stone five ounces

Toby Young, pictured, said he initially started going out for runs with his 13-year-old son

Toby Young, pictured, said he initially started going out for runs with his 13-year-old son

It had got to the point where if my shoelace came undone, I would carry on walking until I spotted a bench rather than suffer the pain and indignity of bending over.

I started going for runs at the weekend with my 13-year-old son. ‘I’m not sure that’s actually running, Dad,’ he said the second time we went out together.

The breakthrough came when I bought a Nokia Body+ scale. Not only does it produce reams of useful information every time I step on it, it then beams this information to the Nokia Health Mate app on my iPhone. I can pull up a graph at the flick of a button tracking my weight loss – and I am obsessed. If the line on the graph is dipping I feel happy; if it’s climbing, I feel depressed.

I had intended to stop the diet when I got down to 11½ stone, but when I reached that target and my moobs and love handles were still stubbornly in place, I decided to keep on going.

Today, I’m 11st 5 lb and my BMI is 24.2, but I hope to get down to 11st and break the 24 barrier. I’ve given up running – too humiliating – and work out before breakfast to a Joe Wicks exercise video.

Caroline says I’ve become ‘manorexic’ and worries I will pass on my anxiety about my weight to the children. Like her, they’re skinny minnies – so there doesn’t seem much danger of that. At least, I hope there isn’t. About one in a hundred female adolescents suffers from anorexia and if my 14-year-old daughter succumbs, I’ll never forgive myself.

I can now fit back into suits I haven’t worn in 20 years. And I can not only tie my own shoelaces without the need of a park bench, I can tie my children’s too. With a bit of luck, I’ll soon be able to play football with them without running out of puff after the first minute.



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