So far in the story, I had decided to stop drinking coca cola, and count calories at the same time monitoring how different foods made me feel, mainly how long I could go without feeling hungry.

It quickly became apparent that having a decent breakfast ( I had previously had cereals ) made me less hungry and snacking on biscuits made me snack more. I also tried to eat a little less but that’s hard if you are hungry, instead I concentrated on finding food with less calories that made me feel fuller for longer.

Fortunately I started working out of the house away from the kitchen and its temptations. Although there are enough outside when you think about it – snack machines in the office, all the chocolate you have to walk past to pay for your petrol.

Anyway I started to lose a little weight. Sure enough, food with protein in it made me feel fuller, sugar based foods made me hungry again soon afterwards.

Breakfast was 2 slices of bacon, 2 scrambled eggs and a third of a tin of beans.

Lunch was a full tin of big soup or the like, no bread.

Dinner was whatever the missus cooked for me. I’m not a good cook, and she was sceptical at first.

I tried to avoid supper although if I was hungry it was cereal and maybe … Snacks! Particularly if I stopped up watching telly and was tired.

I also found from the calorie counting that it was hard to eat enough protein, easy to eat carbs. Especially as we tended to have potatoes for dinner quite a bit.

All I did all along was do my best treating each day as a new day, and didn’t really diet or take a lot of exercise.

When I told people what I was doing some we’re shocked. You aren’t supposed to eat that it’s got fat in it a friend said ( it turns out a lot of people’s views are influenced by adverts whereas I tend to treat ads as something I don’t want to hear, it’s somebody trying to sell me something so I won’t listen, I’ll make my own mind up).

Soon I had lost a stone, and more importantly when I wasn’t losing weight my body shape was changing, I was getting trimmer.

I was then 6 feet 1, just over eighteen stone.