The Hairy Bikers on beating Type 2 diabetes
Losing 3st each in 2012 probably saved their lives, now Hairy Bikers Si King and Dave Myers reveal how their new cookbook may help save yours. By Jenny Johnston
There are all sorts of diet and fitness gurus, but some are more glossy than others. ‘We’ve never been asked to do a GQ cover,’ says Si King, one half of the Hairy Bikers, cheerily. ‘Nor would we want to be.’ They’ve no hankering either, it seems, to be Joe Wicks, the current darling of the washboard stomach wannabe set. ‘I don’t have a Joe Wicks lifestyle, far from it,’ says Si. ‘I’m an ordinary Geordie bloke.’
When they started their TV career, in what seems like a very different era now, Si and his Hairy Biker cohort Dave Myers were exactly that: two blokey blokes determined to just step on the throttle of life. They loved their food. They loved their travel. They cooked and bantered on our screens and how we loved their laissez-faire attitude to everything – waistlines included.
Where would they be now though, had they continued thus? ‘I dread to think,’ says a now-very-slimline Dave Myers. ‘I was already dangerously close to diabetes. We were those middleaged men who were at high risk of everything.’
Shocked into action by Dave’s borderline blood sugar levels, a sign of pre-diabetes, they took action they knew would lessen the chances of their lifestyle heading straight to diabetes, strokes, heart attacks and who knows what else. In 2012, as part of a TV programme that forced them to get on the scales (‘In our pants, on the telly!’ says a still-horrified Si) and confront the results of a barrage of scary health tests, they started on a journey that saw them lose more than six stone between them. On that journey they tweaked and rewrote their recipes, and indeed their whole approach to food. In time they overhauled not just their own health but their careers too.
In the current coronavirus climate, one could forgive them for feeling smug that they aren’t in the bracket of those obese men who are ticking timebombs. None of us is sleeping easy these days, but had they still been heavily overweight surely things would have been even worse? ‘I’m very glad I lost the weight when I did,’ admits Dave, who’s now 62. ‘The whole situation at the moment is horrendous enough.’
Si, 52, points out that, technically, he’s still overweight. He’s carrying about a stone more than he was in his slimline days. Other health hiccups (he famously nearly died after suffering a brain aneurysm in 2014) led to him taktimes, ing his eye off the ball a little dietwise, and he admits he’s the more emotional eater of the two. ‘I struggle with it more, and always have. I lose a bit, gain a bit. I don’t mind saying it. It’s hard.’
Their new book, Eat To Beat Type 2 Diabetes, makes no apology for trying to get us all into shape though. Specifically targeted towards beating the preventable type of diabetes, it was conceived way before the current crisis, and it is packed full of recipes, tips and advice, all delivered in trademark, straight-talking Hairy Biker style. Actually, it’s the perfect companion for our when we’re all bored at home and fighting another national battle – with the biscuit tin. ‘It’s specifically about what we learned from Professor Roy Taylor, the diabetes expert who first helped us,’ says Dave. ‘He was the one who told me that I could reverse my own pre-diabetes. From that point on I worshipped at the altar of Professor Taylor and he’s written the foreword to the book.’
Professor Taylor says he can’t think of any food writers who are more qualified to produce a book like this. After parachuting into his life in 2012, he writes, they ‘rolled up their sleeves and agreed to try to lose the amount of weight that most people with Type 2 diabetes need to lose – around two and a half stone each. And they were to lose this in 12 weeks. They worked with my team to devise low-calorie recipes for delicious meals. Then they cooked themselves into losing over three stone each. As qualifications for writing this book, that is pretty impressive.’
What makes this book unexpectedly timely too is the emphasis on home cooking. Since lockdown more of us are hunkering down and actually producing meals ourselves at home every night. Now, says Dave, the challenge is to marry this with an understanding of what you are cooking – and how you can tweak it to reap the health benefits. ‘No one is saying it’s easy,’ he admits. ‘But if anyone looked at these recipes and felt they were being denied anything, I’d be disappointed. The whole point is to show that you can still eat very well while seeing the needle go down on the scales.’
Too often, they both say, there is a dangerous divide between the food industry and the health industry. ‘We’ve lived with a legacy of profit over people for a long time now,’ Si points out. ‘The health industry cares little about food, and the food indus
try cares little about health. The reason obesity is such an issue is because of hidden ingredients, things that give us an emotional reaction. Happy days for the people who are making these processed foods, but it’s why you get people saying, “Flipping ’eck. I’m nearly 20 stone. How did that happen?” We know because we were those fat blokes, getting a shock.’
The new book is partly a lifestyle overhaul manual, but it’s mostly just recipes, and dishes you will eat rather than just flick through thinking “not more kale”. There is some cauliflower rice in there, but overall it’s quite doable. Not for them pretentious lifestyle advice, or recipes that involve 73 specialist ingredients. Indeed, there is much advice here on using tinned and frozen produce. ‘What we’re trying to do is make it straightforward, showing that, with a bit of effort, you can make delicious meals, and with ordinary ingredients too,’ says Dave.
The Hairies themselves are on top form today, chatting away about their lives and loves (food is top of the list, naturally), but there is something discombobulating about catching up with the two separately. I’ve interviewed them before, several times, and like salt and pepper they come as a pair.
It turns out they’re feeling the pain of the separation too. ‘It’s the longest time we’ve ever gone without seeing each other,’ admits Si. ‘And it’s dead weird. Obviously, we chat on the phone. I speak to Dave most days. And we Zoom too, and twice a week we link up on Instagram for our fans. I never imagined a time where we would be apart like this though. We’d normally be off filming, or planning a trip.’
Unprecedented times, and particularly so for Si. In the past few years he’s been quite the globetrotter. After his marriage broke down (his ex-wife lives with his youngest son Dylan ‘just up the hill’), he struck up a relationship with a new partner, chef Michele Cranston, in Australia. He was travelling back and forth to Oz with little let-up.
Sadly he’s single again now. He’s hoping that his eldest son James (he has three boys) will be coming to live with him after he completes a period of self-isolation, ‘which will be company for both of us, but this is the longest I’ve been static, in one place, for as far back as I can remember. It’s quite nice, really. I’m getting the chance to get into routines, which I’ve never really had before. I’m doing stuff in the garden.’
He’s also shopping for his exwife and his son, who both have the ‘other’ diabetes, Type 1, which cannot be reversed by diet. ‘I can only see them at the bottom of the garden though.’ He’s also cooking for families in need locally. ‘I joined this group, and every Tuesday I deliver some meals. It’s nice, this community aspect, isn’t it?’
Dave, meanwhile, has a full house. His mother-in-law happened to be visiting from Romania when lockdown kicked in, and so hasn’t been able to leave. ‘She’s a dressmaker and she’s been busy making scrubs and masks. The place is like a factory with boxes piled up. It’s amazing really.’ Who’s cooking? They
‘You can eat very well and see the scales go down’ DAVE MYERS