Slim his SNORING away for good!

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EFORE I slimmed down, my snoring could be heard all over the house, and I had a neck measurement of just under 17in.

At the time I didn’t think much of it, but looking back I realise it was a clear sign that I was overweight, and unhealthily so as it turns out.

I’d been putting on weight gradually from my mid-20s to my mid-50s, but I didn’t think it was a real problem because I didn’t look particularly overweight. So when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2012, I was shocked and horrified; I hadn’t seen it coming.

But it turned out that my slightly flabby tummy meant I was carrying a lot of visceral fat ( the unhealthiest type), which doesn’t just sit around your waist but also clogs up your liver and pancreas, and is linked to an increased risk of serious diseases.

This is partly because visceral fat behaves in a metabolically different way from the type of fat you can see — for instance, that on your thighs — as we saw earlier this week. In particular, it affects the effectiveness of your immune system, making it harder for your body to deal with attacks from viruses such as Covid-19.

Unwilling to treat my diabetes with medication, I decided to change my lifestyle. I discovered intermittent fasting, lost 1½st — and got rid of my diabetes. (This also led, in time, to me developing the Fast 800 diet).

When I lost weight, my snoring stopped, too, much to my wife Clare’s relief.

Snoring affects both men and women, though it is more common in men as they tend to store excess weight around their necks. This constricts their airway at night, when they’re asleep and their body is relaxed.

It can also lead to a far more dangerous condition called sleep apnoea, where you stop breathing for short periods of time while you’re still asleep.

often people with sleep apnoea don’t even know they have it — though symptoms include feeling ‘ groggy’ ( as Chris put it), difficulty concentrating and a dry mouth the next day.

Untreated, it can also lead to a higher risk of serious conditions,

including heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

In Devon, another of our Shape Up Britain volunteers Stephen Brown, a 43-year- old general manager of a holiday park, and his wife Kelly are also enjoying the novelty of silent nights now he’s lost weight.

‘Now I sleep so well — and my wife says I no longer snore which can only be good for marital harmony,’ Stephen says, after he, too, lost an inch off his neck, which went from 15in to 14in.

Snoring was not the only sleep problem for our plucky volunteers — several were also sleeping badly due to anxiety and low mood.

Anyone who’s suffered the misery of poor sleep knows how debilitating this can be — and lockdown was a low point for many of us.

A number of our volunteers found themselves trapped in an unhappy pattern of poor sleep fuelled by snacking on cakes and biscuits and grabbing unhealthy ready meals, plus a lack of exercise.

Although it is tempting to have a late-night snack, this is a bad idea because your body will find it harder to process food late at night.

Eating before you go to bed means your body has to start up the whole business of digestion just as you want everything to calm down and get ready for sleep. Ideally, you want to stop eating three hours before bedtime.

Today’s recipes are suggestions for suppers that are nutritious but not too heavy. There are also some ideas for puddings which are not too sweet. The important thing is that the balance of nutrients should ensure longer, deeper sleep.

As our volunteers discovered, a lowcarb Mediterranean-style diet rich in fruit, vegetables, legumes, good fats and protein has the extra benefit of offering a more restful night’s sleep.

‘Life-changing’, ‘a complete shift in lifestyle’ and ‘a revelation’; these are just some of the many compliments our volunteers had for our recipes and our challenge.

We hope that their stories, and our mouth-watering series, have inspired you to join them in transforming your own weight and health.

If you make a start today, in just eight weeks’ time you too could be slimmer, fitter and sleeping more soundly for the first time in years.