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I wasn't always overweight.

It was something I grew into. Apparently up to the age of five I was so skinny Nana used to say I looked like a Biafran refugee, all ribs and skicky out bones.

Mum used to say that it wasn't until I went into hospital to have my tonsils out that I really began to fill out. In fact I am pretty sure it was the huge amounts of food we used to have, and being children of Boomers, I was always encouraged to clean my plate up. And eat all of your dinner before you could have afters. So, eat more so you can eat more.

We used to have a cooked meal each evening, but I think it was weekends when we really ate well. Fish and chips for Saturday lunch, cheese and beans on toat for tea, then Mum began to make fried chicken and chips for "supper".

Sunday was fried breakfast, then Mum used to spend six hours preparing and cooking Sunday roast. Dad used to go to the pub for a few pints before lunch, then come back to eat the roast and then fall asleep on the sofa.

Not bad for one week, but this was week after week, month after month, year after year. A little bit too much every week meant we all got big.

I was n longer skinny, I got fat, and there was all sorts of stuff around the house; tins of Quality Street, biscuits and so on. And once Mum began to work at the school, I used to have to wait until she and Dad came home at seven to have dinner, which I used to cook. I used to feast on sweets and biscuits as well as having dinner with my parents.

The weight piled on.

And then, when I hit puberty, for a few months, I lost weight. Lost the puppy fat, a friend of Mum said.

So, I put it and more on.

Worse was to come, once I was an adult and I passed my driving test, I walked or cycled nowhere any more. More weight.

And there was beer.

I like beer. There was always spirits around the house, but when I started to drink beer, I liked that. Not heavily, but we began to play darts in the local league, and I used to have a drink, but was driving.

But by the time I was twenty five I could barely remember a time when I wasn't fat.

I had tried to lose weight over the years, but never with a plan. I also did a few exercise regimes, but they never lasted.

At the end of 1986, I was working at the chicken factory, eating lots of chicken. But doing little to burn it off.

Then Mum got food poisoning at work. Or a virus. I don't know.

I got it. Dad got it.

We were all very ill for a week.

And then when we started to eat again, we ate a little less. Not much less, but a little.

I only had All Bran for breakfast, two sandwiches for lunch, and a normal dinner, but mostly chicken and salad and lots of fresh crusty bread.

We thought little of it, and carried on through Christmas into the new year.

I suppose a couple of months later, I realised I had run out of holes on my belt, and Dad made a few extra holes so my trousers stayed up.

I then had to buy new clothes. And the weight kept falling off. But it wasn't just me, Mum and Dad did too. Weight was falling off them too.

I could now get clothes from stores for normal sized people, and the weight kept going.

By the time May ended, I had gone from a 44 waist to a 32. And by the autumn I was done to a 29, and able to get into clothes for teens if I wanted. I was so worried that I couldn't stop losing wight, I went to see my doctor.

He was new, so this was the first time he had seen me, and when I told him how much weight I had lost in such a short period of time, at first he didn't believe me, then he sent me to have blood tests, I guess for cancer. That came back negative. But I did stop losing weight, but did look like a different person.

So, I got a new wardrobe, and a new me. But I was still the same inside, and it took me some time to get used to the fact I could actually get into those jeans.

All in all, the three of us lost 21 stone, 294 pounds. And we all looked so healthy.

And we kept it off for years. I was lucky in that I ten trained to join the RAF, running for a mile and a half, then longer and longer. I got muscles.

Cool.

And I joined the RAF, but the access to three cooked meals a day was all well and good if you were going lots of marching and PT in training, but once at Marham, you could eat those meals, then go out drinking for hours, and having a pizza for supper.

It all got under control again when I married Andrea, as she kept a close eye on what I ate, as I was able even then to put weight on at an alarming rate.

All was fine, until we spit and got divorced. And then I got posted to Bruggen, in the block with a load of armourers who all thought problems could be sorted out through huge amounts of alcohol. Three cooked meals, back to the block, beer, then to the NAAFI chippy next door for supper.

The weight piled back on.

It came as a surprise to find I could not fit into my uniform any more!

So, I tried to lose weight, and so yo-yo's up and down until I got married to Estelle and we were at Lyneham, and I tried to go some phys. Matthew started Tai Kwan Do and I went to the gym while he hit people, I cycled and stepped.

I felt this wasn't enough, so started to do weights as I cycled in the gym. Until a PTI saw me and threatened to hit me.

He coached me, and told me to slow the cycling down, to only go as fast so that talking was possible, and maybe read a book as you peddled.

And again the weight fell off.

Better came when I went to the Falklands and I came back a racing snake.

And I was going to keep it up, and did for a couple of months, but one lunchtime doing circuit training, I turned my ankle over and was laid up for three months.

All the weight went back on.

And never really left again.

In the past I fond I could make bottles of wine and tube of Pringles disappear in one night, but really we don't eat that much more than we should, just a little. And over the years it means we're fat.

I will be fighting this until I die, but if I don't, I will die early, so, must try to do better, and just stop eating for the sake of it, and only eat what I need to.

It might even help my back. And blood pressure.

So, adventures in food with details of meals will be missing from now on, but now you know why.