Peter Kay addresses dramatic weight loss for first time amid health battle
Peter Kay has opened up on his battle with weight loss, with the comedian saying he'd 'tried everything' over the years.
He's currently busy with his Better Late Than Never... Again! tour, which was supposed to finish this year but has been so popular that it's been extended through to 2026.
The profits from his final shows will be going towards a dozen cancer charities, with the new dates added on taking him all the way up to 8 August next year, where he'll round things off at Manchester's AO Arena.
Those who've been to see his shows will have noticed that he's lost some weight, and at a recent In Conversation With... event where he spoke to Sara Cox at the Lowry in Salford, he talked more about it.
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Cox asked the comedian if he'd ever tried to lose weight, and he said: "Only for the first 48 years of my life. Yeah, I had to eventually, because you start thinking about your health and things like that, don't you?"
Kay explained that he 'tried everything' as he talked through some of his previous attempts to lose weight, including trying his mum's fitness videos, along with joining Slimming World and giving WeightWatchers a try.
He said: "I used to do fitness. My mum had a fitness video once of Rosemary Connolly. Remember them? And I put it on once and I were in the back room, trying to get my breath. And I were wet through and sweaty. And she said ‘now that we've warmed up', I thought, warmed up?
"Then I joined a gym in Bolton, I joined David Lloyd. And you think, right, and then you do weights. And then I went to pool because it's easier. You know why I stopped going? Men just talking to you naked.
“And then I went to high energy aerobics on a Monday night. High energy and everyone would grab a mat. I used to be at the back with a two-litre bottle of Tizer.
"Then I joined an old school gym under some arches at central Manchester, and a lad ran this gym he had me pulling a tyre outside. Honestly, it were awful. I used tell him I needed a wee and I'd go and sit in toilet and sob because it were like proper old school."
In his conversation with Cox, which aired on BBC Radio 2 last night (1 December), he also spoke about the moment he realised he had a binge eating problem.
It was back in the year 2000 when he was watching Green Mile in the cinema with his wife.
Kay recounted that he thought 'I fancy a hotdog' and told his wife he was going to the loo, but he went out and bought a hotdog after he'd been 'doing really well on this diet'.
The comedian described how he was 'shoving it in because I had said that I had gone for a wee' when he saw his reflection 'ironically' in a framed poster of Babe.
He threw the rest of the hotdog in the bin as he thought 'look at you, you should be ashamed of yourself', but added that before the food 'hit the bin liner' he picked it back up and 'had another bite'.
When he got back into the cinema, his wife could tell he'd had a hot dog as she told him she could smell it on his breath.
Joe Harker