Well, OK, so Mostly Food and Cocktails is mostly about food. No surprise there. But it’s also about laughs, health, and encouraging my dear readers to enjoy food. You can’t truly love meals if they are playing a negative part in your life. You should be able to eat and feel good about yourself rather than living with the knowledge that you are slowly killing yourself.
Bruce Byron is a name that might be familiar to some of you. He is celebrated for his role as DC Perkins in The Bill. He has also starred in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, as well as The Mummy Returns and From Hell. He was a chubby chap who needed to lose 3 stone or he was going to lose his life…probably.
The facts are sobering. Currently in the UK 60% of men are technically overweight and one in six is actually obese, and that is a figure that has more than tripled in the last eighteen years. The dangers of early death are real with increased risk of heart disease which is the UK’s biggest killer. It takes the lives of one in five blokes. Someone in Britain has a heart attack every two minutes. Makes you think!
Fat Bloke Slims – How I lost Three Stone, to give its full title, is a book written to chart Bruce’s journey from the overweight to a healthier and slimmer version of the original. His efforts had nothing to do with wanting to look like an Adonis on the beach, but rather more the desire to see his kids grow up. He had the first symptoms of problems and decided that his current life style presented too many risks.
There are few books of this type that are directed specifically to men. They are different from women (you don’t say!) and have issues that need addressing. There is more culture and peer pressure to overcome and Bruce offers strategies to avoid over-boozy evenings with the lads. Real men do look after themselves. It takes more than macho male bonding sessions at the gym, you’ll need to eat sensibly as well. If you are seriously overweight then you need to look at the part that food plays in your life.
Fat Bloke Slims is a well-written book that gives sensible advice. It takes into account that life gets in the way of the best plans. Bruce has put in the work and research to discover a method that might truly aid men who want to shed some pounds. He did it and any overweight man can do the same.
Fat Bloke Slims
Author: Bruce Byron
Published by: Penguin
Price: £6.99
ISBN 978-0-141-03850-6
Cookbook review by Chrissie Walker © 2018