How to stop your husband ageing twice as fast as you

When we went to dinner with other couples, it wasn’t what our friends said: it was what they didn’t say. My wife Ann would always draw admiring comments. ‘You look fabulous’. ‘You seem to be getting younger’. ‘How do you stay so slim?’

Then they would give me a quick up-and-down look, as if assessing damage, followed by a silent, apologetic shrug.

We are both in our 50s — Ann is 53 and I turn 51 this month — but my wife is ageing far better than me.

Ann and Nick (above) are both in their 50s — Ann is 53 and Nick turn 51 this month — but he says his wife is ageing far better than him 

When we met at 30 we both drank and smoked, and I fell for Ann at least partly for the lusty way she attacked a bloodily pink rack of lamb on our first date.

As we grew older together, she was the one who embraced change first. She gave up smoking first, took up exercise first, began eating healthily first. I don’t think it’s coincidence that she is also an early adopter of each leap forward in technology, and listens to newer music than I do.

Even when I try to catch up, I can’t. Although I swim and cycle regularly, my weight stays doggedly around the 15st mark (I’m 5ft 11in).

We both lost over a stone four years ago through Weight Watchers, but Ann kept it off and I immediately put it back on. While she is as lithe and elegant as a gazelle, I increasingly resemble an unmade bed.

• ‘A conversation seems too much for Cheryl!’ MAFS Andrew…

  ‘Again, again, again!’ Heartwarming video sees toddler…

I could blame genetics: my family tends towards heaviness, Ann’s are all slender. Or the fact that my job involves evenings out where I grab food on the go and am never far from a beer or a glass of wine.

But basically I’m just greedy. I love carbohydrates, especially crisps. And when it comes to booze I have an on/off switch rather than a dial.

Ann and I both give up drinking for a month every year, which isn’t a problem. But for the other 11 months, where she can stop after a glass or two, I keep going until I’m plastered.

So, I thought if I wanted to stop lagging so far behind, I should turn to the woman who has a track record of helping men to change their eating habits, feel healthier and lose weight.

As they got older, Nick says Anne was the one who embraced change first. She gave up smoking first, took up exercise first, began eating healthily first

Amelia Freer, 40, is a former assistant to Prince Charles who became the A-list’s trusted nutritionist and the author of two bestselling books.

Comedian and presenter James Corden lost 5st under her guidance, while Boy George told me in an interview how she had completely changed ‘the size of my a***’.

He is quoted in her book as saying: ‘Amelia Freer has helped me lose over a stone in two weeks and has completely transformed my relationship with food … it’s not even about weight loss, it’s about feeling happy in yourself.’

Singer Sam Smith posted a picture of himself on Instagram with Freer’s book, having lost 14lb in 14 days.

Freer is so successful, she had to close her waiting list to new clients. She then launched a blog to reach those she couldn’t see in person, which led, in 2014, to her bestselling first book Eat Nourish Glow.

Her newest book, Nourish Glow: The Ten-Day Plan, sets out a programme of balanced eating that the reader can adapt to his or her needs, and which Freer promises, in the long term, should result in improved health and vitality, not just a slimmer waist.

Queen of lean: Celebrity nutritionist Amelia Freer

‘I believe weight loss is a side-effect of eating well,’ says Freer, a natural beauty whose eyes and hair shine with wholesomeness.

Her book is not overly prescriptive, and is free of the usual shaming and guilt of diet plans, suggesting that if you are prone to overindulging in one thing (‘I guess yours is going to be booze,’ she says to me) then you should compensate for it in another area, by not having a pudding if you have wine with a meal, for example.

She emphasises that it is ‘not about perfection’ but about making choices that make you feel better. While some of her most high-profile successes have been men, Freer says she gets equally good results for women.

She advocates starting with a ‘prep day’ when you throw out all food in your house that doesn’t fit in with the plan, clean the kitchen, shop for the week’s ingredients and make her recipes for nut granola and spiced seed sprinkle (to add protein and healthy fats to a veg-heavy dish) and for her (delicious) beetroot hummus.

Some recipes, such as the turmeric and mango spiced chia pot look more daunting to make than they really are.

The message of the book boils down to this: you should have a portion of healthy protein (fish, chicken, nuts, eggs), three portions of veg and one portion of fruit with each meal, and at least eight glasses of water a day.

Ideally, you shouldn’t drink anything else. Freer is not ‘anti-grain’ but suggests using gluten-free bread for toast, and spiralized veg (sliced into long, thin strips) instead of pasta.

You should buy, prepare and cook all meals yourself and try not to snack between meals. The book has a diagram of the ‘positive nutrition pyramid’ on which you can tick off each of your portions of healthy fats, complex carbs, vegetables, water and so on.

Freer says that, rather than producing miraculous results, the ten-day plan should give you an idea of what you can carry forward into your everyday life.

BACK AWAY FROM THE BISCUITS 

Still hungry after a meal? Don’t eat any more until you have asked yourself these four questions:

1 Have you allowed enough time for the ‘I’m full’ signals to reach your brain? Take at least 20 minutes to see if you are comfortably full before eating more.

2 Might you be thirsty? It is common to misinterpret thirst signals as hunger, so while you’re waiting for those 20 minutes to be up, drink a full glass of water and see whether that helps.

3 Take a second to ‘check in’ with yourself and how you feel. Could there be an emotional, stress or boredom component to your hunger?

4 What are you hungry for?

If you are really just after something sweet, that’s just a craving, and the best thing to do is to walk away and distract yourself until it passes (it will!).

Nourish Glow: The 10-Day Plan, by Amelia Freer, is published by Michael Joseph on March 23, £16.99. To order it for £12.74 (valid to April 3) visit mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640. PP free on orders over £15.

At our first meeting, she asks me to spill the beans, as it were, about my diet and general health. I tell her I am a 50-year-old ex-smoker who normally drinks between 50 and 70 alcohol units a week, but that I’m currently two weeks into my annual month of not drinking.

I swim, cycle and do an hour each of Pilates and yoga every week. I try to have fruit for breakfast and fish or chicken with green veg for at least one meal a day, but often find myself grabbing sandwiches and quite often snack on biscuits or toast mid-afternoon or late at night. Freer measures my waist, my hips and my right thigh at its widest, and tests my fat mass, muscle mass and other readings on an electronic body composition analyser. This shows I weigh 14st 12lb, or 94.4kg. My waist is 43in (110cm), my hips 40in (102cm) and my thigh 27.5in (70cm).

‘Your body fat is 25.9 per cent, really not bad at all: an athlete would have 17 per cent,’ she says. ‘You have good muscle mass.’

Freer reckons healthy weight loss, through eating and exercising sensibly, should be one or two pounds a week for the first fortnight, decreasing after that.

‘The most dramatic weight loss happens in the first two weeks and we lose water weight when we make changes,’ she says. ‘But we need to give it time for the actual fat-burning to kick in.’

Success: James Corden lost 5st on the Freer plan

And I am going to have a problem with slavishness. Two days after meeting Freer, Ann and I are going to Yorkshire for the weekend so I won’t have access to my own kitchen. Freer gives me broad principles to follow instead, even if I find myself in an Indian restaurant (grilled chicken tikka, green veg, no rice or naan, one poppadum). And with that, I’m off.

For one day I eat up what’s in my fridge, sticking to Freer’s parameters as far as possible. She later approves of my breakfast of spinach and poached egg followed by a banana, but notes that I have smoked salmon on its own (not even with toast) for lunch, which isn’t enough.

The night before leaving for Yorkshire I attend a book club at a friend’s house where the green soup starter and baked chicken main course broadly fit into my plan (though probably not the cheese and biscuits). The weekend away is up and down. I eat what I’d generally consider to be a healthy diet, but Freer will later tell me that I’m still not getting enough veg.

My habit of breakfasting only on fruit means I get a sugar high in the morning and crash later, which leads me to eat three biscuits on Sunday. Honestly, I’d have felt less guilty if I’d been caught smoking.

48 PER CENT 

of Brits tried to lose weight last year 

But on Sunday I make roast chicken with veg, prepare my hummus, granola and seed sprinkle, and make my chia pot for the morning, with yoghurt rather than coconut milk.

The preparation takes several hours but is therapeutic and enjoyable, especially when a golden roasted chicken emerges from the oven (and later when its carcass is turned into stock).

The next day I have my chia pot, and lunch of pate made with leftover chicken blitzed with low-fat yoghurt, lemon and celery, served on little gem lettuce leaves, which is surprisingly, tangily gorgeous.

Because I am going out to the theatre, and because there are leftovers, I have the same for supper, indulging myself on my return with a naughty can of ginger beer and a small pitta bread. It’s amazing what starts to seem like a luxury.

But equally amazing is that, most days, Freer’s recipes prove immensely tasty and too filling to even finish sometimes. The rainbow abundance bowl of grated vegetables, salad and hummus is spectacular, as are the wild salmon parcels with Asian-style salad (which I also have for both lunch and supper one day). The chia pot is a bit claggy, and even though I am usually a dab hand at eggs, my breakfast frittata falls apart. But eight of the 11 recipes I try are brilliant, and flexible if you don’t have all the ingredients.

Nick’s transformation after nine days

In previous attempts to lose weight, hunger has made me bad-tempered, but that doesn’t happen this time.

My tendency to need a mid-afternoon snack also vanishes, though I still find myself eating a biscuit or piece of pitta, usually out of boredom, late at night.

On Friday I meet Freer again. She says that, biscuits aside, I didn’t do badly in Yorkshire, but my tendency to depart from the meal plan by eating the same meal twice, or by picking and choosing from all over the book, might have meant I didn’t get all my nutrients.

All the same, I’ve realised that a nutritional programme can be both tasty and filling and can change my eating habits.

More importantly still, my weight is down to 90.06kg (14st 3lb), which means I’ve lost a whopping 4kg, or 8lb, and 2in off my waist, in nine days.

My hips and thigh circumference are the same but Freer is jubilant (though not as jubilant as me). ‘You’ve had a positive start and your body has responded in a fantastic way,’ she says.

That evening, Ann and I have friends over for a dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes. As I ladle calories onto my plate, a guest remarks on how slim I’m looking, and that my face looks younger. Did I imagine it, or did Ann look a bit jealous?