James Martin has been a regular feature on our TV screens for years, thanks to his popular ITV show James Martin’s Saturday Morning.
The chef, who famously has a passion for cooking with plenty of butter, recently revealed how he has managed to stay trim after losing a staggering three stone in weight.
James confirmed that his new healthy outlook is partly down to his love of car racing, and that he couldn’t enjoy driving in the same way before he lost weight.
He said: “It comes down to the fact that I race cars, or I still try and race a few cars and I actually struggle to get out of them now. Getting in them, you kind of fall in them, but then you’ve got to get out of them and it just doesn’t look very good.”
Speaking on the Spooning with Mark Wogan podcast, he claimed that there are two simple foods he turns to in order to keep in shape: “I’ve decided that I maybe need to stay clear away from these (picks up a Twix bar) and stuff like that – and maybe eat fish – and it’s worked.”
James went further, adding that his diet now consists of 80 per cent fish, which he cooks in butter.
The presenter then explained how his love of the spread inspired him to write one of his most recent cook books, ‘Butter: Comforting, Delicious, Versatile – Over 130 Recipes Celebrating Butter’.
He said: “When everyone brought a book out about healthy food about five years ago, I brought out a book on butter.”
James believes that his love of the dairy product stems back to his childhood: “I’m a farmers kid, I like pure food, I like simple food and just love great ingredients.
“I like simple cooking, but also bringing out the flavour of the ingredients is more important than anything else.”
But, his shocking weight loss comes against the backdrop of a recent health scare. Last year, James opened up to his followers confirming that he had been undergoing consistent treatment for facial cancer since 2018.
Despite changing his diet in a bid to lose weight, he insists that he doesn’t do regular exercise, adding: “I don’t go to the gym, (his weight loss) it comes down to the fact that I can get my a**e in and out of a car.”
Having trained as a chef in France, and working in restaurants across the UK, James began his TV career when he appeared on James Martin: Yorkshire’s Finest.
Since then, his career has gone from strength to strength, with a number of cookery books and TV shows under his belt.
