I'm not exactly fat. My biggest issue is that I have more weight round my gut than a man of my age should have. I carry no extra weight anywhere else. Also, and just to complicate things, my height had gone down from 6 foot and 1/2 an inch to 5 foot 1 inch. The height has been lost between my neck and my hips and so all my internal organs are squished up into a smaller space than normal. This height loss has been caused by a medical problem that has caused every one of the separating joints in my spine to collapse down to zilch.

Do I eat more than I should? Probably.

Is it the wrong sort of stuff that I shove down my neck? Yes.

What do you need, Steve?

I need the folk in the know to come forward and give details of what I need to be eating in a 24 hour period so that the weight and inches fall off. If an actual list of the foods that I should be eating are available, that would be excellent but if it is only possible to say, "OK, Steve. You need to eat 50% carbs, 25% stuff B and 25% stuff X, that's good enough.

What I would like to do is go on a kind of crash diet for a fortnight and then slowly add extras to keep me alive.

I understand and fully believe the people who say that the only way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. That's all well and good and, on days when my body will let me, you may even see me walking round and round the second level of my local hospital using my walking frame (because it is the only flat and circular route that I know off) but on most days I'm either sat in this chair or in bed so getting more exercise isn't an option.

Any advice would be much appreciated but sympathy should be avoided at all costs.

Cheers m'dears,

Steve.