Stephen Fry, the comedia, actor and writer, has said he feels “relieved” and “proud” to have lost more than five stone in four months.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast the former QI host said going on long walks and eating a sensible diet helped to lose the weight.
Fry weighed 21 stone in April, and says his five-and-a-half stone weight loss has led to him feeling better about his health.
The 61-year-old said: “I’ve lost a bit of weight so I’m feeling proud of myself. At the moment I’m very happy, there is the vertical moment and the horizontal and at the moment I’m very happy.”
When asked if he feels good when he looks in the mirror now, the broadcaster said: “I’m relieved.”
He told presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt that the science behind his weight loss was actually quite simple: “I walk a lot and that helps my mood as well I find, it’s not a guaranteed help for mental stress and anxiety or anything else but it does help me and it means I can listen to audio books as I walk, and podcasts, and you eat up the miles that way, and talking of eating up, eating sensibly.”
Fry, who does not have type 2 diabetes, follows in the footsteps of high-profile names with type 2 diabetes such as Tom Watson MP and Christopher Biggins who have recently improved their health and lost weight.
The Blackadder star, who got married in 2015, has been openly vocal about his mental health problems previously, and told the BBC presenters that he believed depression among young people was still a huge issue.
He said: “We know about the epidemic of self-harm and unhappiness amongst the young how terrible it is, how upsetting it is and how distressing it is and it happens across all sections of society.
“It’s not just those that have a particularly hard home life or anything. Sometimes people in very happy families are deeply unhappy. There’s all kinds of reasons, social media, bullying and they’re talked about a lot.”
During his appearance on the sofa, he also urged men of a certain age to get tested for prostate cancer, after he himself underwent an operation to treat the condition.
