Gregg Wallace believes he deserves a statue for’saving the nation’ from obesity.
The 59-year-old MasterChef judge has spent years advocating for the country to change its eating habits and has openly discussed his own weight loss journey.
And now he hopes that his efforts will result in a statue in Trafalgar Square, London.
This comes after H from Steps announced that he would be immortalised with an eight-foot-tall statue in Cowbridge, Wales, which was later revealed to be a hoax by comedian Joe Lycett.
But if Gregg has his way, he’ll undoubtedly appear standing tall in the capital of the nation, wearing a toga and carrying a pineapple.
During an appearance on the Monday Mile with Aimee Fuller podcast, dad-of-one Gregg boasted: “[All] I do is teach them to cook.” And I’ve had extraordinary success.
‘I’ve got one lady, she’s like a pin-up girl for me. She’s lost 12 stone in two years. She’s basically lost two Gregg Wallaces!’
Despite admitting that it gives him ‘an immense sense of purpose’, Gregg went on to say that he is ‘nervous’ for the country.
He said: ‘I’m also nervous for the nation, I’m nervous for the NHS, and the cost to the nation of rising obesity, heart disease, cancers, kidney issues, liver issues, knee joints, hip joints, fertility issues, and the cost to the NHS of picking up the bill and trying to cope with a nation that’s making itself more and more unwell on a week by week basis through its food choices. Didn’t expect this about me, did you?
‘Your grandchildren are going to drive past Trafalgar Square one day and there’s going to be a statue of Gregg Wallace in a toga holding a pineapple because he saved the nation.’
Gregg was then asked how he maintains ‘discipline’ in sticking to his healthy diet, to which he insisted that three balanced meals per day were sufficient.
He said: ‘[I] don’t need discipline. The reason I don’t want the crap, the chocolate or the crisps, or the obesity bar and the obesity bag is I’m not hungry.
‘I’m having breakfast, lunch and dinner. The secret to weight loss is not to be hungry.
‘People think it’s about being hungry and eating less. No, it’s not. It’s about not being hungry and eating more, just eating the right stuff.’
Gregg has previously spoken about losing weight while maintaining his ‘love affair’ with food, saying: ‘I could eat mountains of food as long as it was the right food.’
Speaking to OK!, Gregg said it was a revelation to realise he could ‘have this love affair with food and it didn’t have to harm me’.
‘When I was looking at the calorie content of a bowl of cockles and a plate of oysters, I realised it was virtually non existent.’
‘And then I looked at the calorie content of a piece of cod that I cooked in the pan as opposed to a piece of cod from the fish and chip shop, and realised that I could eat about nine fillets of cod for the equivalent of a fried one.’
He then said he could eat ‘about 20 tonne of boiled potatoes with a knob of butter and some chives, and I still wouldn’t be eating the same calories as a portion of chips’.
‘I was like, “Hang on a minute!”. I suddenly realised that I can eat loads of food. I just started to learn how to eat better so I lost a tonne of weight.’
Source My Celebrity Life.