Former champion jockey Sir Tony McCoy has put on two stone since retiring from his sport in 2015.
The 42-year-old underwent hot baths, saunas and extreme dieting in order to keep his weight down to around 10st 3lb when racing, while his healthy weight would have been closer to 12st.
These days however, it seems that Sir Tony has allowed his body to put the weight back on with the help of a chocolate biscuit or two.
He said: “There’s nights I would eat the whole packet…it is not something I am proud of. For someone that had pretty good willpower it is not anywhere near as good as it used to be.”
But he joked: “Maybe I need to come out of retirement just to get myself back, get my diet back to a more healthy lifestyle, even though people thought it was unhealthy.”
Sir Tony was undergoing a check-up at Randox Laboratories healthcare company, and while blood tests showed he was healthy on the whole, his cholesterol level was flagged up, and it also raised the spectre of diabetes which runs in the family.
Just had my @RandoxHealth check….Not surprisingly the Doc didn't think a lot of my medical history!! pic.twitter.com/1m56uvZXBw
— AP McCoy (@AP_McCoy) January 4, 2017
“When I was racing I was unhealthy looking,” he said. “Everybody tells me now I am healthy looking, but yet there are things I need to keep an eye on, like my cholesterol, the possibility of diabetes.“I spent all my life dieting but it is something I actually do need to (do). Because my body was so used to that I cannot really let my lifestyle change too much. I am two stone heavier than I was a year and a half ago.“The biggest problem that we have in the world is that most of us only go to the doctor whenever we are ill. Prevention is so much better than any cure.”
