THE fear of losing precious years with his son prompted a radio DJ who used to broadcast in Worcestershire to showcase his dieting on television.

Matt Vaughan, who used to present on what was Wyvern FM, weighed in at 22 stone two years ago but has since shed three of those in a lifestyle change prompted by the arrival of son Caleb.

He picked up more than 20,000 social media followers through blogging his story and took in ITV’s singing show Change Your Tune a year ago.

Now Matt, 38, is returning to our screens in Save Money: Lose Weight, which airs on Tuesday at 7.30 on ITV One, to test the Dukan Diet – a high-protein, four-phase plan.

“I started two years ago because I wanted to lose weight to be in a better, healthier situation to spend more time with my son,” said Matt.

“I didn’t want to reach the point where I had diabetes or got ill and end up having less time with him. He is really cool and I want to be here for as long as I can, he is a massive motivation for me.

“The blog started to make it more like work so I would stick to it and other people started to like what I post.

“If I have had a bad day and eaten a cake, I put it on there because that’s what the whole thing is about.

“One of the reasons I did the blog was to show it is okay to talk about this.

“Blokes don’t tend to talk about it and I don’t know why. When I have gone to slimming clubs it has always been women, maybe their partners if they are being forced to go but once they are on it they tend to stick at it.

“That’s one of the barriers I wanted to bring down with the blog.”

The current diet has not been without its quirks, though.

“It is quite intense to start with but because it is mainly protein, you feel quite full up,” Matt added.

“The weirdest thing was jellied eggs, an egg wrapped in ham set in gelatine with brandy. In the end I stopped the brandy and just had ham and egg which was doable.

“You start introducing vegetables every other day, then two pieces of bread a couple of times per week and when you get to your goal the final phase gets much closer to normal life.”

Matt's weightloss will be revealed during Tuesday's programme after which he plans to continue his blog:

thedietjourney.com