Comedian Ed Gamble has opened up about battling his “obsessive” tendencies and the “evil” bathroom scales while discussing losing weight.
The stand-up comic and panel show regular lost seven stone in weight in his early twenties, and is now releasing a memoir about his relationship with food titled Glutton: The Multi-Course Life of a Very Greedy Boy.
In a new interview with The Times, the comic – who hosts comedy food podcast Off Menu with fellow comedian James Acaster – opened up about the ways losing weight changed his life.
“After losing weight, I got more obsessed with my image. You do feel different, wondering, ‘Oh, maybe I’m attractive now.’”
Gamble, 37, said that he had developed a fixation on fitness after losing weight, and currently took part in the “cult” of CrossFit.
However, the Great British Menu judge – who has Type 1 diabetes – had to watch his more obsessive tendencies when he first began to lose weight after he dropped to 12 stone.
At this point, Gamble was weighing himself every day. “That’s not a weight I operate well at,” he recalled. “It means I don’t have a social life; I’m always exercising and thinking about what I eat.
Gamble is a judge on ‘Great British Menu'— (BBC/Optomen Television/Ashleigh Brown)
“At that point, my mum said, ‘You don’t need to keep doing this. Build in having fun again.’”
Gamble said that while had weighing scales in his bathroom at the time, he saw them as “evil”. “You’ve put on 2lb. So what? Stop looking. Go with how you feel,” he said.
Growing up as a “posh little boy”, Gamble often used food to prove that he was “like the grown-ups”. Speaking to The Independent in August, Ed Gamble recalled first eating poached salmon when he was three or four years old.
“I think it would be easy to serve child me in a restaurant,” he said. “I think you’d think I was weird, possibly, because I’d be sat bold upright at the table, sort of like a mini [food critic] Jay Rayner, just demanding everything.”
Glutton: The Multi-Course Life of a Very Greedy Boy is released on 26 October.
For anyone struggling with the issues raised in this article, eating disorder charity Beat’s helpline is available 365 days a year on 0808 801 0677. NCFED offers information, resources and counselling for those suffering from eating disorders, as well as their support networks. Visit eating-disorders.org.uk or call 0845 838 2040
