Comedian Ed Gamble is best known for hosting the Off Menu podcast alongside fellow joker James Acaster, as well as appearing on BBC2’s The Great British Menu, but this week sees him return to hosting The Traitors spin-off, Uncloaked.
Anyone who has been following Ed's career from the beginning will know that the 39-year-old has lost a great deal of weight since he first appeared on the comedy scene, dropping six stone in two years.
The podcast icon, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a teenager, put on weight while studying at university, telling The Guardian: "I was living so unhealthily I felt dreadful all the time. I wasn't completely ignoring that I was type 1, but I was doing the bare minimum to stay alive."
He explained to healthawareness.co.uk: "I went through a stage of binge eating and drinking, not really focusing on what I was doing to my body and my diabetes suffered as a result of that. Now, I have a much better quality of life because I'm more focused on my diabetes. Yes, it's more work, but I feel a lot better about it."
Ed Gamble's weight loss
When he began to be noticed for his comedy, Ed decided to try to live more healthily, explaining that he started eating "like a human being instead of a manic binge eater" and exercising. He has since run two London marathons, and as a happy byproduct of the weight loss, his diabetes began to stabilise. “I thought, [weight loss] will be a good opportunity to try and get on top of the diabetes, however intimidating and overwhelming it seems. I've never looked back from that point."
Negatives of weight loss
Going from 19 to 12 stone was, of course, beneficial to Ed's health, but he told The Radio Times that it has also been "depressing."
In the candid interview, he addressed the intense interest in his weight loss, sharing he was met with comments both telling him how "amazing" he looked, as well as people asking if he was ill.
"I don't know where this thing came from where people think they're allowed to comment on people's bodies and weight," he said. "It's really depressing if you're on the other end of it.
"People's reactions to the way people's bodies change is absolutely insane sometimes. It's best to just shut up."
On his own feelings about his appearance, Ed continued: "When I was bigger, I really didn't care about my weight, as soon as I lost weight, that's when I started to worry about how I looked. As soon as people started to say I looked nice, that's when I started to worry."
On the pressure for men to look a certain way, Ed lamented: "Within my lifetime, the ideal body shape for men has gone from skinny waif, noughties indie man to now, gigantic men. It's all about putting as much weight and muscle as possible."