As an overweight middle-aged man, I am something of a medical stereotype.

Hours at a desk, too little exercise, combines with a taste for weird post WW2 ration food – all with added sugar.

Plus, an often noted (by my children especially) capacity for over-optimism.

Just as Delboy was convinced by his patter to Rodney that “this time next year we’ll be millionaires, bruv”, so apparently I often predict that I will be back to the target 13 stone in time for an annual football match with other wheezing players.

The latter self-deception fuelled by the reality that I can still outsprint any overweight footballer trying to defend against me, albeit over no more than five yards.

Of late at my GPs the subject of weight came up again. Indeed, having just sent the scales through the ceiling it was hard for the nurse not to mention it.

We had a look at the computer screen and it transpired that I steadily piled it on from the beginning of the pandemic for about two years.

Reader, what can I say? This week’s news is full of new apps that the NHS will be able to help us with, and even jabs, and for those with morbid obesity looking at Type 2 diabetes you can really see how that could help reduce strokes, heart disease and the other tough side-effects of the late-onset disease.

I’m not quite there yet. For me it is the Eat less: Move more which must do the trick.

I write this as someone just back from holiday who unlike everyone letting the belt out a notch back in Blighty always loses half a stone in a fortnight.

Admittedly, as pretty much a non-drinker, I have a head start, and exchanging biscuits for salads and proper protein helps too.

The local produce plays its part. I was off to the boulangerie every day at 7am to acquire croissants and baguette for nine, both of which in proud Brittany are magnificent, as is their unrivalled butter.

Adding tomatoes and those tiny gherkins called cornichons in my baguette with cheese, cooking pork drenched in the wonderful local cider, and sharing a Kouign-Amann Breton Butter Cake with nine rather than scoffing it alone all gave a sense of well-being which kept me off the chocolate etc.

Medically astute readers will have noted that this is hardly a calorie-controlled diet, so how had I lost half a stone in a fortnight?

The answer, as ever for me on holiday, is that I easily did my 10,000 steps a day walking through fields and towns and along beaches, especially in a place called Dinan whose main street was at such an angle and length that it felt like mountaineering. In short: Eat better: Move more.

Like Delboy finally realising that the million is harder to grasp than he thought, I have realised early in decade seven that I simply cannot live without food that tastes good, so it has got to stop being repeated feasts of mass-produced crap and start being a bit less but of decent quality.

So now what? Fortunately, in East Devon most of us are within reach of decent paths, seafronts or leisure facilities to up the move-more side of the equation.

To support that EDDC performed a widely-consulted leisure strategy which gave us a policy document to inform our work till 2031.

In essence, against huge financial pressure, to retain what we have, improve and become more efficient where we can, and ensure that the huge amounts of scheduled housing development in and around Cranbrook is supported with new facilities in due course.

Just checked the pedometer. Off for a mid-morning walk now to chalk up the first six thousand steps. By this time next year …