Inside Paul Hollywood's one stone weight loss ahead of The Great New Year Bake Off - and how he did it
Great British Bake Off star Paul Hollywood has a constant source of sugary temptation as a judge on the Channel 4 reality baking show, but he's learnt over the years not to overindulge. The silver fox, now aged 58, once revealed he'd put on over a stone - during the Covid lockdown - but has since overhauled his lifestyle and diet.
Speaking a few years ago, the baking aficionado also revealed he'd given up drinking in an effort to get healthy, and had introduced a far healthier way off life in an effort to stay trim. "I’ve actually lost a stone. In fact, just over," he told the Mirror. "I am working out a little bit – doing a bit of walking and running and tinkering... just watching what I’m eating really.”
Explaining that he was putting just as much thought into what he was eating as he was putting into what he wasn't, Paul, who is set to host The Great New Year Bake Off, which airs on Friday, January 3, at 7.40pm on Channel 4, explained the lengths he went to make sure he was eating the right foods. “Every morning I have a couple of eggs from the farm down the road and I make my own toast.
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"So, it’s chunky eggs and soldiers, and then in the evening, I may have another slice of bread with tomato soup. I’m on about 1,100 calories a day. I drink about two litres of water as well. I haven’t had alcohol for about four months.”
Whatever he's doing today, it's clearly still working. The TV star has a growing profile in the US thanks to US Netflix showing Bake Off (which airs across the pond as The Great British Baking Show). In a recent interview with the streaming service, Paul addressed the sometimes saucy humour that takes over the tent, saying it was sometimes a "problem" that many of the bakes can come out looking like peculiar shapes.
"The problem is, it's quite a tactile thing, bread-making or whatever, so certain shapes can look a bit rude on camera," he admitted. Combine this with Prue's playful wit, and you have a recipe for chaos. He recalled one instance where Prue's double entendre about a beaver-shaped cake "left everyone in stitches". In turn, he had to step out of the tent in order to pull himself together.
"She's embarrassing; that's what she is," Paul said. "I mean, Prue will say it, and I'm sure she's saying it deliberately. We were doing sausage rolls, and she said to a guy, 'I don't think your sausage is big enough,' and I just stopped and I said, 'I'm sorry, I've got to leave for 10 minutes,' so I walked out the tent."
