Midlife Fitness Files: The Telegraph's new health series, in which we get keep fit advice from the experts as they talk us through their weekly workouts and daily diet stats

In 2012 I was 13 and a half stone had a 36-inch waist and Type 2 diabetes. I made a film called ‘Live Fast, Live Longer’ based on the idea of Intermittent Fasting (IF) and came up with the 5:2 diet concept. I tested it on myself and shed nine kilos, my waist dropped to 34 inches and my Type 2 diabetes reversed.

Now, I eat a mainly Mediterranean diet and practice Time Restricted Eating which is fasting for 14 hours and eating for ten, so Clare and I stop eating at 8pm and start again at 10am the next day. It was actually the Buddha that first said, ‘Stop eating after lunch and don’t eat again until the next morning and you will be more focused and have better self-control.’ It also helps the body switch from sugar burning as fuel to fat burning which only happens after ten hours fasting.

Workout week: active commuting with a few sprints thrown in

I didn’t start getting fit until I was 55. Now, I wake up and do 50 squats, press-ups and lunges. Then, I incorporate an active commute into my day, cycling a mile and a half to the train station on my fold-up bicycle which I take on the train, then around London between meetings (even in the rain).