Gregg Wallace has some high hopes about being immortalised in statue form (Picture: BBC)
Gregg Wallace reckons he deserves a statue for ‘saving the nation’ from obesity.
The 59-year-old MasterChef judge has spent years campaigning for the nation to improve its eating habits, and has spoken openly about his own weight loss journey.
And now, he’s hoping his efforts will earn him a statue in London’s Trafalgar Square.
This comes after H from Steps’ declared that he would be immortalised with an eight-foot-tall statue in Cowbridge, Wales, though it was later revealed to be all a hoax by comedian Joe Lycett.
But if Gregg gets his way, he’ll certainly be standing tall in the capital, wearing a toga and carrying a pineapple.
During an appearance on the Monday Mile with Aimee Fuller podcast, dad-of-one Gregg boasted: ‘[All] I do is teach them to cook. And I have had such extraordinary successes.
‘I’ve got one lady, she’s like a pin-up girl for me. She’s lost 12 stone in two years. She’s basically lost two Gregg Wallaces!’
The MasterChef judge praised himself on ‘saving the nation’ (Picture: BBC/Shine TV)
And despite admitting it fills him with ‘an immense sense of purpose’, Gregg went on to say that he’s ‘nervous’ for the nation.
He said: ‘I’m also nervous for the nation, I’m nervous for the NHS, and the cost to the nation of rising obesity, heart disease, cancers, kidney issues, liver issues, knee joints, hip joints, fertility issues, and the cost to the NHS of picking up the bill and trying to cope with a nation that’s making itself more and more unwell on a week by week basis through its food choices. Didn’t expect this about me, did you?
‘Your grandchildren are going to drive past Trafalgar Square one day and there’s going to be a statue of Gregg Wallace in a toga holding a pineapple because he saved the nation.’
Gregg was then quizzed on how he maintains ‘discipline’ in sticking to his healthy diet, to which he insisted three balanced meals a day was all it took.
He said: ‘[I] don’t need discipline. The reason I don’t want the crap, the chocolate or the crisps, or the obesity bar and the obesity bag is I’m not hungry.
Gregg revealed he didn’t need discipline for his own weight-loss journey (Picture: Andrew Matthews – Pool/Getty Images)
‘I’m having breakfast, lunch and dinner. The secret to weight loss is not to be hungry.
‘People think it’s about being hungry and eating less. No, it’s not. It’s about not being hungry and eating more, just eating the right stuff.’
Gregg has previously spoken about losing weight while maintaining his ‘love affair’ with food, saying: ‘I could eat mountains of food as long as it was the right food.’
Speaking to OK!, Gregg said it was a revelation to realise he could ‘have this love affair with food and it didn’t have to harm me’.
‘When I was looking at the calorie content of a bowl of cockles and a plate of oysters, I realised it was virtually non existent.’
Gregg has been open about losing weight while maintaining his ‘love affair’ with food (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
‘And then I looked at the calorie content of a piece of cod that I cooked in the pan as opposed to a piece of cod from the fish and chip shop, and realised that I could eat about nine fillets of cod for the equivalent of a fried one.’
He then said he could eat ‘about 20 tonne of boiled potatoes with a knob of butter and some chives, and I still wouldn’t be eating the same calories as a portion of chips’.
‘I was like, “Hang on a minute!”. I suddenly realised that I can eat loads of food. I just started to learn how to eat better so I lost a tonne of weight.’
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