MasterChef's Gregg Wallace on new podcast A Piece Of Cake features guests like Joe Wicks and Ella Mills of Deliciously Ella

“And I really did not like the size I was getting to, I didn’t like the way clothes looked on me, I thought I looked unhealthy. It wasn’t a particularly healthy image to send out to people watching.”

The other driving force was “my doctor did a blood test and said, ‘your cholesterol’s going through the roof – if we don’t do something, you’re heading for a big heart attack’.”

Wallace did ‘do something’. He lost four stone and got ripped, overhauling his approach to eating and taking up strength training.

Approaching 60, the broadcaster – who lives in the Kent countryside with wife Anne-Marie and their four-year-old son, Sid – feels healthier than ever. What he didn’t expect, though, was that a whole new career chapter would emerge from this too.

“I managed over a number of years to transform myself, and there was a fair bit of press interest in that. Then I started being approached by people asking for help, so I started helping and coaching people, until out of that grew the business GreggWallace.Health,” he explains, referencing the weight-loss programme he founded, which recently partnered with academics at Loughborough University. “So, I’ve been quietly tiptoeing into this health and wellness space.”

Now, he is launching a podcast called A Piece Of Cake. The 12-part series will see Wallace chatting with a range of high-profile guests from across the health and wellness realm – including Joe Wicks, ‘manifesting queen’ Roxie Nafousi, Ella Mills of Deliciously Ella, and media health and nutrition expert Professor Tim Spector.

“The idea was I would interview undoubted experts in their field, whether that be exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, body confidence, so that I could learn from them.

“And then people listening could learn from them as well. Some of it, they might think, ‘Nah, not for me’, but I’m pretty sure lots of it, people will think, ‘I’m gonna give that a go’.”

As a professional foodie, he agrees retaining pleasure in eating is “absolutely” important.

The key thing Wallace has learned from his own journey is the difference between going on a ‘diet’ and actually making sustainable changes. It is not about dieting,” he says. “It’s not about being restrictive, it’s not about doing something crazy. It’s about eating properly.”

Gregg Wallace: A Piece of Cake launches on January 29 on Global Player, or wherever you get your podcasts.