Fitness blog: Reporter Dan Black will be taken out of his comfort zone over the next couple of months

Personally, I was just happy eating what I wanted while going to the gym to prevent any significant weight gain.

My diet was usually shaped for convenience. A shop bought sandwich during the week, pizza for tea, chocolate and crisps as snacks, building into various takeaways at the weekend always prevented my abdominal muscles from becoming an acquaintance. Basically, the perfect fuel was anything that required minimal effort.

However, on reflection, it feels like the years dedicated to the gym have almost been wasted. I've never been out of shape, I've always been regimented with my fitness regime to stay on top of my conditioning, but I've never been able to hit my full potential.

So, over the next eight to 10 weeks, I'll be relying on the expertise of Xercise4Less personal trainer Evan Parker. A structured diet plan has been put in place to help reduce my body fat percentage and that has been supplemented by a militant training programme that covers five days of the week.

It's going to be a shock to the system having to incorporate fish and vegetables on to my shopping list but let's see how I get on...