Gregg Wallace has said he was warned “you’re heading for a heart attack” before he lost four-and-a-half stone.

The MasterChef star, 57, said he was watching himself “getting bigger and bigger” on television before a doctor cautioned him about his high cholesterol.

Recalling a conversation he had with his doctor in 2017, he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I was overweight, I was eating all the wrong things, I was boozing quite a bit, I was looking at myself getting bigger and bigger on the television.

“I had a good doctor who I had a good relationship with and he said ‘Let’s do a blood test’.

“He phoned me up and said ‘Your cholesterol is through the roof’.

“I think doctors get worried if it goes over five and I think mine was approaching 14.

“He said ‘If we don’t change, you’re going to be seriously ill, you’re heading for a heart attack’.”

“So I didn’t panic, I thought this is what I need now to change, so I started looking around, thinking how can I be healthier?

“I tried lots of diets, it didn’t particularly work for me, I was hungry most of the time.

“So bit by bit I taught myself what was healthy and what I could eat and what I couldn’t eat.”

Wallace, who often shares his workout routines on social media, said he has gained half a stone over Christmas but now has the knowledge on how to shed the weight.

He said: “There are what I call three horsemen of the ‘get fat apocalypse’, when I was doing all three – booze, takeaways and snacking.

“I’m not suggesting we stop them all but if we can get a handle on it, and start to reduce it, we can go a long way to improving our fitness.

“I love a beer at the rugby, I love a glass of wine, I have the occasional takeaway, I’m not suggesting anybody stop it.

“To be honest, I put on half a stone over Christmas, but I now know how to get rid of it and that isn’t by doing anything crazy, that isn’t trying to do anything radical because it’s January 1 , that is because I know what healthy living is all about.”