A NORTH-EAST sporting hero is on a mission to help the nation to shed one million pounds in a bid to tackle the growing problem of obesity.

Charlie Spedding, the only Briton to have won an Olympic marathon medal for half a century, is hoping his website initiative will encourage people across the UK to slim down and improve their health.

Born in Bishop Auckland and raised in Ferryhill, the former Olympian has even sold his business to concentrate on the campaign titled Who wants to lose a Million Pounds?

“I have this idea for a whole group of people to lose a total of one million pounds,” said Mr Spedding, who now lives near Durham City. “I have always set myself challenges and this may be the biggest yet.”

Based on Body Mass Index rates, the 64-year-old estimates the UK population is a staggering 2,000 million pounds overweight.

And with people in the North-East estimated to be 85 million pounds too heavy, he has been spurred on to do something about it:

Mr Spedding has a good knowledge of nutrition and how the body works at the chemical and hormonal level.

He advocates a low carbohydrate, high fat (LCHF) diet and insists sugar and processed foods are the biggest cause of obesity, rather than fatty foods or lack of exercise.

“People associate being fat with fats that occur in food but it is too many carbohydrates that make you fat,” he said.

The sportsman rose to fame in 1984 when he won the London Marathon - making him one of only six British men to have secured the title since its inception in 1981.

It was in the same year he crossed the finish line first at the Houston Marathon and claimed a bronze medal while competing in the Los Angeles Olympic Marathon.

However, surprisingly Mr Spedding believes when it comes to mental and physical health that it is actually the diet rather than exercise that is the most important aspect of a healthy lifestyle.

Subscribers to the site can discover that while he insists exercise is vital for good health, exercise alone is a poor way to lose weight.

Mr Spedding is also a pharmacist by profession and has sold his Wallsend pharmacy business to devote himself to the ambitious plan.

“I noticed that most of the people I saw regularly had metabolic diseases, not infections,” he added. “Their metabolism was damaged and, although they’d been taking medication for years, hardly any of them got better.”

For more information or about the campaign and to take part visit www.loseamillionpounds.com