Weston amateur footballers have lost over 1,700 pounds of weight this year whilst playing weekly matches in the MAN v FAT Football League.
The League, which takes place on New Bristol Road every Monday evenings, has seen over 90 players from the town take part and is aimed at overweight and obese men.
Before matches, the players are weighed, which is followed by a 30-minute game of six-a-side, with extra goal bonuses awarded to teams based on the amount of weight players have lost.
According to Public Health England data covering the year up to April 2020 around 65.8 per cent of adults in Somerset are overweight or obese, slightly higher than the national average of 62.3 per cent.
And in the UK alone there are over 20 million overweight and obese men, accounting for nearly seven out of every 10 men.
Stuart McGarry, who has been taking part in MAN v FAT’s Weston League since July 2017, has lost over 40kg of weight with the help of the programme and said: “When I joined I was 150kg and in a bad place, it felt like my last chance to lose weight doing something I enjoyed.
“I went down to my lowest weight of 97kg and this was down to a great family support network and also a great team around me at MAN v FAT.
“I would recommend MAN v FAT to anyone who is feeling no diet is working and they want to do something they enjoy but also have a great support network around them to succeed.
“The Weston League has a great network of guys who want to support each other and that helps when you’re having a bad week. The other guys are there for an extra game of football or a walk down the seafront to help.”
The FA-affiliated scheme was created by Andrew Shanahan, who was fed up with traditional weight loss classes primarily aimed at women and decided to develop a programme that combines the beautiful game with achievable weight loss goals for men.
MAN v FAT Football now runs over 70 leagues across the UK and Australia, with leagues launching in the USA in 2019. It also supports more than 1.6 million men through their website, forum and social media.
Join at manvfat.com/football or get more information by calling 0345 163 1042 or emailing football@manvfat.com.
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