Jason Ayres longs for the days when he was at the peak of physical fitness

One of the topics of conversation that comes up frequently in the social circles I mix in (young mums at school/ nursery) is that of weight. Many bemoan their inability to lose the baby weight and regain the fabulous figures they had before the days of child rearing.

Now as a male you would think I would not be affected by this, but that isn’t strictly true. Being a stay at home dad has caused me to develop all sorts of conditions in sympathy with my mum friends. I too have struggled to lose my baby weight.

If you could look through a time tunnel back to the summer of 2006, you would find me more often than not at the gym. I was probably fitter than I have ever been that summer, during a period of several months while I was single. Like most single people (either subconsciously or otherwise) I was trying to lose weight and get fit to attract a mate, and it certainly worked.

One of the first times that Claire, the mother-to-be of my children, saw me was when she was at the sports centre. She looked through the window of the fitness centre, saw me pounding away on the running machine and liked what she saw. Fortunately she was unable to look through a time tunnel seven years into the future to see what I looked like in 2013, which was probably just as well.

With marriage and contentment invariably came weight gain and once the children came along, I simply no longer had the time or the energy to exercise. Options such as before - like going off for a bike ride whenever I felt like it - were no longer available because I had children in my care and could not leave the house. By the evening when they were asleep and Claire was home, I was fit for no more than an extended slouch on the sofa in front of the TV.

So it’s not difficult to see where my baby weight came from. Eventually last year I decided to try and lose some, tried various things with limited success and then hit on a very simple solution. I just gave up alcohol. I had reached the stage where I wasn’t drinking very much anyway so initially I did not think there would be that much benefit.

However the real problem for me with alcohol was always that it made me ravenously hungry. Any calories I might consume in booze would always be at least doubled in food. If out for a drink, I always had to get a kebab afterwards, and even if just having one glass of wine at home, it would necessitate a large chunk of cheese to go with it and a late night raid on the fridge.

Other than Christmas Day and New Year I have not had a drink since Nov 21 and the effect on my weight has been stunning. I’ve got a good head start already on all the January dieters and things are looking good for 2014.

It’s goodbye to my baby weight at last.

Jason Ayres is a Bicester based author of two humorous parenting diaries. You can follow him on Twitter @AusterityDad