We Chinese wear our hearts on our sleaves when it comes to other people. We're not ones for little white lies, especially not when it comes to family. So when recently I met up with my father, who was in the area, his first words to me were, "you're fat!"

And he's right.

When I was a teenager, I used to see rotund businessmen doing what rotund businessmen do - usually eating and getting fall-down drunk all in the name of gaining face and closing the deal - and vowed never to let myself get like that.

Oops. Coming over here to do study in England (and by fortune stumbling on a better life and career for less effort) I eventually got a taste for British food. But while a student I had time to go running, go to the gym, join sports clubs and maintain some fitness.

Then 4 years ago it was off to work with me. Now while I was living in digs or with room-mates, I was still OK. I had spare time in the evenings and could still fit in the occasional workout, but as English friends and colleagues liked to go and drink beer, I joined in. Eventually I got a taste for beer too, although it does tend to make me go beetroot red.

And then after marrying my long-time girlfriend back home, I set about buying a house that I could afford myself and importing the delightful Jade Blossom, the rigours of which I've already described. Here is where the problems begin.

The house is an hour away from work. That's 2 hours of daytime lost to traffic. 2 hours of sports club time. My desk is located about 10 metres away from the office tuck-shop. And the icing on the cake? Jade Blossom is a professional chef.

Breakfast is a huge bowl of noodles, or rice soup, or sweet steamed buns. Lunch is sent with me, left overs from last night, and waiting for me when I come home in the evenings is a banquet. Our garden has been turned into a farm to provide the vegetables that meet her ferocious standards of freshness. Jade Blossom's criticism of the freshness of supermarket meat almost had me contemplating keeping chickens, only I hate looking after the clucking things. And contrary to popular belief, "hunt the egg" is not a fun game!

So I started to tip the scales a little more. Solution: I didn't stand on the scales. For 2 years. With it, the excuses started. Trousers too tight? Must've shrunk in the wash! Need to buy a bigger size than before? These bloody cheap shops cutting corners. The only time I saw my face in the mirror was for the monthly barber chop, and then I was too preoccupied with my hair than my face. Hairless faces have their advantages.

So when my father says, "you're fat" my first response is, "you've not seen me in ages; your memory's faulty!" So he takes a picture.

A word about my dad. Everyone in Europe thinks he's a Japanese. Everywhere he goes, everything he does, there's this ma-hoo-sive Nikon camera hanging around his neck and a bag full of lenses hanging off a shoulder. Short, plump, Asian guy with bottle glasses and a big camera? Must be a Japanese. But no, just an aging, happy-to-be-overseas Chinese. Who has just taken a photo of me.

Now before I manage to batter the camera out of his hand and insert it somewhere, painfully, baby pats his way into the room. Babies make everyone behave with civility, so I let my father show me the picture on the computer.

He's right. I look like somebody's shoved the air hose at the filling station up my arse and turned it on overnight. What's big and yellow and not the Goodyear blimp? Yes, me!

Everyone needs an excuse to pull his finger out and get on with what needs doing, and this rude awakening to reality was mine. In my mind's eye I was still had a slender teenage body in spite of the rolls of evidence to the contrary. So there are two ways of dealing with this - either I reprogram my mind's eye with my new image, or rebuild my body to match the mental image.

The mental image is prettier. The lard has to go.

First thing's first, with the organisation and research ability that saw me fending off the worst excesses of British bureaucracy, I get on the internet and read as much as there is to know about how not to be a gut lord. It's not promising. I want the pork gone, tomorrow! No, TODAY! I want an instant fix, and short of a razor blade and a Hoover, there aren't many instant fixes. So slowly it is then.

The second thing is to talk to Jade Blossom. Those banquets, those delicious evening feasts that have my mouth watering from 6am to midnight, have to go. The weekly curry has to go. The monthly stuffed-crust-with-extra-cheese pizza has to go. Beer? What's beer? So please just serve plain food and steamed rice, like mama used to make. And half-rations for me.

Armed with all the knowledge I'm ever going to get, I dig out a tracksuit I've not worn since I was 20. It doesn't fit, but never mind, it will do tomorrow. Onto my feet go some startlingly white training shoes Jade Blossom bought me as a gentle hint some time ago. Then at the proper hour (6.30am, while teenagers are still comatose) I venture off outside to burn some fat. Break into a run, get to the corner (40 metres) and running turns into a coughing fit loud enough to wake the entire county (sorry BBS!) Pad back to the house, good effort, have a beer.

Day 2, kicking and screaming get pushed out of the door by a laughing Jade Blossom, who, by the way, eats like a pig and yet has not a single jin of excess fat! Pad to the end of the road, gently this time, and off a bit further. There's a park nearby I think, and it's a lovely morning.

The park is MILES away. By the time I get there, the sun is high in the sky, the birds have stopped singing, but I don't mind because there are the pretty white spots in front of my eyes to keep me company. And then PAIN. I rediscover the joy of shin-splints. It was a long and painful hobble back home.

Suitably dosed on painkillers, I wonder what to do next. The boy pats in. "Aha!" think I, "baby bench-press!"

And that is how at 10am one Sunday morning the weird old man from the next street that always comes along to try to peer at the foreigners through the blinds sees a fat Chinese father bench-pressing a wriggling, giggling and, ugh, dribbling one year old.

Anyway, all of this is a few weeks ago. Now 5kg lighter and with 15kg left to go, all I can think of is that I'm HUNGRY! And this has kept my fingers out of the cookie jar for at least ten minutes.