Returning from the gym exhausted I settled down with a cup of coffee and two Bourbon biscuits to watch afternoon television. I had missed Jeremy Kyle, which is a pity, because they say it is good for us as we get older to be intellectually stretched. And Jeremy does that for me. I understand nothing about his show. He is someone with a serious anger problem. He waves his arms and points aggressively while screaming abuse at clinically depressed fat people who, from the way they are dressed, hadn't expected to be thrust into the public limelight today. (I acknowledge that I am being politically incorrect in using the word 'fat' and agree to cease when the word 'thin' is also banned). Just when I think it can't get any worse for them Jeremy, who is ill-suited by nature to help himself or anyone else but boasts that he has the money to finance his addictions, says that Help is backstage. On shambles Graham, who is a human form of beige, and we are told is The Keeper of The Holy Grail of Help. Now I'm not saying Graham may not be one of the world's leading therapists, just that if you saw someone looking like Graham loitering near a school you wouldn't hesitate to call the police. Like the 'guests' on the show, it's not his fault, but his taste in jumpers doesn't help. Mind you, the lie detector test results are gripping, but if I am being a bit picky I would like Graham and Jeremy to take them too. I confess here, though, that I am desperate to be on the show. It is the thrill of the DNA testing that enthrals me. I am convinced I am the secret love-child of Nick and Margaret from The Apprentice but whether they would agree to give saliva is in doubt.

Dunking my third Bourbon I am watching instead 'The Biggest Loser'. Essentially eight couples, linked in some way, are sent to a huge house in Leicestershire, of all places, where they engage in gym work and perform challenges. They range in weight from 15 to 28 stone each. One couple will be eliminated each week for having lost the least weight. At the end of 8 weeks the winners will pocket £10,000. (In the American version the prize money is £1,170,000 – but they are bigger in all respects there.)

Two trainers have been engaged to transform the fatties. Devil and deep blue sea. He is big, black, beautiful and largely silent. She is white, muscular, unsmiling, aggressive in voice and manner. It is an unfair battle. On one side we have reality television at its slickest. It is lean, toned, ambitious, tough, and arrogant. And cheap. On the other we have people who have been dealt a rotten hand of cards in life. They break down and cry and, in the true tradition of humiliation television, reveal that which would be best kept indoors. It is a common delusion that we make things better by talking about them and the more people who watch us reveal our inner pain the better. No, you make it better for those who prosper professionally and financially. All my sympathy for these very genuine people, whose many problems are being focussed on the scales, turns into a vehement personal loathing for one person. Kate Garraway. Kate is there as the 'presenter' of the show. It is not a cushy job. For a start you have to wear towering blue platforms and a skin-tight frock and bizarre vertically striped tights and cultivate your already overwhelming sense of superiority. Being married to Derek Draper has helped with her penchant for controversy. No-one has less in common with these people who are reduced to flowing tears and snot for our day-time edification.

'Beneath all that fat inside there is another, different person, who you and we will all like better.' It chills me to the bone. What happens when they leave? What happens when they fail, as fail they will? How will they cope with another failure on top of all the other failures in their lives? Will they be thrown on to the growing rubbish heap of ex-reality t.v. fodder to fester on their moment of failure in the spotlight? If they were a tribe in the South American rainforest or some village in Africa Sting and Bob Geldof would be putting on concerts to save them. Worse, do they get a visit from Graham and his stripey jumper?

Dunking another Bourbon – one thing is certain 'The Biggest Loser' is not a motivator – I ponder my good fortune in my own personal trainer. Zoe does not shout in to my ear, 'You great fat lump, no wonder you can't get your wife pregnant' or 'Let's have a lie-detector about what you ate last night, you worthless piece of scum.' It is not her intention to bully or bore me into submission, however tempting. Nor does she put me down by any comparison between her glowing, youthful and fit - in both the modern and conventional sense – appearance and my struggling to keep-the-whole- crumbling-edifice-functioning doomed ambition. I include a photograph for your perusal. (Zoe Dixon holds the world record for the Tetbury Woolsack Race. This is an annual event which takes place in May. Mad people, individuals and teams, take part in races up and down a steep hill in the market town in Gloucestershire carrying heavy sacks of wool. It is incomprehensible, neither a sport nor a hobby, but a spectacle, like Jeremy.)

The twice weekly training sessions are the easy bit. All I have to do is turn up and do what she says, more or less...it's the rest of the week that's the problem. Zoe advocates 'grazing' as a diet. 'Eat like a caveman, look like a god! This is her mantra. I am supposed to eat nuts and seeds, unprocessed animal products, unadulterated leaves and drink water all day. What time is left has to go to exercise grazing – not an hour at the gym – but bending and stretching while boiling the kettle and press ups while waiting for the postman to call or ab-curls at the bus stop. I may not have got exactly the right details but Zoe, mindful of modern litigation laws, is unwilling to give direct instructions here. My favourite gym activity is boxing and I'm following Zoe's advice and taking that in to my everyday activities. I shall be getting into the television and giving Kate Garraway a good old right upper cut just on her smug nose.