JAMES Argent has joined a fitness boot camp to try and lose weight before he has a gastric band operation to save his life.
The Towie star, 33, told The Sun this weekend he is undergoing lifesaving stomach surgery after doctors warned him: “Lose weight or die.”
And now Arg, 33, – who ballooned to 26 stone when he stopped exercising in lockdown – has been told he must lose some weight before he can get gastric band surgery.
So the reality star is training at VIP HQ, an outdoors gym and assault course in Essex.
Arg is working with the personal trainer Danny Lee-Finch who has a legion of celebrity fans in Essex including Olly Murs, Georgia Kousoulou, Tommy Mallett and Danielle Armstrong.
The training sessions have been arranged by Arg's best friend Mark Wright after his cry for help in The Sun this weekend.
Arg told The Sun: “I don’t want to die. An op is the only way I can lose weight.
“I see pictures of myself and it’s too upsetting. The other day I had to ask my manager to put my shoes on for me because I just couldn’t do it — my belly is too big. I can’t do up my own shoe laces.”
He added: “I don’t want to die, it’s as simple as that. I’ve been told by doctors that I am morbidly obese and need to lose weight, but I have an eating disorder, so I can’t do it.
“I’ll either starve and work out three times a day and be really skinny, or do no exercise and eat takeaways every day.
"I can’t maintain my weight — I need help.
“Nobody is trying to stop me from having an op. Everyone knows it’s the only way I can lose weight.”
Arg is now agonising over which gastric surgery to have.
He is torn between a bypass, which staples part of the stomach together to make it smaller, or a sleeve gastrectomy where a large section of the stomach is removed.
Both operations, which cost around £10,000 each, will reduce the amount of food he can eat.
He said: “I am having my consultation in a couple of weeks to decide what I’ll do — it’s really scary but it’s for the best and I have to do it to maintain my weight for good.”
Arg blamed his recent weight gain on the Covid crisis, which shut swimming pools and his boxing gym, destroying his exercise routine.
He explained: “I’d made some progress last year with my weight loss as I was enjoying boxing and going swimming — but all of a sudden I could no longer do that.
“I don’t have a routine anymore without the gym and I spend a lot of time alone.
“I’m bored and have more time on my hands as all my gigs are cancelled. I have no wife, girlfriend or children to talk to and it gets lonely, so I do turn to food. I turn to food when I’m happy, too.
“I’ve had to delete the food delivery apps off my phone, otherwise it’s too easy to order whatever I fancy — usually fizzy drinks, chewy sweets, ice cream, chocolate, pizza.”
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