Mark 'The Beast' Labbett has been praised by his girlfriend as he revealed his impressive weight loss.
The Chaser took to social media to share his training regime with his glam presenter girlfriend Hayley Palmer. He could be seen counting his steps on a stair machine, strolling on a treadmill and performing aerobic exercises with dumbell weights. GB News presenter Hayley gushed over Mark on her own account.
She shared the workout clip with her followers as she said: "I'm so proud of @markthebeatlabbett. He started to come to the gym with me in the mornings and he is doing so well. He is down to 124 kilos/ 19.5 stone. We're planning to tone and improving conditioning."
Known as The Beast on the ITV game show due to his size, the 58-year-old – who is also 6ft 6 – used to be 29 stone at his heaviest. After being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes back in 2017, Mark was given a wake-up call and decided to lose weight and after completely overhauling his lifestyle, shedding a whopping ten stone in total.
Mark made an appearance on Loose Women last summer where he was questioned about whether or not he had a gastric sleeve fitted. However, Mark denied having the surgery, explaining instead that he stuck to a strict regime before losing his appetite altogether.
The Chase viewers think they’ve worked out hilarious reason for scheduling shake-up"I'm not really trying to diet, I'm just being sensible, people say you've had the gastric sleeve or band, and I haven't. I was tempted by the gastric band but a good friend of mine who's a GP, said my problem is sugar, I have a sweet tooth," he previously told The Sun. "A gastric band is useless for me because sugar metabolises quite quickly, so I've done it the old fashion way by eating a bit less and I've tried to go to the gym."
The quizzer also credited his dog as his 'personal trainer' as golden retriever, Baloo, helped him shed some of the weight. Mark spoke about his dog's role in getting him exercising more frequently on ITV 's The Pet Show. He said: "I was walking him around the fields, taking me places… I think he's helped a lot, simply because I'm doing more activity."
Mark met girlfriend Hayley after the pandemic following the breakdown of his marriage to wife Katie in 2020, which left him devastated. Yet he found happiness again after being introduced to Hayley at the National Television Awards in 2021. Speaking about the novel way The Beast wooed her, the presenter said: “I got introduced to him and he was like, ‘Do you know what I’ve got?’. And then he whips out his Toby Carvery Gold Card.
“I was actually really impressed. I thought, ‘I haven’t seen this before'. It totally worked. I was trying to steal it. We had a really good laugh.” Mark credits Hayley with giving him a new lease of life after he split with the mum of his son. The couple were married for six years after meeting on social media in 2010, and they later they discovered they were actually second cousins.