THE HIGHLAND Show was the scene, just outside The Scottish Farmer stand, and five brave faces from the agricultural world sheepishly agreed to join in The Scottish Farmer/Scottish Slimmers slimathon, to help highlight the issues that men have when they need to lose weight.

Some even chose to raise money for charity as an added incentive.

Ken Fletcher, The Scottish Farmer’s deputy editor was easy to recruit, he was nonchalant about the whole affair; Bob Carruth, communications director with NFU Scotland, amazingly agreed without even having to be bribed; Sandy Wilkie, marketing director with Wisemans Dairies was an old hand at losing weight publicly, so he readily agreed; Rog Wood, agricultural editor with The Herald, knew he needed to lose weight for the sake of his health and stuck his hand up when it was suggested; and Ian Thomson, former president of the Blackface Sheepbreeders Association, a weel-kent face in the Blackie world in both height and stature, was probably the most unsure whether to join in. But join up they did, and they were given advice and guidance at the show by Lorraine Queen, promotions manager for Scottish Slimmers, who weighed the boys in and sent them off loaded down with recipe books full of tasty menus to try out.

Our volunteers have faithfully kept The Scottish Farmer readers up to date with a blog from one of them each week highlighting their weight loss and the problems they faced, one of which was the constant support and/or the good natured ribbing from our every caring readership. Their blogs have become a must-read section of the paper over the last five months for our readers.

Taking on this challenge in the public eye has certainly focussed their efforts, there is nowhere to hide when everyone knows that you should not be picking up that chip, or having a little dram with the boys at the market. However, last week saw the end of the spotlight on them, as they all stood on the scales at AgriScot to declare to all just how well they had done.

And, in the words of Brucie, didn’t they do well. Between the five of them they lost a fabulous 14 stone and 13 lbs in total (that is the weight of one of them) so they effectively lost a man along the way.

Although five months have seen them lose a lot of weight, some of the guys realise that they still have a long way to go,

Rog ideally would like to get down to 13 stone, Bob has reached a weight that he will now have to maintain (which is where the real work begins), and Sandy is looking forward to indulging in all those dairy products that Wisemans produce. Ken would still like to shed a couple of stone, and, for Ian, this is just the beginning of a new way of eating, as he aims to increase his amazing four stone weight loss further.

When you think that four stones equals 56 lbs – or a bag of feed – then you begin to realise what carrying all that extra weight must do to your joints and the impact it has on vital organs.

I should mention at this point that Ian has been tirelessly working away in the background trying to raise as much money as possible for clicksergeant, a charity for children suffering with cancer. To his credit he has, so far, raised more than £10,000. Ian would like to thank everyone for their kind donations to this worthwhile charity. The Scottish Farmer also sponsored our volunteers £1 for every pound of weight that was lost, which will be donated to RSABI, the agriculutural charity

From both the Scottish Slimmers, and everyone here at The Scottish Farmer, a heartfelt thanks to all the guys for putting themselves out there and, as we head towards the season of eating too much, Scottish Slimmers are offering our readers a special rate if they would like to join up and take advantage of this successful eating plan.

We will be keeping in touch with our slimmers up to the Highland Show 2010, to see how they are getting on. Then we will put them on the scales again, one year on, to see how they are faring.

See the coupon on the back page of this four-page special for more information from Scottish Slimmers.