Celebrated chef Tom Kerridge runs two pubs awarded Michelin stars for their outstanding food. Now he has set himself a new and very personal challenge; to help a group of people from his neighbourhood to lose weight.

A few years ago Tom weighed 190kg. A combination of exercise and a strict diet has seen his weight drop by 75kg. Tom’s diet involved completely cutting out carbohydrates. It worked for him but he knows that cutting out an entire food group isn’t going to work for everyone.

So he is now putting his skills and energies into helping people to lose weight and still love what they are eating by cutting back on their calorie intake. Experts around the world recommend calorie reduction as the most effective and sustainable way to lose weight.

So why are so many of us still struggling with our weight? Our eating habits are partly responsible; we turn to convenience food and high calorie snacks rather than cooking at home. But Tom thinks the problem also lies in lower calorie food. It is perceived as boring and tasteless. And too often it’s served in measly portions.

In this series Tom recruits 13 local volunteers to test his new, lower calorie recipes in a 12-week experiment. Each is given a new daily calorie allowance they must stick to and Tom will send them batches of 15 new recipes to try every fortnight – 90 in total. According to the advice of health professionals, if they stick to their calorie limits, the dieters should each lose around half a kilo per week. This is no crash diet. It’s a lifestyle change. It’s all about changing eating habits slowly to achieve lasting weight loss.

First transmitted January 2018 on BBC TWO.