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The No 10 Diets: Brown abolishes KitKats ... and GI Dave does porridge
Last updated at 10:22am on 25.03.07Once it was the highest compliment to say a politician had 'bottom' - an ample girth used to be equated with statesmanlike gravitas. But not any more.
For Gordon Brown and David Cameron have both embarked on diets and exercise regimes to shape up for battle when Tony Blair quits as Prime Minister.
Mr Brown's weight-loss programme has included a strict ban on his habit of snacking on up to three KitKat bars daily.
And porridge has been the secret ingredient in Mr Cameron's regime as he shed a stone.
The Chancellor put on weight when he quit smoking on June 9, 1986 - the day after Scotland crashed out of the football World Cup with a 2-1 defeat by West Germany.
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Porkers: David Cameron is at serious risk of putting on even more weight; Gordon Brown has given up his three daily kit-kats
But he replaced his nicotine habit with another addiction - chocolate.
Mr Brown, who hopes to succeed Mr Blair as PM this summer, is hooked on KitKats. But each four-finger bar contains 233 calories and three of them account for more than a third of the average man's daily energy needs.
Last year, under pressure from wife Sarah, Mr Brown resolved to give them up. His new diet has been accompanied by daily visits to the Treasury treadmill - he runs three miles on it each morning.
The result has been that Mr Brown, 56, has also lost a stone.
A source close to him said:
"Gordon used to snack on chocolate. But he has given up for the past six months and looks much better for it."
Conservative leader Mr Cameron was stung by pictures of him on a Corfu beach last summer, which showed an emerging paunch tipping over the waist of his brightly coloured board shorts.
Aides say the 40-year-old now cycles more. When he was elected leader in 2005, he became known for biking to Westminster from his Notting Hill home. But he usually only did so on Wednesdays.
In a bid to shed the pounds, he now cycles the ten-mile round trip at least twice a week.
Mr Cameron has also been on a rough-and-ready version of the fashionable GI diet - followers are encouraged to eat complex carbohydrate foods, which release their energy slowly, such as oatcakes, high-fibre cereals and porridge.
A senior Tory said:
"Dave is at that age where he could go either way. If he looks after himself he can stay lean and trim, but he is at risk of putting on weight."
The two men are following the example set by Tony Blair, who is 53, watches what he eats and still spends hours each day pumping iron in the Downing Street gym.
