In January, Journal Editor Brian Aitken pledged to shed pounds to raise pounds for the Josie Grove appeal. With the clock ticking down to the end of his sponsored slim, Jane Hall finds he's feeling the benefits of employing a personal trainer.

His birth certificate may show he was born 47 years ago, but try telling his body that.

Physically, Journal Editor Brian Aitken is getting ready to draw his pension.

Business lunches and dinners have taken their toll. And while Brian still officially has three years to go before hitting his half century, his metabolic age has streaked past both the 50 and 60-year-old markers.

Brian is in the unenviable position of owning a body with a metabolic age of 62 - 15 years older than his true lifespan.

It's not an achievement the father-of-four is proud to own up to.

But the shock news that his body is getting ready to retire while on paper he's barely hit middle age, has revitalised Brian's sponsored slim in aid of the Josie Grove Leukaemia Fund.

In January he pledged to shed the pounds to raise pounds for the Josie Grove appeal, set-up by the brave 16-year-old and her family to benefit children's leukaemia charities.

Josie, from Corbridge, Northumberland, touched the nation's hearts when she decided to forgo further leukaemia treatment after two unsuccessful bone marrow transplants in order to spend the time she had left with her family.

The former Hexham Queen Elizabeth High School pupil died at the end of February, but her memory lives on through the fund.

Following in the footsteps of Journal columnist David Banks who began a sponsored slim just before Christmas in aid of Josie, Brian set himself a target of losing two stone by mid-May and drummed up just under £3,000 in pledges and sponsorship from business contacts across the region.

After getting off to an impressive start when he shed eight pounds in two weeks from his 15st 8lb frame, his weight loss slowed down. He wasn't following an exercise regime because of a torn cartilage in his knee - but two weeks ago was given the all-clear by a specialist to start training again, leaving him just six weeks to reach his target weight of 13st 8lb. An almost impossible task - or so he thought.

Step-in personal trainer David Fairlamb. Like thousands of others, the 35-year-old former athlete who now runs the region's only one-on-one gym, based at Tyne Metropolitan College's North Shields campus, was deeply touched by Josie's story. So when he heard Brian's weight loss efforts could be scuppered, he saw it as an opportunity to play his part in helping boost The Journal's fundraising campaign for Josie.

He has taken the editor under his wing. And any qualms he may have had about Brian's motivation have been laid to rest - thanks to his latest fitness aid, the nattily named Tanita Total Body Composition Analyser.

For this hi-tech machine can calculate everything from your weight to body water levels, visceral fat (the amount of fat surrounding your vital organs), predicted bone mass - and metabolic age.

David admits he was shocked when Brian's came back as 62. "I would have expected someone of Brian's age to be around 55," he admits. "But I believe I can get him down to 55 by the end of the six weeks - and if he decides to continue I could get him even lower than his age."

If David was alarmed, that was nothing to Brian's reaction on discovering he is the living embodiment of the `Two Ages of Man'.

Now his determination to lose weight has been matched by his resolve to act his age.

"I set out to lose weight for the Josie Grove Leukaemia Fund and, while that still remains my goal, my focus has now altered slightly after seeing David. I have found out that while I am 47 I have a metabolic age of 62, and I feel it is now just as important for me to get that 15 years off as it is to lose the weight."

David is putting Brian through his paces three times a week and has devised a programme of short, sharp exercises in a controlled environment to help burn the calories.

"It's much better than plodding along where your body gets used to the exercise regime and you drop into what I call the `comfort zone'," David explains. "So far I have been very impressed with Brian's commitment. He trains very hard and two weeks in you can see a big difference already."

It's not all weight loss, however. And David says his client will be doing well if he can lose two to three pounds a week - far less than either Brian or his sponsors envisaged.

The reason is simple: "If he was just on a diet he would lose the pounds and it would show on the scales, but he would also be losing muscle tone. Because he is exercising three times a week he will be building up his muscles, so you can lose three or four pounds of fat weight but put on three or four pounds of lean, so you end up weighing the same," David says.

Which leaves Brian with the conundrum of how he is going to prove his sponsored slim has been a success.

"I am very fortunate in that a lot of people who have sponsored me have done it as a donation, so that means they have already pledged regardless of if I lose two pounds or two stone," Brian says.

"But some people have made pledges based on weight loss, so we have decided that David is going to act as the final judge.

"He took a lot of measurements in the first week, and that is how I will now be assessed. At the end of the sponsor period he will re-measure me and take a host of other considerations into account and determine if I have reached my target."

Brian adds: "I officially started in the New Year. But I made the mistake of allowing myself to be weighed before Christmas but not starting until January. I put on four pounds over the festive period, so the first four pounds I lost was to nothing.

"What I was doing was relying on eating more healthy meals, having smaller portions and reducing my alcohol consumption. That was working for a period of time. In the first two weeks I lost seven or eight pounds. But then that tailed off. With six weeks to go I knew I needed to do something else.

"I had always tried to do more exercise along with eating and drinking healthily, but I was hampered by the fact that I had a torn cartilage in my knee.

"I got in touch with David, who has been fantastic. He has made me re-focus and has told me that I should be concentrating on body shape rather than body weight.

"I did say I was trying to lose two stone. I'm hoping if I don't quite achieve that as a result of what David is doing, then at the end of it he will be able to convince everyone who has sponsored me that I have lived up to what I was trying to do, even if the scales don't show it."

* To find out more about David Fairlamb Fitness Consultants go to www.davidfairlambfitness.co.uk or call (0771) 364-0899.

Name: Brian Aitken.

Job: Editor, The Journal, Newcastle.

Age: 47.

Metabolic age: 62.

Height: 5ft 10in.

Ideal weight: 12 stone 8lbs.

Weight on January 9 at start of sponsored slim: 15st 8lb.

Weight now: 14st 8lb.

Motivation for losing weight: "Like anyone who read the stories, I couldn't help but be inspired by Josie and by what David Banks was doing to raise money with his diet.

"I had felt after attending various business lunches and dinners that I was typical of many people and was overweight and not leading as healthy a lifestyle as I should. I felt I should show some solidarity with David and some leadership."

David Fairlamb's initial judgment: "Brian needed to lose the weight off his stomach and a little off his legs. He also needed to work on his top half as I felt he was slightly round-shouldered.

"I knew I could help him, but he has to stick really rigidly to a good diet - and that includes no alcohol."

Brian's sponsor target: "So far I have got just under £3,000, but would obviously like to raise more. What I would say to anyone who has not pledged is that it's not too late."

What you can do: Anyone who would like to pledge money can do so by going to www.dovetrust.com and following the link on the home page headlined `Brian Aitken's sponsored slim' to his charitygiving.co.uk fundraising site.