Feed Yourself Fitter with Stephen Nolan - Season 1

Dora is the heaviest she has ever been. Losing her sister to cancer and then her mother a short time later had a huge impact on her. Dora believes she turned to food to help her cope with the grief. She says her appetite for sweet, sugary treats is now out of control and she is eating more than ever. She is surrounded by temptation, as her house is filled with treat-making gadgets, making it impossible for her to stop eating calorie-laden snacks.

Stephen finds Dora in her outdoor ‘pool', sipping slushies, eating hotdogs and toasting marshmallows. After a frantic Zumba workout at the local community centre, Stephen sits down with Dora and together they share stories as to how they have lost their way with food. Stephen then invites her to join him in the kitchen with one of Northern Ireland's top chefs.

Michelin star holder Alex Greene is one of the rising stars in Northern Ireland food circles. He is passionate about cooking healthy food from scratch and is keen to meet the challenge of making food that it is low in calories but high in flavour. The only problem for this talented chef is that both Dora and Stephen are totally clueless in the kitchen. Can Alex convince them they can make good food themselves? And more importantly, will the pair like the dishes enough to give them a try at home? All is revealed as Stephen's unexpected reaction to Alex's food takes everyone by surprise.

Stephen is off to Fermanagh to meet Felim, a second-hand car salesman, who at 28 stone is dangerously out of control with his weight. Felim admits to being addicted to junk food and his rapidly increasing weight over the past five years is putting a considerable strain on his relationship with fiancé Luke. Living in a caravan while they build their dream home and working long hours doesn't help, but Felim knows that the time has come to change the relationship he has with food or he might lose the relationship with the person he holds dear. What can Stephen do to help Felim on his road to a better diet?

Chef Brian McCann is passionate about healthy cooking. For 30 years he has championed local, seasonal produce cooked from scratch. His choice of dishes for Felim has been meticulously thought through - easy to cook, gorgeous to look at, delicious to taste. At times the lack of attention from his ‘students', coupled with their lack of culinary curiosity, tests Brian's patience to its limits. As the cookery lesson unfolds, the respect for the chef grows, so much so that Stephen suddenly decides to share with Brian a grubby secret that demonstrates just how shameful his eating has become.

Stephen meets 50-year-old Caroline from Newry. Caroline has been struggling with weight gain since she started the menopause, and with her work in a care home and looking after three boisterous grandsons, she often turns to crisps and snacks to keep her energy levels up. She tells Stephen that she is a terrible cook and would love to be more confident in the kitchen.

While she loves to walk in the beautiful hills in and around Newry and Carlingford Lough with her pals, her recent weight gain is affecting Caroline's joints and she's worried that if she doesn't change her ways, she may lose the ability to do this and remain active and sociable. For the first time, this bubbly sociable woman feels the wind has been taken out of her sails. As her weight has increased, her self-esteem has sadly plummeted. Can a visit to the kitchen with Stephen help restore it?

No better chef to try to help Caroline than the highly respected chef Shauna Froydenlund, who has returned to her native Derry armed with the skills honed from being head chef in a Marcus Wareing London restaurant. She has so many ideas and tastes for Caroline and Stephen to try. But when Shauna's dish turns out to be Caroline's food hell, there's the potential for things in the kitchen to go terribly wrong...

Cold water swimmer Mary has no problem stripping down to her costume to brave the icy waters of Lough Neagh every Sunday. How she looks doesn't bother her in the slightest, but what her extra weight is doing to her health very much does. Having piled on the pounds year on year for over two decades she is suffering more and more from increasing aches and pains. In the water she is weightless but out of it, she struggles to go about her day to day activities. Mary is the heaviest she has ever been, eating packets of biscuits at a time and family bags of crisps in one sitting. She knows it's not good for her but can't stop. She thinks learning to make healthier options alongside Stephen in the kitchen might give her the impetus she needs to change.

One of the most well-known and respected chefs in Northern Ireland, Michael Deane enters the kitchen with the most unusual ingredients, all local and readily available but unknown tastes for Stephen and Mary. Will Michael be able to convince them to buy into his healthy food or will they prefer to stick with the sweet fatty foods they are familiar with. Mary is determined her cookery experience will kick start her weight loss, and the actual outcome leaves everyone stunned.

Young dad Taitis as heavy in weight as he has years under his belt. At 23 stone, the lockdown wreaked havoc on Tait's diet. Commuting long hours to and from work and eating fast food takeaways en route means he can no longer run after or play with his young son Theo. Girlfriend Abbie is worried that his weight has ballooned so much in the past three years that he will not be around long enough to see his young son grow up. Stephen sees a younger version of himself in Tait and warns him not to waste his youth, and to do something about his weight now while time is on his side.

The challenge for chef Suzie Lee is to make Tait's much-loved but fattening takeaways a thing of the past by showing him how to cook fresh, delicious alternative meals at home. Tait and Stephen are delighted at how simple she makes favourite Chinese dishes look. When it comes to Suzie's tasty treat, Stephen's got a money-making idea up his sleeve.

Stephen visits student nurse Jennifer in her digs in East Belfast. Studying hard for her finals while working long hours in Craigavon intensive care unit, she has little time to look after herself. Mindlessly eating junk to keep her energy levels up, Jennifer is feeling guilty and hypocritical that as a nurse she is giving out advice to patients about their health and diet that she obviously does not follow herself. Her dad's dying wish was for his daughter to be the best nurse she could be and Jennifer feels she is tarnishing his memory with her eating struggles. Jennifer's mum back home in Enniskillen is also worried about her daughter and desperately wants her to stop the bingeing.

Chef Paula McIntyre is famous for her traditional home cooking using local produce. She has worked hard to make a meal that is really tasty, substantial in taste but as low in calories as she can make it. In the kitchen, Paula tells Stephen that this programme has now inspired her too to try and eat more healthily. Fingers crossed it can do the same for student nurse Jennifer and Stephen Nolan as well!