No, not normal in the 'you're a weird hairy atheist' sense of the word, but normal as in I am now a 'normal' weight for my height. So this is a quick update of where I am since I started exercising, almost exactly six months ago.

• In those six months I have gone down from 280 pounds (20 stone if you're British) to my current 230 pounds (16 stone 6). That gives me a BMI of 24.6 (anything above 25.0 is overweight). I am normal! 50 pounds is a lot of weight to lose, and there is a big, big difference in the 'before' and 'after' me.

• I've pedalled almost exactly 1000 miles on the exercise bike (over 1600 kilometres). And I love doing it. In fact I recently did a little too much, strained my knee and took an enforced break and was really missing it!

• I've lost so much from my waist that none of my jeans fit - even the really old ones hiding at the back of the wardrobe, from maybe 10 years ago, are too big. Before I was struggling to get into jeans with a 40" waist, now even the 36" ones are beginning to feel a little loose. If I ever make it to 34" I will be at the size I was when I was 18! Those ads you see with the skinny man holding his 'fat man jeans' way out to show how much he's lost? That's me! I can do that now!

• Instead of wearing XL size T-shirts, I now wear M size. I skipped L altogether when I bought a medium by accident. Yes ladies, I now have a torso which I am not ashamed to put in a tight (ish) T-shirt! But no 6-pack yet - I think that is going to take more work than I'm prepared to put in. I always intended this to be part of my normal life, rather than spending my entire life working out.

• Even my face looks different. If you look at my videos from around December 2007 and compare those pudgy features(!) with my 'Sounds of the Street Preachers' video you might be able to see what I mean. Don't ask me to post 'before' and 'after' photos, it ain't gonna happen!

• I eat a lot less but don't feel obsessed by food. I really don't feel great when I pig out like I used to (I get bloated, lethargic and uncomfortable), so I don't do it. Having said that, like anyone I have urges to eat whole packets of something (anything) bad, which is why I never buy anything I will regret later. It's no use getting something and saying 'these can be my treats for 2 weeks' when in reality I will only sit down and eat the lot in one session!

So that's my end of term report from the exercise regime. I don't know about a grade, but I feel as if I've definitely passed with flying colours. The exercise bike was really the key to my weight loss. I sort of lost a bit of interest in resistance training (with my stretchy resistance bands), although I may pick them up again. But the bike is just there, I can get on it and do whatever distance I feel like, including a few (not many!) marathon distances (yes, the full 26.2 miles) from time to time. One last tip: you will pedal faster if you have some classic Iron Maiden in the background - that stuff was just made for it!

The plan now is this: don't lose much more weight, and really just stay as I am. Job done!