I missed this when it first aired last December. What started out looking like it was going to be just another dose of fat porn turned out to be one of the most inspiring and moving stories of a normal guy coming to terms with his demons, and doing whatever it took to reclaim a normal life for himself with the incredibly dedicated support of his family. Colin Corfield reached an estimated 60 stone before being told that if he didn't lose at least half his body weight, he would die. And at that size, no hospital would even contemplate the gastric bypass surgery Colin believed was the only way he could control his eating.

"Tutored" by his abusive, alcoholic father from an early age, Colin had soon learned how to drink 20 or 30 pints a day, and also took refuge from his daily misery - having to watch his father physically abuse his mother - in comfort eating.

When he started running his own pub, the drink was on tap, literally, and Colin was out of control. By the autumn of 2005, he had grown too big to leave his bed and needed an oxygen mask to breathe during the night.

A TV programme about gastric surgery proved an inspiration, but he needed to lose 12 stone before the surgeon would operate, and, after the NHS refused to fund the treatment, his mother had to sell her bungalow to raise the necessary funds.

The operation was scheduled for November 2005, but after five hours in theatre they had to admit defeat and abandon the surgery. The keyhole instruments were simply not long enough to reach through the mountains of fat inside Colin. He woke up to be told that he would have to lose another 10 stone.

It was a huge psychological blow, but Colin's determination only wavered momentarily. He joined Slimming World, where the slimming leader was convinced he could achieve ALL his weight loss without surgery. He also hired out the local swimming pool to start a private exercise regime. His reaction to being in the water - the lack of pain and the weightlessness - gave him even more incentive to carry on.

A year later - November 2006 - and Colin had lost the required 10 stone. With his weight at 38 stone he was ready for the operation. Then came another set-back. Having initially said they would do the op, the NHS now reneged on their agreement, saying that Colin was making good enough progress without it! I found this quite literally incredible. The almost complete lack of empathy exhibited by the supposedly caring profession in not realising that the sole reason for Colin's good progress was his determination to lose enough weight to allow the procedure to go ahead, was utterly staggering. Colin was devastated and, along with pretty much everyone else watching I suspect, totally at a loss to explain the NHS' behaviour.

Fortunately the family appealed the decision and in a couple of weeks it was overturned and the operation was back on. Warned that he had approximately a 1-in-20 chance of dying on the table, Colin was indefatigable. "I would have died anyway," he said philosophically.

It's at this point in these programs that I start to expect the worst, but for once the story had a happy ending. With his stomach reduced to the size of a small orange, Colin's meals now consist of two ice-cube-sized portions of pureed dinner, breakfast is a single Weetabix, and his 20-pint binges are a thing of the past. In the 12 months following surgery he continued to shed weight until he finally achieved his goal weight of 16 stone. A total weight loss of 44 stone. His facial features gradually emerged from the folds of fat, he found he could once again visit his beloved Everton F.C. football ground (after years of not being able to fit through the turnstiles), and his food addiction was consigned to a bad memory.

He had achieved a simple goal that so many of us take for granted - to be able to walk anywhere and be looked at as a regular guy, and not have people pointing and laughing at him.

People may sneer and say that he shouldn't have let himself get into that state in the first place. But Colin was battling with a multitude of demons, only some of which were covered in the programme, and he fought every one of them off with the solace of comfort eating: his only weapon. His courage and determination in facing up to his, literally enormous, problem cannot be underestimated. His struggle took years, combined with high risks and a lot of pain. By anyone's reckoning, it's a monumental achievement.