NELSON football referee Mike Riley is helping the nation get fit as part of the BBC's Fat Nation.

As a Premier League referee, Mike's television appearances have always been watched by armchair sports fans. But now he has taken part in a film showing people how to get off the sofa and build his training tips into their daily lives.

A BBC television crew spent an afternoon at Nelson and Colne College's Reedyford campus, where Mike is finance director, filming the referee and two colleagues being put through their paces by trainer Matt Weston.

Mike, 39, said: "The programme is doing a fitness week and they contacted the Premier League to see if they could come and see how we train and how people can build what we do into their daily lives.

"We do ten to 15 minutes warm up to get the body warmed up and get flexibility and then about half an hour's high intensity work. We sprint in relays so we have about 45 seconds high intensity and then 45 seconds rest.

"We train with heart rate monitors so we can see how hard we're working."

About two thirds of adults in Britain are overweight or obese while five per cent of children are obese and 15 per cent overweight.

Fat Nation - The Big Challenge is a two year campaign designed raise awareness of the issues and motivate people into changing their diet and doing more exercise.

Part of the programme involves challenging ordinary people to do something healthier and so Mike was helping to show a Birmingham accountant, who used to referee, how to build his fitness levels back up.

Mike said: "All he does is gets up, goes to work, sits at his desk all day long and goes home again.

"We were trying to show him he could go training before work or during his lunch hour. Doing a little bit each day adds up over a period of time.

"It was quite good fun, the guy we were training was a nice bloke. He realised we looked fitter and he hadn't done this for years so he was terrified but he was really game for it and put the effort in and tried to keep up with us."