I am 70 years old, a recently retired teacher of Biology and I live in North Yorkshire, in the north of England.

My wife and I stopped eating meat around 40 years ago – this was largely for environmental reasons, but my wife also had some issues with her intestine and had been advised to reduce her intake of saturated fat.

I have never really had any health problems and have been an active cyclist for much of my life – as well as walking regularly in the mountains of the Lake District and Snowdonia.

During my 50s I didn’t cycle as much, as a result of which I put on a little weight.

When I was 60, I began to increase the amount of cycling again – at this time, I was still eating cheese and eggs and products like cake and biscuits which might contain butter, milk or eggs.

When I was 61 I managed to get a place in a tough one day cycling event around the English Lake District – this is the Fred Whitton Challenge (www.fredwhittonchallenge.co.uk)

Whilst training for this, I read Scott Jurek’s book, Eat and Run – as a result of which I removed all plant products from my diet and felt an almost immediate improvement on the bike.

Since then, I have read widely about Whole Food Plant Based nutrition – and have been speaking regularly at Vegan and Plant Based festivals here in the UK.

I am also a member of Plant Based Health Professionals UK and I have contributed to the material used in the University of Winchester Plant Based Nutrition course. (www.plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com)

I am also a big supporter of Veganuary (www.veganuary.com) and use my cycling as a way to promote their work.

My plan for the coming years, during my 70s, is to cycle as much as possible – this will include long distance endurance rides, which I will use to draw attention to the benefits that can be derived from a WFPB diet to maintain health and fitness in later life, as well as reducing animal suffering and the environmental degradation caused by animal agriculture.