Viewers are to see the shocking moment a rugby player was told his booze, fags and take-away lifestyle was shaving years off his life.

Health experts weighed up 25-stone, 6ft 1in Ben Pickin's love of junk food, lager-fuelled nights out and cigarettes and calculated they would kill the 30-year-old by the time he was 54.

Ben, from Bingley, used to sink up to 18 pints, smoke two packets of cigarettes and top them off with two take-aways during wild nights out with rugby pals.

But when medical professionals told him his life expectancy was just a further 25 years, Ben realised it would wreck his dream of having a family and resolved to change his ways.

Viewers will see the driving instructor achieve an amazing turn-around - losing two-and-a-half stones and quitting smoking, in Sky One's Change The Day You Die.

The programme will see the Bradford & Bingley Rugby Club player get help to kick his bad habits from the experts - Dr Adam Carey, the resident nutritionist for the England rugby squad, and life coach Patricia Mitchell.

Ben said he had long been overweight, and that rugby's rigorous socialising had done little to fuel his willpower.

"I won't blame it for my size, but playing rugby you get into the drinking culture and I'm always up for a good laugh," he said.

Ben, who lived with his parents until recently, said a club mate had put him up to the show.

Before he knew it, Ben had a crew filming him at home, at work, in the bar and on the rugby pitch.

He said he quickly became used to it, but was not ready for being told he was expected to die young.

"They did several tests based on my current health and lifestyle and told me I would be dead by the time I was 54.

"The shock of that wasn't too bad, but I said I wanted to eventually have kids and they told me I probably wouldn't be around for them by the time they were 14 or 15. That was the big kick."

Another shock came when the crew showed footage of him enjoying a night out in Bradford with mates - an evening in which he sank 18 pints of lager and 12 alcopops, smoked 40 cigarettes and rounded things off with a pizza and a tray of cheese-covered chips.

Ben was driven further when Dr Carey, who featured on Celebrity Fit Club, said he was a borderline diabetic.

Another scene will see rugby teammates struggle to lug three bags representing the third team player's nine stones of excess fat.

After all this Ben ditched the lager for white wine and soda, cut out the take-aways and said he quit smoking with relative ease after the show introduced him to a woman dangerously ill following a lifetime of cigarette abuse.

"I feel miles better now. It's been about getting out of my comfort zone," he said.

"Fortunately the lads in the team have been really supportive."

Now, after previously gasping his way around the pitch, the rejuvenated prop has even claimed a space in Bradford & Bingley's second team.

He works out at the gym from 6.30am most days.

Dr Carey said Ben's former boozing, smoking and bingeing lifestyle would have killed him: "Ben had many things in his lifestyle that were not right - so many I think he just didn't know where to start, so he did nothing."

Viewers will find out Dr Carey's new prediction for Ben on Change The Day You Die, on Sky One, March 6 at 9pm.