Quirindi-born exercise physiologist Ray Kelly to bring Tamworth's weight loss revolution to the nation

After leading a local weight-loss revolution, Mr Kelly will bring the same research-based programs to Australia, starring in a new SBS program.

Talk to Ray for five minutes and three things will become apparent.

Firstly, the scourge of type-two diabetes, a health problem caused when the pancreas, choked by fat, can't produce enough insulin, is far worse than you think. About 1.2 million Australians live with diabetes, many of them undiagnosed, and it's among the country's fastest-growing health problems.

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Second, almost everything your doctor told you about weightloss and diabetes is wrong.

And, third, Ray is really frustrated about it.

The Gomeroi man grew up watching friends and neighbours die of the completely preventable and reversible disease, and he did something about it.

"It stems from the fact that we've sort of become comfortable with people not being able to achieve good weightloss. Rather than trying to improve our systems, we've just just accepted it's just hard," he said.

"What we should be doing is focusing on what works. If it works, lets replicate it. The research shows we should be getting better results than we are."

He has the receipts to prove his approach works.

At a single ten-month Coonamble clinic run by the physiologist, participants jointly lost more than a tonne of fat, he said.

A Tamworth program with 100 moderately successful participants would save the government "a minimum of $300,000 each year that person remains healthy" in prevented health costs, he said.

But despite the existence of a known, inexpensive, highly-effective treatment that completely eliminates all symptoms, many diabetics don't even know the disease is reversible by weightloss, and they certainly don't get any help to do it. Until Ray lobbied them, Diabetes Australia did not even mention remission on their website.

Mr Kelly will use the SBS show to demonstrate the evidence-based approach to doing exactly that.

"We were always taught at uni that if you lost weight fast, then you were more likely to put it all back on and more. But that wasn't what the research ever said, it's never said that," he said.

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"It's just a theory that people had - make small changes and it's going to last longer. But that's not what happens.

"What the research actually says is the faster you can lose weight, healthily, in the first few months, the more likely you are to reach goal weight and the more likely you are to keep it off.

"The more I read the more I was just bewildered at what was happening and why wasn't this change happening."

During the program, co-host Doctor Michael Mosely will get himself to a pre-diabetic state and then join eight other participants to crush the ailment.

One participant was on 250 units of insulin a day before the show, more than five times what is considered a "high dose".

Mr Kelly said the eight-week program he will put them through is very similar to the model he pioneered through the Aboriginal Medical Service in Quirindi, Coledale and Walhollow.

Success can be extraordinarily quick.

"[One participant,] she's been on insulin about 15 years. In seven days, she got off insulin. That was three years ago; she's still off insulin. That's how quickly things can change," he said.

He hopes the show will launch nothing short of a revolution in Australia's billion-dollar battle with the bulge.

"The desire is a whole paradigm shift right across the board," he said.

"We want community to know this is available and they need to speak to their health care professionals about it. We want health care professionals to see that it's available and look at the research that's around that supports all of this.

"And then of course we want changes in policy with government."

The first of three episodes will be broadcast on Wednesday 13 October.

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