Hairy Bikers promote their slim volume...

The duo – real names Simon King and David Myers – were at Costco in Hunslet, Leeds, to promote the latest in a series of fat-busting recipe books called The Hairy Dieters.

The store’s assistant manager Nicola Warburton said nearly 250 copies were sold during the visit.

“I think the previous Costco record was 166, so it was a record-breaking event,” she said.

“They are really popular guys, really down to earth and had time for everybody.

“We had a poster up about their visit in the toilet and before they went they even had enough of a sense of humour to draw moustaches and glasses on themselves. They’ve no airs and graces.”

The new book – the third in the series, and entitled Good Eating – contains low-fat recipes for everything from curries to steak and kidney pie.

It comes after a stringent weight-loss regime that saw King, 46, and Myers, 56, who have starred in a series of BBC cooking programmes, lose six stones between them.

They have spoken about how health concerns led to a strict course of diet and exercise.

King even believes his slimming saved his life after he ended up in hospital in March having suffered a potentially life-threatening brain aneurysm.

He said: “Aneurysms are affected by stress, and high blood pressure is an issue.

“But if I hadn’t lost all the weight I probably wouldn’t be here today.

“If this had happened when I’d been at my heaviest, when my blood pressure was through the roof, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”