Make a change for the better

I had to explain to my seven-year-old daughter what a resolution was, that the start of a new year was to be marked by making a change for the better.

Most of the time these resolutions are borne out of festive greed. I received a foot-long pack of Jaffa Cakes that have been tormenting me for the last week, I dare say others have succumbed to such temptation.

So you get to new year, realising that the buoyancy aid around your waist is actually excess fat, and you make a dramatic statement to budge the flab.

If you’ve not eaten that much, you might have drank too much. Or smoked too much, or spent too much. It’s most likely down to excess that people are spurred into action to make a positive change.

My point is this – why wait until January? If you want to get fit, you’ve picked a really difficult time to do it. It’s almost unrealistic to suggest that you could maintain the regime.

Get fit in the summer, while the weather’s good. Don’t join a gym, buy a pair of running shoes and get out into the open. That’s exactly what I did two years ago.

And I’ve never looked back.

I regularly run now, and from literally nothing, I have now completed six half-marathons, countless 10km runs and – as of New Year’s Day – 50 parkruns.

You might have heard of parkruns before. They are free, timed, 5k runs in your local park on a Saturday morning. I’ve made new friends as a result of it, got the family involved and, now I’ve reached the 50 milestone, I get a free t-shirt.

Each week is a personal battle to beat my best time. My fitness has increased without really trying.

So there’s one thing you can do. No need to wait until the new year to do it though.

And, if you smoke and drink too much – don’t set yourself unrealistic targets now. Cut back, rather than cut out. You’ll find that a lot easier to maintain, trust me.

I’M SORRY to say that the beard that I wrote about with such passion in recent weeks is no more.

On New Year’s Day, I made a decision – not a resolution – to remove it. I have a perfectly good reason for it.

It reached a tipping point on Sunday, whereupon stroking my beard for inspiration – as is my wont – half of a Twiglet dropped out of the thick thatch of hair.

It shames me to say this, but I hadn’t eaten Twiglets on Sunday. Or Saturday. It was, in fact, Boxing Day.

At that point I thought this had gone too far. I had become tired of having to exercise caution while imbibing soup, or eating a burger, or anything for that matter. The beard is the fashion accessory of choice these days, but I’ve sadly come to the conclusion that it’s not for me.

Grooming the thing became a chore. It had reached the point where it required more shampoo than my hair, while drying it was a drawn out ordeal.

Plus, while these football players and popstars manage to look sophisticated and gentlemanly, I looked like a Whitby fisherman. No offence to the seamen of North Yorkshire, but it had to go.

So the shaver was taken out of hibernation, oiled up and thrown into action, as it battled with what had become a formidable formation of fuzz upon my chin.

But fear not, the clump of clippings from my beard will insulate the loft in our new house.