January is arguably the least suitable month to embark upon a project of self-denial and violent exercise and give up what few comforts and modest indulgences we enjoy in the dankest, dreariest, most foundering cold period of the year.
Even Mother Nature abhors the idea and doubles down, resting through the harshest weather, sending many of her animal and vegetable offspring into hibernation till things warm up.
I have a theory that whoever organised our calendar – a social construct cobbled up by astronomers, seers and scientists – got it all wrong. Ideally, the new year should start in spring, early April perhaps, when it’s sometimes safe to take your cardigan off and things begin to bud and bloom. November, December, January and February are in effect winter here, when our needs are warmth, nourishment, rest, recuperation and substantial layer of fat to insulate us against the cold and damp. It’s no time for short commons, rather hot soups, thick stews, savoury casseroles full of chunky bits and pies.
It’s no time either for running wet roads in a singlet and shorts and coming home to a coul’ oul’ salad, or dislocating bits of yourself in a gym. One has no need to be ‘beach ready’ unless travelling abroad to warmer climes. Here, you’ll have your coat on in a local seaside resort every month except August.
I am allergic to any exercise more vigorous than a brisk walk, preferably through a shopping mall, with frequent halts. I successfully avoided most compulsory Physical Education at school and college by hopeless incompetence at running, jumping, aiming or catching, thus proving to be only a liability on a team. In adulthood I foolishly succumbed to persuasion and went to yoga. Once – and fell asleep.
Ironically, though absent from the event, I won a year’s free gym membership in a charity raffle and was invited to inspect the premises and have a personal workout programme designed exclusively for me. This created hysterical mirth among my friends, well acquainted with my attitude to any form of physical exertion. Our of courtesy, I popped into the gym to say, “Thanks, but no thanks. Give the prize to someone who’ll benefit from it.” What a mistake that was. Despite protests, a friendly but muscular arm was put around my shoulder and I was taken (tottering in high heels) on a conducted tour of the premises. It was like the seventh circle of Hell. Though scrupulously clean, the air was redolent with the smells of disinfectant, embrocation and perspiration. Here, a row of blank-faced individuals running eternally towards an equally blank wall. (Surely the treadmill was once a prison punishment?) Over there, a pair of teenagers, purple with effort, knocking seven bells out of a punchbag. Peculiar grunting noises emanate from three young men lifting weights, the veins in their temples bulging like cords. There are instruments of torture, purpose unknown, at every turn, my guide expounding on the benefits of each. To my abiding shame, I invented a pressing engagement elsewhere and escaped – but it was a damn close-run thing.
Isn’t it odd how weight never shifts from the places you want to lose it. It’s a truism that after a certain age, you can have either your face or your figure. Referencing an acquaintance who’d achieved model proportions rather rapidly, an acerbic Auntie Mollie commented: “She’s like a mouse lookin’ out of a starch box.”
Teaching on my feet all day kept me trim, but retirement made me increasingly rotund, engaged in constant battle with the biscuit tin, the cheeseboard and the chocolate bar. ‘Comfort eating’ is what we do when we’re tense, anxious or apprehensive. We live in sudden times. In these uncertain days, with much of our quality of life diminishing, who can blame us for a little self-indulgence?
Look, I know, I just KNOW that four days into the new year, you’ve already fallen from grace. Life’s too grim to eat lettuce. May I recommend an industrial-strength all-in-one foundation garment and cutting the size tags out of your clothes?
New year – new you??? Nope. Me neither….
