Give up New Year resolutions and just take up running

Getting fit and healthy is a life-long commitment, not an optional resolution to pick up and drop, writes RUTH FIELD

So it’s New Year 2013 and I want to make a resolution to get fit and lose weight. But I have been making this same resolution every year and I never seem to be able to stick with anything and always end the year the same as started it, if anything a little bit fatter. How can I make 2013 different? MA

Firstly, I applaud your honesty. It takes courage to admit that you have failed – repeatedly – to stick to your resolution. And if it makes you feel any better, you are not alone. Most of us fail at keeping our resolutions which is one of the reasons I never make any.

Resolution-free year

And, because the only thing worse than January itself – in all its dark, skint, miserable brutality – is the idea that I might have to deprive myself of one of the few things that help make it bearable: chocolate, alcohol, all that leftover ham and pickles and cheese, box-sets, duvet days . . . the list is endless. So let’s begin by making 2013 a resolution-free year.

Now however, for some gritty home truths. Getting fit and losing weight is vital to your health and wellbeing so is no longer to be seen as an optional resolution to be picked up and dropped when the going gets tough, but as a compulsory life-long commitment that you adopt forever.

The only way to really get fit and lose weight is firstly to take on board that a shift in attitude is fundamental to your success. Secondly, to accept that dealing with the fitness aspect first is the better approach, because fitness brings with it a whole host of tangential benefits that make a healthier approach to eating easier to adopt.

This ought to come as a huge relief. And yes, by all means tuck into that mince pie with a nice cup of tea before reading on.

I want something different for you, something simple, free, time-savvy and incredibly effective at both battling the bulge and getting you fit as a fiddle. Something you can begin now exactly as you are which doesn’t involve you buying anything new or changing anything about yourself.

No more faddy diets, crazy body detoxes, or complicated exercise regimes and all the fannying about that surrounds them.

No more empty promises and wasted gym memberships and shoddy excuse making. No more relying on other people for help. All you need is the courage to do as I suggest and trust that by spring you will never look back: Get up off the sofa and go outdoors. Wrap up warmly and comfortably enough for a good one to one-and-a-half hour brisk walk from your front door and back home again.