Is running the answer to overhauling my unhealthy lifestyle?

I know, I know; New Year’s resolutions are doomed to fail, and it’s far more sensible to eshew any January fresh start in favour of a nice piece of cake. That said, after more than a few broken New Year’s promises to get healthy, and with a big birthday fast approaching, January seems as good a time as any to crack on. So, follow me as I lace up my decades-old trainers, don some awful lycra and attempt to become a runner. Or at the very least, go on a few runs. Or one.

I first pitched this column in the dark November of lockdown. “We should do something about running. Everyone seems to be doing couch-to-5k, I’ll give it a try,” I enthused, fully aware I’d spent the first six months of the year eating biscuits and barely moving.

Fine, the editor said, and waited. And waited. This was November of 2020. Fast (or indeed slow) forward to January of 2022, and I’ve finally managed to lace up some trainers and move towards my front door. At least I can’t be accused of taking up running on a whim.

The fact is, exercise – and its friends, healthy eating, juicing, and getting a decent amount of sleep – aren’t things I regularly do. Honestly, bar the sleeping, they also aren’t things I’m particularly interested in.

I like food. I like wine. I could sit and eat bread, cheese, chocolate and wine for a job. Yes, I have considered moving to the French countryside (if anyone would like to pay me to do this, please do let me know). I’ve also considered that this lifestyle is in no way sustainable.

And, slowly, being unhealthy is actually starting to make me feel pretty awful. I’m painfully tired about 90 per cent of the time (although this is probably more to do with working strange hours and having a toddler), I creak when I get up, and am slightly concerned my small child will be able to outrun me soon.

But even knowing all of that, it’s hard to be motivated to start exercising when you’ve been out of the game for so long. The ‘motivational music’ playlist on my phone is called ‘Jazzy birth’. My child is three (and the birth was far from jazzy). Clearly I’ve not moved for a while.

Like smoking, which I really, really loved for many years (I miss you, Marlboro Lights), I suspect the time has come to quit my unhealthy lifestyle. I also suspect that, like smoking, it’s going to take a fair few attempts before I get it right. And, hand on heart, I still sneak the odd fag on a night out.

And then scary things happen. The pandemic shows no signs of going away. Bigger people fare worse with Covid. A school friend dies. My dad has a stroke. That beautiful feeling of blithely ignoring mortality, which ebbs anyway with age, suddenly disappears.

Other things also happen. A friend pulls me aside and tells me, kindly, that she is worried about my health. Another, not so kindly, sends me an invite for a squash club for obese people. I politely deline.

Let’s be clear, it would be great to look great, but I think I have some kind of reverse body dysmorphia in which I think I look fine, I think we all look fine. I honestly couldn’t give a shit about having a six pack, fitting into a size 10, or wearing athleisure clothing for fun.

What I would like, though, is to know that, should the zombie apocalypse hit, I could outrun the undead; I’d like a fighting chance at keeping a few steps ahead of the scary dog in our local park; feel full of energy instead of chocolate; and most importantly I’d like to look after my body so it doesn’t give up on me before I hit 40.

And, in the same way that playing the piano looks like the easiest instrument to try (yes, yes I know, it’s really bloody hard), running seems like the most accessible exercise to try. There’s no fee, no strange clothing, and, thankfully, no company as you run around sweating. So, I download an app, dig out my trainers and set about creating a more relevant playlist.

Wish me luck.