So, with Christmas over, like nearly everyone else in the UK I am sated to the point of surfeit and with my added bit of midriff can't help but feel a little bit self-conscious and physically ridiculous. Proprioceptively, I'm still coming to terms with my extra paunch and occasionally find myself coming to on the sofa with a start with a feeling that I'm wallowing in my unsightly lifebelt of human flesh.

I fear the worst. By now I should have been running every day, but, with inclement weather, I've not been able to get out and pound the pavements even once through fear that I might skate my way to landing facedown in black ice, slip on sludge or snow or impale an eyeball in the sketchy afternoon light.

Left with the chocolates I could have done without, a ripening taste for hot whisky toddies and little else do to with an evening other than switch on the television, a change in the weather can't come soon enough. With road conditions as they are I can't even get to the gym.

I just hope I don't have to wait until February, by then I fear it will be too late and that I'll be bloated beyond recognition.

But I know I'm not alone, practically everyone in the UK currently faces the same dilemma. And with news that dating website beautifulpeople.com has removed 5,000 people from its database for looking too fat, I'm left wondering just how many of them were British.

Image © vegaseddie via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence