Suzanne Harrington: Join a group to get thin, get sober, or just get through January

When you start running, going to the gym or giving up booze, you are the sole beneficiary of your endeavours, but when you do something that benefits yourself and the wider world, the incentive to keep going is stronger

Declaring a stringent new January fitness regime accompanied by zero-tolerance clean eating is guaranteed to see you drunk in a McDonalds by the 14th

January is traditionally the month where we hope to swap one kind of six pack for another, although these days the whole new year’s resolutions thing seems a bit quaint, a bit dated. A bit Lent.

These days we don’t give things up as much as let stuff go, like Elsa in Frozen.