Staying trim during the festive season

HOLD on to your hat. The festive roller-coaster is about to whisk you away on a bone-rattling ride through a calorific minefield spiked with more random acts of over-indulgence than you can shake a stick at.

Mince pies and party drinks here, nibbles and a tasty morsel there. It all adds up before you ever get to Christmas Day itself when the average holiday-maker will put away about three times the daily norm.

And sure what harm, you say. It’s cold outside and it’s Christmas. And yet, how many times have you skidded into January with a profit-and-loss sheet that looked a little like this? Losses: money and sanity. Gains: weight and self-loathing.