Christmas-thighs, mistle-boobs and pies: time to shape up!

Aah, yes. Look at that picture of you under the tree on Christmas Day: every inch the winter welcome and, might we say, a vision in cable knit.

Now, Cambridge doesn’t, at first glance, offer an environment conducive to exercise and healthy eating. How, you might ask yourself, are you to overthrow your new excess insulation whilst enjoying an intellectual, yet static, game of ‘Simon Burdus says’, or finally treating your faithful Hermes to the expunge she’s always begged?

The following counsels will guide you towards safe and productive self-rejuvenation, wherever you choose to beach yourself this January:

When in Cindies:

Find an ARU student and yell, ‘BIG POLY THICKO’ into his face whilst whipping him playfully on the bottom with your college scarf. The resulting fight/ sprint to safety should undo a mincepie or 17.

At the Mahal:

Obviously don’t go here if you are trying to lose weight, you fat idiot bitch! Stay at home, and conduct your own healthful swap in your living room. Merrily scream, ‘see it off you blubbery bell-end!’ and watch your friends throw pints of celery juice down their faces instead of the usual wine and beer. Instead of curry, eat a disappointing salad of cress and talc. Finish up with a game of ‘good pants, bad pants’ and assassinate each other’s appearances violently until insecurity turns you into Holly Willoughby, Gaby Logan, or Ryan Gosling.

The belly-busting bevvy du moment

In a supervision:

Set your alarm 15 minutes late, leaving you no time for brekkie. Having placed your socks on your highest shelf the night before, enjoy the burn as you stretch to clothe your feet, possibly having to drag a (heavy) chair across the (highly frictional) carpet, thus burning an extra 4 calories. Finding your bike to have no wheels (again, last night’s preparation), sprint and wide-leg vault your way to your supervision. Spend the following hour in a state of desperate anxiety and cascading bum sweat. What’s that? You handed in a piece of paper with the word ‘FART’ written in font 72 WordArt instead of your essay? Flee the scene of the crime and lose an inch off your horrible fat arse.

In the lecture hall:

Select your heaviest pen. Lift towards your swollen minger-tits and then lower back down towards your frankly anti-social midriff. Repeat every time your lecturer says ‘suggests’ or ‘demonstrates’. Repeat ten times if your lecturer is wearing Crocs. If your lecturer gets an erection, do not repeat. Just ring the police.

One strategically placed chapeau away from a restraining order

In Formal Hall:

Whatever you do, do not eat any of the food. Instead, spend your time making animated conversation, pointing every time you suggest a direction, and performing many air-quotation gestures with salt and pepper in your hands as weights. Offset the calories imbibed in wine by gathering some acquaintances in a suitable area and playing Spin The Bottle until you’ve snogged away at least 3kg of face fat, or you have vomited. To burn extra calories, engineer the game so that you are snogging the people with the biggest, most energetic faces. It is a good idea to base your selection on the laughing sun-baby from the Teletubbies. These kinds of people are reliable vehicles for fat-fighting facial intercourse.

Food for thought

Alternatively, embrace the January cushions. Rest safe in the knowledge that your bosom will make an even comfier pillow for kith and kin than it did in November. Rejoice as you shut cupboards/drawers/fire doors with but a swing of an amply-padded buttock. Tuck into a Crunchie and join the rowing team tomorrow. Life’s too short.

Illustrations by Claudia Stocker