My body is a temple... to laziness

A body like this doesn’t just happen by accident, you know. I’m gesturing at my midriff here, you can’t see from where you’re sitting, obviously. No, I work hard to maintain my physique, a bristling thirteen stone of organic matter. Here’s my routine for you – seven a.m., wake up. Eight a.m., wake up again. Sometimes I wake up again at nine just for the sheer hell of it, and also because I forget to set my alarm on Sunday evenings.

Bam. Where are you? Still gazing longingly at the impression of my sculpted physique on the bed? Too slow. I’m in the shower. Bit of shampoo. Bit of body wash. Then a little bit of manly screaming as I realise I’ve used the shower gel made with ‘over seven thousand real mint leaves’ and my body is collapsing in menthol-fresh agony. Rinse. More body wash, this time with soothing lavender.

Boom. What’s that? You’re still rendered speechless by the sight of my unbelievably well-constructed neck muscles? I’m sorry, but if you’re looking for me I’ll be in the front room doing bench presses while drinking my muesli-based protein shake through a straw.

My morning routine consists of stomping around my flat clawing at the pre-emptive ghosts of all the television show hosts I intend on killing

Alright no, I don’t do that. The truth is I’m a little bit overweight, and my morning routine consists of stomping around my flat clawing at the pre-emptive ghosts of all the television show hosts I intend on killing and trying to make tea out of porridge oats. That’s me.

I know I could do a lot better than my wibbly torso, and as a student I should be using my Wednesday afternoons to enrich my life by taking part in all manner of sporting activity, but in reality, I either have too much work or just can’t be bothered. And when the best on offer is the prospect of chasing a small ball around a cuboid room with a bunch of other “blokes” while sweating profusely, well, I suppose I’m just a traditionalist. Where the tradition is dying young and leaving a bloated corpse.

Everyone knows that health is no laughing matter, but at our age it’s not the only priority either. Yes, we’re all of an age where great damage could be done to our bodies, and equally an age where good habits could be set up for life. But we’re also at an age where we have the best opportunities to excel academically, or play copious amounts of block-based videogames, or spend long mornings thinking up witty comebacks to a tutorial helper’s smarmy comments about your coursework.

Frankly, it’s pretty weird looking up to the first floor of the Ethos gym to see a dozen over-hormoned medical students bearing down on you at a relative velocity of zero, while they secretly listen to Korn and the Backstreet Boys on their iPods. That pedestal they’re on, looking down on you as you trudge towards Exhibition Road at chuckles o’clock in the morning, stuffing your face with whichever chocolate bar was whispering most alluringly at you in the shop, isn’t healthy for anyone.

My advice? Sod the lot of it. The evenings are getting darker and you’re reaching that fleshy middle bit of the term where all the coursework collects. Can’t manage to make it to some engagement or other this week? Write it off. Go buy a Wispa bar.

You might die five years before everyone else, but you’ll have saved yourself sixty years of worry in the meantime.