There are old heroin addicts. There are old tramps, old soldiers and even old smokers. But there are absolutely no old fat people. None. Kill you quicker than anything for sure, the suet. And look around. A king-sized unholy fat storm has crept up on us in fun-sized chunks and bite-sized nibbles. The only places where people aren't predominantly overweight are in magazines and on television. We're deceived by the media into thinking we're all skinny and beautiful. We're not. It's normal to be overweight and a significant proportion of the population is obese. This all really hit me when I was in Russia. No flab there. None. You just don't see it. It's like being in a film.
One in three residents of Boston, Lincolnshire, is clinically obese. One in three people obese. Actually, soil and agriculture don't get any better anywhere in the world than in Lincolnshire. People in Boston could be eating better than ever before, but it seems a place disconnected from the land that surrounds it. I was there recently, and there were lots of restaurants but I couldn't find anywhere that wasn't serving fried, fast or fattening food. I ended up eating Thai. It was truly awful. And I suppose that's the worst thing of all. No one gets obese from eating nice food.
Our national cuisine is evolving, but it's still based on the idea of spending the whole day down a mine doing press-ups or banging big bits of steel together – but hardly anyone does that any more. Being the right weight is going to be more and more of a struggle as time goes on, and I really don't know what happens next. A hundred or so years ago, we weren't quite so fragrant. I think I'm right in saying most people didn't wash. In 2010, I think I'm right in saying that most people don't exercise. In another hundred years' time that might seem just as strange.
I'm very hungry at the moment. I always have been a hungry boy, but now I am especially ravenous because I've given up smoking and taken up running. Cross-country running. I like it so much I've decided to invest in some spikes. I love it, especially at this time of year. In summer it's too hot, but January is perfect. Especially at night with a head torch on, padding silently through the darkness. I particularly like it when it's raining or windy or inclement. Once my heart starts whirring, I'm invincible.
I don't know why we're wired to never want to exercise. It is still with a heavy heart that I contemplate the idea. It's not until I'm doing it that I start to like it, but there is absolutely nothing horrible about it, really – nothing near as bad about a press-up as parking a car or being stuck in a queue at a checkout. Exercise is absolutely guaranteed to lift one's mood. It's a drug. For the first few cigarette-free weeks I was running 10 miles a day, five days a week.
I always start smoking again because I put on weight, and because I'm watching how much I eat I'm spending more time thinking and reading about food than ever. It tastes so much better when I'm really hungry.
If you really hate the idea of running, there's fasting – I did it for a couple of weeks, and giving up food altogether was about as hard as giving up cigarettes. After a week or so I hardly thought about it at all until I smelled it.
It's worth remembering the wise words of Kate Moss, who once said (controversially, it should be noted), "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels."
