2013 - the year the Tellytubby tummy goes eh-oh!!

I AM sitting here with jelly in one ear and custard in another feeling a trifle deaf! Okay, enough of the Christmas cracker jokes since the trifling matter of the day, as I wolf down a pudding bowl of raspberry trifle, is what beckons for 2013.

A million New Year's resolutions are made at this time. Equally as many disappear swiftly in a fog of cigarette smoke, a collection of beer cans or the guilty wrappings of a chocolate box.

For many years I became a complete running anorak; a saddo to stand alongside those pitiful muppets who loiter at the end of platforms collecting train numbers.

I would log every run I made, apend comments on where I went, how far I ran, how fast I had gone, even how many toilet stops we had to make for my training partner Gary who has the weakest bladder in the world. And to top it all, there was the cumulative mileage figure which beamed at me proudly from the well-thumbed page of my log as I aimed to nudge more than 1,000 miles' running each year.

Of course there are many runners who do this. The new-fangled GPS watches seem to be able to log everything including the number of times you fart on a training sortie which you can download onto your laptop as soon your sweat-ridden body boots up the machine. Just like showing off those holiday pictures, I bet you can impress your friends by recalling the sights and sounds of the many off-road trails you have encountered and logged.

Fortunately, I gave up that pointless exercise a few years back. I binned the running logs and just enjoyed my sport for what it was - an enjoyable pastime not to be taken too seriously.

I've still got a scratched-to-pieces Forerunner 205 which sits like a block on your wrist to give a breakdown of how far and how long I've run, as well as my pace - but more often than not I can't get a satellite signal so midway into the run, as I'm striding purposefully over the South Downs within a spectacular view of the Beachy Head lighthouse and the English Channel, the numbskulled GPS asks whether I'm still indoors!!

Anyhow, as I sit here on New Year's Eve, finishing off the remains of my Sainsbury's special, with a ridiculous fat content and enough sugar in that wee bowl to send my dentist into tooth-tormenting apoplexy, I feel it's time for a change.

I tried earlier in the year to wean myself off sugar which is my biggest vice apart from Pamela Anderson and a love of the Pet Shops Boys. It worked successfully which saw some weight loss but also a disappearance of the much-derided Tellytubby tum which wobbled like a Weeble or a firm blancmange with a hairy navel every time I went out for a saunter.

But the list of festive sins in the past week have been endless; mince pies, chocolate cake, those tempting tins of sweets and the inevitable feast of mouthwatering desserts. Tellytubby tum is back with avengance!

So I've just danced on top of my new-fangled scales which reads weight, body fat and body water. Ouch! It really doesn't make pleasant reading. Anticipating the agony, I went to Poundland yesterday to buy the cheapest of diaries to scrawl down that sad statistic. This is the bottom line.

I plan to set out on a final run of 2012 this evening which I will also log in my diary, which will become a food diary too. This little bedside ornament which become a sort of mini confessional to highlight my weaknesses like a prison searchlight but allow me to bask in the successes as the stats make prettier reading.

The key is sustainabilty and to have a realistic target. Those who go on a binge diet or say they are going to crack the amount of alcohol they drink might as well not bother if they can't sustain it. The one thing worse than a failed dieter is a yo-yo dieter.

My target is realistic. I've set a weight target for my 50th year and I want to keep my body fat and body water stats within the margins. However the proof of the pudding will be the running. Shed the weight, lose the Tellytubby tum, strengthen the core and the running should come together. And, in turn, the quality of life should become more enjoyable.

I don't plan to abandon sugary treats altogether - one Sunday treat a week after the long run will suffice - but the sad point is that I'm going to become an anorak once again.

Anyone got a dodgy coat I can borrow and a notebook?!!