I don’t have a history of exercise. The future’s not looking great either

It’s Spring. The jasmine is out, and the days are getting longer, which means it’s time for my gym’s annual fitness challenge.

In perfect timing, the email – pithily titled “10-week fat-loss program” – arrived just after the first swimsuit ad. I immediately signed up.

Of course, I own a mirror, so I know this is not going to turn me into Elle Macpherson. The aim of doing it is not to look better – that ship has sailed – or even to slow down the rate of decline. Like removing the rust on a Leyland P76, I’m doing this to stay roadworthy.

The late author Nora Ephron wrote a classic essay, On Maintenance, about all the things you do when you’re fighting middle-age. In it, she said she swung between getting into shape and breaking something. “So far, in the breakage department, I have managed the following: I pulled my lower back doing sit-ups; I threw out my right hip on the treadmill, and I entirely destroyed my neck by rolling over in bed”.

I can’t write like Nora, but I can exercise like her. I’ve injured my hip at a stretch class and once pulled all my lower abdominal muscles doing a burpee. “So basically, you were just throwing your arms above your head?” asked my horrified GP, gazing at my black and blue stomach.

None of this has deterred me from attempting to cheat the clock. Recently, I entered the temple of self-improvement – the cosmetic clinic. After the doctor asked me to remove my mask, she audibly gasped, “You’ve lost so much volume in your face!” Did I snap, “At least I’ve got cheek-bones, moonface”? No, I slunk home, intending to Google “low facial volume” and “cancer”, just in case.

The problem is that I don’t have a history with exercise. As teenagers, we used diuretics and Alpine Lights to fit into our jeans; at university I could drop pounds by switching from cask Chablis to Smirnoff. It never occurred to us to take up sport. Wouldn’t that make you sweat?

Of course, it’s all pointless, as many of my friends have remarked. One, with an insouciantly French attitude to life, told me not to be stupid. “No-one is looking at you and, anyway, it’s face or figure over 45 – look at Catherine Deneuve.” Indeed, every time I do this challenge, I end up looking 10 years older, with more wrinkles than a Shar-Pei.