When I went for an eye check-up last week, I was faintly concerned to see that the second line down on the chart (which was not, I hasten to add, the extreme of my post-laser vision) spelled the word LARD. I commented on this to the optometrist, and she assured me that the charts were made in Japan, and that there was no significance to it. Fair enough, I believed her.

But… there’s no escaping it, I have put on a considerable amount of weight in the last year or two. It’s not been without resistance on my part – I did the London Marathon this April, after all – but I have to face the fact that since I turned 30, my metabolism has slowed down, and I can no longer chuck down a cinema-size bag of Galaxy Minstrels without it having some kind of calorific impact. Cause and, inevitably, effect.

If nothing else, I’m determined that as I approach 40 I shan’t just become the cliché of the chap who gives up on health concerns, any more than I intend to fall into any of the other mid-life behaviour (sports car, cringe-inducing attempts to flirt with the babysitter, that kind of nonsense).

I won’t turn this blog into some running commentary on my intake of food or anything like that, or on the exercise I do, though I may post sporadic updates; after all, between now and the end of the year, I will be scuba diving in exotic climes, and as I walk along the beach, I’d prefer to resemble Daniel Craig in ‘Casino Royale’ than a whale which has been washed ashore.

Not to mention how I’ll look in my wetsuit (shudders at the thought of how bad that could be).

*In the Shakespearean sense of the word, that is – ie: ‘look!’