Oxonians just aren’t as fit as they used to be. Or rather, it’s that they’re more interested in looking fit than being fit. And trust me, the difference isn’t that subtle.

Most mornings, the pant-pant-pant and swish-swish-swish (of nylon shorts) invariably forms the soundtrack of my walk into work, as joggers gasp or race by.

I suppose it should either put me to shame or inspire me to follow suit but instead it just leaves me...confused.

They look like hell (their calves wouldn’t look out of place behind glass in the Pitt Rivers), they sound like hell (“Grrrr, Grrr, Grrrr”), so frankly where’s the benefit?

Well, my guess is they’re doing it for cosmetic reasons. Like people who go to gyms. I mean, let’s be honest here, how many who lift weights in front of mirrors really do it in order to live longer, healthier lives?

Last year on holiday, I and about 400 other holidaymakers could only look on in horror at two men, clearly in their late fifties/early sixties, who obviously worked out and wore clothes a 20-year-old might.

Five women vomited, three donkeys went feral, and I and a Jordanian coach driver sought counselling.

Never has anything looked so... creepy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for staying fit, and let me be honest – I USED TO REGULARLY ATTEND A GYM – but not because I was concerned about blood pressure or lowering cholesterol. No, I wanted to look pumped-up on the beach.

It’s just I quickly realised that for all the effort required to ‘buff up’, the return was minimal. I don’t have a particularly interesting personality, the dandruff still comes back, and sometimes I gag when eating risotto...

No matter that I could flex my pecs, drab is as drab does as my mother’s midwife confided.

And so I stopped, and you know what? – I started feeling better, more confident almost straightaway.

’Course I lost a lot of friends but I’d tired of debating muscle supplements anyway.

Instead of the thrice weekly, hour-long sweat-outs, I began enjoying food again, drinking too much, catching up on EastEnders and crashing in bed.

Suddenly I was fitter. And bizarrely, that’s when my lifestyle, of its own accord, altered too.

I took up cycling because it was fun and cheap; rowing because nothing beats mucking about in a boat; and dancing because I need to drink (heavily) before I can do it.

Which means that today I’m slimmer AND happier (and there’s no gym for that). Of course, I look terrible, but you can’t have everything, right?