One of the tedious things that being of Asian origin entails is a ridiculously high propensity towards diabetes and coronary heart disease.

So, in order to remain in my youth for perpetuity, to avoid the social faux-pas of keeling over and to stop bits of me falling off (always a conversation stopper) I have adopted certain measures. I’ve cut out carbs, switching from rice to quinoa, eating wheat free gluten free (taste free, fun free) bread. In the main I’ve dropped chips – ordering fish and chips at Roast means saying “fish and chips without the chips”. Cream and butter have gone too. At home it’s all fish and chicken, salads and vegetables and I now eat red meat no more than once a week in a restaurant.

All of which is great and I got used to it quite easily.

Recently I decided to crank it up a notch. As well as becoming healthy, I have decided to become fit. So one fine morning I got onto the net and ordered a very fancy looking treadmill. I am lucky as a central London dweller to have a big enough flat to accommodate this and have placed a television in front of it. So at around six every morning (sorry, neighbours) I flick on the telly and do 30 minutes on this amazing machine.

It starts off at 3 kilometres per hour and can go up to a crazy 10 and yes, I manage to do it every day. It tells you how many calories you’re burning (how?), the distance (I’m currently managing around 2.5 km) and when I work out how to do it, I will put it on a tilt so it’s like running uphill.

The only down side is that you realise how boringly repetitive breakfast news is and how smug and dull its presenters are. So for the sake of youthful completeness, it’s MTV from now on.

I felt compelled to comment on how refreshing it is to hear your efforts to combat CHD which is particularly prevalent amongst people of South Asian descent. I have been impressed that you have managed the dietry changes so easily - i am trying to encourage my father towards a healthier lifestyle but he is stubbornly resistant to cutting out the rice/indian breads and indian deep fried snacks! In regards to the running - keep it up, i took up running myself a year ago and have since progressed from a snail like 3km to running 8-10 miles 5 times a week! As you keep on going you will be amazed at how quickly you will see the improvement!!