John Hillman’s off to the beach, a far more brisk and effective remedy for the January bulge than eating a dessert

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After the month of December and all those fun packed festivities inevitably comes the January guilt trip.
You know that it’s started when every other TV advert wants to sell you a dessert that enables you to lose weight – something which, frankly, is totally bizarre. If you want to lose weight you have to skip dessert altogether and do some exercise, not chow down on half a litre of gloopy pudding whilst watching telly.

To make the process more interesting you could catch a ferry to Rotterdam and head to the Wadden Sea. This is a vast national park coastline where fit and healthy Dutch people are regularly found partaking in a spot of mud-walking.

During low tide the water level drops enough to enable you to cross the muddy sea-bed, allowing you to wade, thigh high, through miles of lovely mineral-rich mud – excellent for those boozy Christmas pimples as well!

It’s a very rewarding experience but also extremely physical, so it is not recommended to anyone under 12 or over 65 (unless you are very fit). It is also considered a suicidal undertaking unless you go with a professional guide, of which there are many employed through the national park, all of whom have undergone a rigorous three year training programme.

So don’t waste your time in a sweaty gym full of prima-donnas, get outside and see some seals, study some fauna and breather that salty air. By the time you’ve finished you will even have earnt the right to some guilt-free chocolate brownies; the proper sort, not the grotesque January version.

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