Countdown.

It's the second week of December so we the clock is ticking to two events. One is, in case you didn't know, a pause in this column. After all, Austin Lafferty - Still in the Running has been written under the Evening Times Active 2014 campaign, so it is rightly time to blow the final whistle in a couple of weeks when the year ends. But the other is much more bigger - as the song goes, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, so that's what we are all now focusing on.

I love the festive season. It is still in these sophisticated days a time of simple good cheer, family togetherness and genuine goodwill - to most men and women at least. The First Lady and I have been married for 31 years, known each other for 42 years, so thinking up new ideas for presents is more and more of challenge. But the Laffertys are not very material people anyway, so the important thing for us is that we have a good get-together with a little wine and a lot of turkey. Christmas Day is always a bean feast. I grew up in a (feisty) family of 7, and the festive dinner was always more mobbing and rioting than a quiet repast. Our next generation members are also good at shouting the odds over the dinner table.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of over-indulgence at this time of year. Whether it's sprout parfait or a big glass of mulled wine, we pretty well all deserve a treat for having worked hard at our jobs, families and challenges in 2014. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and I don't believe anyone has an easy life these days. So go on - have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Annual celebration is nothing new. As someone interested in Roman history and culture, I am well aware of the Saturnalia - one day per year when the ancient masters and servants/slaves in that highly stratified society swopped roles. The senators and toga-clad toffs had to wait on the lower orders, serving them Falernian wine and roast mice while being the smiling, if reluctant, objects of bawdy and irreverent humour. In the middle ages the serfs of the feudal lords had a couple of opportunities in their harsh year to take a break and quaff down the mead and roast a lamb for a change from daily life that was nasty, brutish and short.

So far so good. But you know me well enough by now. I always have a moral to impart. I am your health and fitness conscience. So - without any hint of pomposity or self-righteousness ( I am as fallible as any) - I begin to preach. And the lesson is BALANCE. In martial arts, we learn that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is drilled into us from day one. In our discipline it means a variety of things, but fundamentally if you are throwing a punch, you will make it work best if you push the other arm back to give the leading fist more oomph. When kicking, make sure your hips swing round to boost the rotational force. It is simple body mechanics.

But counterbalance is a more general concept too. For every calorie you ingest, there is a price to pay. I intend to run on Christmas Eve. We close the offices before lunchtime and I have a rare afternoon off, so rather than hit the pub with its seductive but fattening lagers and crisps, I will don the gutties and shorts, to get on the pavement or treadmill. On Boxing Day you will see me chanking round the south side of Glasgow trying to shed the Christmas Day calories. This is not merit or virtue. I am no better than anyone else. It is necessity, even desperation. London (Marathon) 2015 beckons, but even without that I am one of nature's unavoidable tubbies, so recognise that the only way to keep within limits is to exercise more than I indulge. A mince pie in, 10 minutes on the jog out, and so on.

So that's the general point today. I know that not everyone runs. Any and all exercise is worthwhile. One thing we do as a family every year is the Christmas Day walk. In the last couple of years a neighbourhood walk has been instituted to help shuck off the cobwebs. The message is clear, basic and hopefully doable. By all means have a feed and a slurp. But don't do it in isolation. Recognise that taking something in needs putting something back out. Running, walking, the gym, the pool, the dog holding the lead in his mouth with a plaintive expression, it's all good.

Santa's, the chubby old elf, is on the way. Like him, but don't be like him.