One in seven people in the UK admit that they have taken no exercise in the past 10 years, according to a poll by the British Heart Foundation. The excuses for this ranged from laziness to bad weather, and some even claimed that they found exercise too boring to contemplate. Up until a couple of years ago I would have happily put myself in the same category. At school I would always stand on the sidelines during sport or loiter at the back of the gym, desperately hoping I’d be excused. The games captains would always pick me last in football, and I do not blame them one bit.

When I left full-time education I threw away my damned plimsolls immediately, and settled into an adult life of sedentary bliss. To compound this idleness, I learned to drive, and would think nothing of taking the car to the corner shop – a two-minute walk away. For a good 12 years, the most strenuous challenge I gave my body was to eat 12 doughnuts in a row (it succeeded masterfully).

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But a couple of years ago I endured a rotten period of divorce, illness and bereavements. Collapsing on my couch wasn’t cutting it, and so after one particularly sad day, I went for a 15-minute shuffle around the block.

I can’t pretend that something suddenly fundamentally changed in me as I wobbled my way round the back streets that day, but I do know that I was back out there the next day. And the day after that. I began to set myself small goals – to run 5k in under 30 minutes, to walk to work every day for a week, to attempt 10 push-ups in a row.

Getting fit seemed a meaningless platitude to me, but running helped to quiet the anxieties that whirled around my head

In a fug of misery, none of it was very enjoyable. I certainly wasn’t good at any of the exercise I was attempting, and I wouldn’t pretend that I had any confidence that I’d be continuing my little experiment long term. But I have. Come hell or high water, I have done some sort of exercise every day for the last two years. Sometimes it’s a brisk walk with the dog after work. Sometimes it’s a 12k run on a Saturday morning. More often than not, it’s the local gym at lunchtime. I do squats and lunges as I brush my teeth in the morning, and I do pathetic, tiddly little weights while shouting at the guests on the Today programme. When it’s warm, I’ll do some ludicrous doggy-paddling at the local pool as teens fly past me doing the butterfly, and when it’s too cold to go out, I’ll do exercise DVDs and imagine I’m Jane Fonda. I have become all that I loathed.

The most valuable thing that I have learned from all this sweating has been to see how exercise helps people in such different ways. For some, it’s a means to deal with their physical health problems – to help with blood pressure or to keep their weight in check. For others, it’s to tackle stress after a hard day at work. My mum does yoga to help with her energy levels, a colleague of mine lifts weights to feel stronger, and one friend boxes because he’s angry a lot and it helps keep it under control. I know people who cycle just because it’s a quicker commute, and others who swim because it helps them sleep better. I do exercise for my mind. Getting fit seemed like a meaningless platitude to me (climbing stairs still hurts my thighs), but running helped to quiet the anxieties that whirled around my head. When I felt unutterably sad, I knew that lacing up my trainers would help to lift the gloom that I imagined all around me.

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I am far from a happy Instagram exercise cult leader. I won’t preach to you about how yoga nourishes your inner child, or insist that running can give you a glow that can be seen from Shetland. I don’t drink protein shakes or challenge myself with marathons or iron man triathalons. But I will drag myself out in thunderstorms and in the dark, when I’m hungover, or when I’m sad. And I’ll do it because more than antidepressants or counselling or even eating a box of 12 doughnuts on a sofa, exercise is the one thing that has kept me continuously happy during some not very happy times.

During January, the month when ridiculous and impossible detox and exercise resolutions confront you every time you open a paper or turn on the TV, you might be reluctant to consider getting off the couch. In the face of such smug nonsense, I wouldn’t blame you. But when this tiresome period is over, have a real think about whether there’s an area in your life that lying on the sofa can’t help with. It might just be that exercise can.