It’s the summer, and chances are that, right now, your thoughts are turning to holidays, with all of the indolent ease, languor and sheer carefree bliss that they entail. Unless you’re standing in a branch of WH Smith and gazing at a magazine stand consisting of dozens of covers featuring airbrushed pictures and article titles such as “How To Get The Perfect Summer Beach Body”, in which case you’re probably experiencing something akin to terror. But don’t panic, you don’t need the “perfect summer beach body” for your holiday; in fact, it’s infinitely inferior to the winter beach body. Here are seven reasons why.
1. A Winter Beach Body Is A Safer Option. And safety in the sea is important. When I was a svelte child, learning to swim, one of the things that all of my friends and family spent many hours teaching me to do was float. “It’s simple”, they would say, “you just stretch your arms and legs out and relax”, and then they’d just lie there, on top of the sea. Then it would be my turn: I’d stretch my arms and legs out, relax, and soon I’d find myself floating serenely. To the bottom of the sea. I would sink like a stone every time. But if you have a winter beach body, you’ll be difficult to sink and, should you get into trouble and find yourself floating away from the shore, you’ll be easier to spot from the beach or a helicopter. Your chances of surviving your beach holiday will be manifestly better than those of summer-bodied people.
2. A Winter Beach Body Makes A Statement. Getting a summer beach body is easy, anyone can do it. But getting a winter beach body takes a considerable investment of time and money and requires technology too. You can use it to flaunt your wealth and status. What does your winter beach body say about you? A winter beach body says that you can afford to dine well; a winter beach body says that you’re a car owner; a winter beach body says that you live somewhere modern festooned with lifts and escalators; a winter beach body says that you can afford twice as much suntan oil as anyone else on the beach; a winter beach body says that you might own a Segway. A winter beach body signifies affluence and ease.
3. A Winter Beach Body Is Practical. You might be holidaying in Britain and for that, a winter beach body is the better option. On British beaches, where people consume ice cream to warm themselves up, you’ll at least stand half a chance of not dying of hypothermia or exposure. What’s the last question that any family in the UK asks before they head off to the beach? “Have you remembered to pack the blanket”? In this country, insulation is most important thing that you can take to the beach. Winter beach bodies have more of that, built-in.
4. Getting A Winter Beach Body Is More Fun. You don’t need to starve yourself or drink eight litres of water a day to get a winter beach body. You won’t have to visit a gym either, unless you’re going there to use the horizontal bar (the one with the bottles on it). You won’t have to spend the months leading up to your holiday eating only beetroot during daylight hours (except for every second Tuesday, which is miso soup day) and you’ll never, ever have to eat celery.
5. A Winter Beach Body Requires Less Hair Removal. As the possessor of a winter beach body you’ll be less inclined to wear a bikini made from a shoelace or a pair of budgie smugglers so small that they can barely contain your budgie. This means that there’ll be less hair removal, which is good as hair removal is the most painful experience known to man (and the second most painful known to woman). I would sooner break my fingers with a piano lid than tweeze a nose hair, let alone pluck one from down there, beneath my trousers. A winter beach body means less pain. Or fewer pain, to be correct about it.
6. A Winter Beach Body Frees You From The Beach. With a winter beach body, you might find that you’ll want to spend less time on the beach, away from all of those preening show-offs. This is brilliant, as no one actually likes the beach. It’s uncomfortable, being made of either stones (which hurt) or sand (which chafes). It’s boring, as the number of people busy ignoring it and burying their noses in their books demonstrates and it’s frustrating, as your chips will be stolen by a seagull. If you spend less time on the beach, you’ll have more fun, and you’ll get to eat all of your chips yourself. Unless you’re a man. Your winter beach body will liberate you from the beach.
7. It’s Too Late To Do Anything Else. Having blithely ignored every magazine at the supermarket checkout and every other daytime television programme telling you how to get the perfect summer beach body for the past five months or so, there’s very little time left. This is good, as getting a winter beach body is quick and easy. It won’t be the perfect summer beach body as depicted in magazines (which are only ever perfect in the mind of the beholder, and never in the mind of the owner), but it’ll be your body. Take it to the beach and enjoy yourself, or even better, take it away from the beach and enjoy yourself. Oh, and don’t read magazines.*
*Do, however, read websites.
