In a bid to lose weight and get healthy, Daily Mirror Assistant Sports Editor Keith Webster has joined Slimming World online to take advantage of the support on offer, plus thousands of recipes and tips. Here is this week’s instalment..

There is something wonderfully twisted about our consumption of reality television at this time of year. We watch in amusement and awe as Jungle camp-mates survive on thin rations of rice and beans while Strictly dancers wear us out just watching the practise and show-night routines.

Contestants on both sides of the world spend weeks getting thinner while we view as couch potatoes during a season of over-indulgence.

There is a dietary yin and yang – for every pound those in Croc Creek and the Strictly Ballroom shed, viewers have to gain the same amount.

By the time the Jungle throne is mounted and the Glitter Ball presented, allowing contestants to pig out, viewers do the reverse by turning off the telly and hurriedly racing to knock off a few pounds before party season.

Maybe instead we should take a few diet and exercise tips from those shows on a regular basis rather than panic dieting.

I wouldn’t suggest living crickets and kangaroo dangly bits for dinner but there are countless mouthwatering ways to dress up rice and beans with a bit of protein and spice.

And although a professional dancer’s energy level is beyond most of us, a Zumba class would work wonders.

In four weeks’ time it is the nation’s annual belt-loosening exercise. Regardless of who wins in the jungle or the ballroom, that will be the true reality for most of us if we don’t do something about it.