Is your social diary already full? Then follow the Lab rule

Asurvey from the States reveals that a big burst of exercise at the weekend is as good as spreading the activity across the week. The findings are pretty conclusive, based on tracking the activity of 350,000 people over a 10-year period (they do big portions in America, right?). And it’s bad news for the weekend, because the weekend was getting pretty full already.

The invites come and go, coffees, drinks, lunches, dinners, gardening, hunting, watching sport, weekends away, friends to stay, visits to and from relatives, weddings, parties… And now we have to cram in exercise – a whole week’s worth – so that we can stay alive.

Which means the diary pressure on the weekend looks insurmountable. Especially as that weekend burst of exercise needs to be around 75 minutes, when you could have done a shop, or squeezed in a boozy lunch. In other words it’s basically not feasible.

The weekend is full. But it doesn’t need to be this way. Indeed I strongly advise that you become an awkward refusenik like me. I like to treat the fun stuff in the way you should feed a Labrador. In other words at times when it is least expected or at least

It is healthy for a dog to be fed at different times of the day as it’s better for their digestion

not at times when it is expected; call it the Lab Rule. Dog experts will tell you that it is healthy for a dog to be fed at different times of the day as it’s better for their digestion and metabolism. Thus the advice is that rather than always feed our dog Cyrus his one daily meal at lunchtime, it’s better to change it around a bit.

Thus it is, for example, with a good lunch. The clichéd thing to do would be to meet a pal for a long, boozy lunch at the weekend. But the Lab Rule determines that a fun boozy lunch with an old friend should happen on a wet Tuesday in February, not saved for a nice weekend in the spring.

But be aware that the Lab Rule does require steel and resilience. And you cannot selfishly upset the rest of the weekly timetable because of it.

That would be called alcoholism.

So when you go nuts at lunch on a Tuesday you must still be on time and on parade for the dross of Wednesday morning. And if you’re in a relationship and only one half of it applies the Lab Rule, it will cause difficulty.

But otherwise mix it up, embrace the Lab Rule or, as Virgil put it: “Audentis fortuna juvat.”