This is how long it takes to shift the weight you put on over Christmas

Carrying a little extra timber after the last fortnight?

If you're not then you've done Christmas all wrong. The festive season is essentially a two-week pass to indulge all our unhealthy dietary peccadillos. Chocolate, carbs, booze - all have been downed with gleeful abandon as we've sat otherwise motionless in front of the TV binging on Netflix and boxsets. Now the fun is over. All we are left with are happy memories of carb and confectionary hedonism and a few pairs of jeans that are feeling decidedly more snug.

If you have the feeling something needs to be done, don't worry, you're not alone. The entire nation is gearing up for a collective health kick at this time of year.

Your mates are all doing dry January and taking out new gym memberships, meanwhile the streets outside are teaming with new lycra-clad joggers determined to sweat off their recently-acquired tonnage.

Now, we'd never want to stand in the way of anyone trying to get a bit fitter and slimmer come January.

However, if you are planning on joining the New Year's fitness hordes with the hope of shifting some Christmas poundage, then we have some slightly disheartening news for you.

According to a report in the MailOnline, scientists have found it takes around 6 months to shed our festive flab.

For most of us our weight peaks on January 3 and won't be back to its pre-late December level until around July.

The findings come after a team at Cornell University in the US studied 3,000 people's efforts to shift weight they'd put on at Christmas.

The study found that they initially made good progress, shedding around half of the new weight by the end of January.

But then people's focus dips and the rest of the tub was not ditched until the summer.

The researchers warned: "Although up to half of weight gain is lost shortly after the holidays, half the weight gain appears to remain until the summer months or beyond."

So the lesson here is you need to smash it in January *and* February to get back to where you were in December.