Room service isn't what it used to be. London's Great Eastern Hotel is offering quit-smoking hypnosis and nutritional advice on its in-room menu throughout January as part of a range of health and fitness solutions to post-festive guilt.
"The day of the club sandwich and room video are gone," says a hotel spokesman. "You'll be hypnotised on your room's chaise longue. One 90-minute session - following a questionnaire and carbon monoxide test - should cure the addiction."
The ciggy therapy, provided on Thursdays and Fridays by a Harley Street practitioner, and eating advice from a clinical nutritionist - a nice antidote to the hotel restaurant's legendary daube of beef and butter-drenched Dover sole - are available to both guests and non-residents by appointment during the "My Body Is a Temple" month.
The promotion also offers "self-defencercise" in the Great Eastern's Grecian Temple - yes, we were surprised as well - from Brazilian jiujitsu expert Eduardo Carriello, daily runs around the Square Mile with fell-running whippet John McCulloch, and weekly boxing training with pugilist Faisel Rahman.
The month of ducking, diving and punching climaxes with a championship bout on the final Friday - your chance to sample the charms of white-collar boxing and lamp a testosterone-fuelled City dealer. May the force be with you.
Haven't earned that Gordon Gecko city bonus? Not quite metrosexual enough for the Great Eastern? The solution could be a similar smorgasbord of health and fitness in the slightly less salubrious surrounds of Butlins in Bognor Regis.
The FitCamp team will be offering inspiration and perspiration with over 200 classes between January 20 and 23. Prices start at a remarkable £64pp per weekend break - including any of the workouts.
If you're addicted to celebrities as well as mince pies, you can burn off the calories in sessions taken by Elise Lindsay - the trainer responsible for Coleen McLoughlin's workout DVD - and Troy Dureh, the man who apparently honed Gaby Logan and Carol Vorderman into Heat magazine svelteness.
You can also work off the turkey and stuffing with "Pilates leader" Michael King, Icelandic Unnur Palma's Kick Box Girl Power workout and, a particular favourite, "Spanish-flavoured Aero-Salsa with hunky Juan Carlos Ferron".
The Fit'n'Fun weekend that promises red cheeks rather than red coats also includes German flexi-bar sessions, "Pilates for better sex" and a new Swedish workout called Gympa. We're not sure but it may well be gym for gimps.
Round it all off by trying out Kango Jumps, the bastard offspring of pogo sticks and ski boots. I used them and discovered they guarantee giant strides, low joint impact and public humiliation.
Great Eastern Hotel: running, free; self-defencercise and boxing sessions, £5; quit-smoking hypnosis, £250; nutritional advice according to requirements. Meet the experts day, January 5. Contact: 020-7618 5000, health@great-eastern-hotel.co.uk.
Butlins: From £64pp for a weekend, based on four sharing a cabin, including accommodation, classes, water park entry and evening entertainment. Contact: 0870 2420870 (quote 350), butlins.com, fitcamp.co.uk
Can't face a fully blown fitness drive or giving up the fags? Here are some quick-hit options for a January lift ...
· You've stuffed it down, now smear it on your skin. Food features highly in New Year detoxes with a 75-minute wildflower honey and organic pumpkin facial at New Park Manor in the New Forest (01590 624964, newparkmanorhotel.co.uk) for £70. Or try an Elemis skin polish of coconut, mung bean and lavender, followed by a warm milk wrap and face and scalp massage at Staffordshire's Hoar Cross Hall (01283 575678, edenhallspa.co.uk) for £48.
· The Revive Detox Body Booster at the Penha Longa Spa (0800 234000, penhalonga.com) in Portugal's Sintra Mountains costs €94 and includes a sternum massage with rosemary, grapefruit and juniper berry essential oils to improve breathing, and acupressure treatment to eliminate toxins in the digestive system, liver and kidneys. Rooms in the 19th-century palace from £54pp per night (shared double).
· City and spa stays in Lithuania offer litres of icy fresh air for the lungs and seriously good value spa treatments. Stay at the five-star Meridien Villon Hotel (0870 7579233, balticholidays.com), 19km north of Vilnius among lakes and forests, and alongside aerobics, t'ai chi, Pilates, personal trainers and Turkish steam baths, you can have hour-long massages for £20 and facials for £25. Flights, transfers and five nights' B&B costs £555pp.
· Alternatively, forget the exercise and pampering and go for a spirit(ual) life with recently launched Rekya, the first vodka to be distilled and bottled in Iceland. For a bottle of booze it's making some remarkable claims about purity, with demineralised glacial water from a 4,000-year-old lava field, a geothermal heat still and filtration through volcanic rock. Perfect. Detox, retox and not a drop of sweat.
