Some media reports say that eating at night makes you gain weight, others say that it has no effect on body weight. So who is right?

High-intensity interval training it can be done on a bike, treadmill, or however you can achieve the desired intensity. When it comes to health and fitness, there are rarely any quick fixes. But if you’re struggling to get the recommended 30 minutes of exercise a day, micro workouts might be just the thing you need to start improving your fitness.

At this time of year, we are bombarded with books and TV shows telling us what we should be eating and how best to lose weight. Particularly in vogue are low-carb diets, Paleo diets and intermittent fasting diets. But which diet is the most effective for sustained weight loss – not to mention good health?

‘We see a lot of apps that would claim to help you lose weight, but none maintain weight loss, and few of them are evidence-based,’ said Professor Berit Heitmann, at Frederiksberg Hospital in Denmark.

Resistance-band exercises have been all over social media during the pandemic. In case you aren’t familiar with them, resistance bands are similar to an elastic band, usually made from a synthetic fibre like latex or rubber. You can loop them around your legs or arms, for example, which helps create more tension while you work out. This tension makes it more difficult to do movements, and engages more muscles, which some claim will help you build strength and muscle.

The more muscle you build, the more calories you body requires at rest. Weight lifting, also known as resistance training, has been practised for centuries as a way of building muscular strength. Research shows that resistance training, whether done via body weight, resistance bands or machines, dumbbells or free weights, not only helps us build strength, but also improves muscle size and can help counteract age-related muscle loss.

It may come as little surprise that taking exercise is a way to lose weight. However, a debate about the best type of exercise for weight loss is likely to divide opinion.

People who regularly go on diets tend to lose weight initially but bounce back and even gain weight after stopping the regime. This phenomenon – dubbed yo-yo dieting – is associated with changes in metabolism and is one reason why the vast majority of calorie-based diets fail. But exactly what causes these metabolic changes has remained a mystery – until now.