ADD WEIGHT TO LOSE WEIGHT

A very basic kind of wearable could make your New-Year-weight-loss plans stick

- by IAN TAYLOR

Blame evolution, not that colossal family-sized tin of chocolates, if you're feeling a little heavier than you'd like going into 2026. Our bodies are programmed to store more fat during the colder months. We tend to consume more calories and move less when the temperatures are lower.

It's a biological hangover from pre-industrial times, when our bodies adapted for scarce food supplies by storing fat as a winter-ready energy source.

For many of us, that scarcity is no longer a problem, however. Thanks to innovations like refrigeration, cross-continental shipping and three-for-two deals on party nibbles, winter has - if anything - become a period not of insufficient calories, but delicious excess.

It's also one of the reasons that New-Year-weight-loss drives are so hard to maintain. Our bodies rebel against the sudden loss of calories, increasing our appetites or surreptitiously lowering our energy expenditure in ways we don't notice.

But if, like me, you're carrying a little extra weight after a particularly festive season of good will, there may be a surprising solution: perhaps we just need to carry a little extra weight.