WHAT’S HOT TO WATCH TODAY
SO how’s the post-Christmas diet going? Shed any weight at all yet? OK, perhaps it’s a bit soon, but you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t care.
This is the time of year, of course, when TV tends to swamp us with weight-loss tips, but it’s often hard to separate the top advice from the twaddle.
Step forward, TV doctors Chris and Xand van Tulleken.
As part of their new show
THE TWINSTITUTE (8.30pm, BBC2), where 30 sets of identical twins (like them) are helping compare conflicting medical theories, they set out to establish whether diet or exercise is the best way to slim.
One pair of volunteers takes on a gym regime that involves burning an extra 1,000 calories a day, while the other commits to a diet that means reducing their daily calorie intake by the same figure. Will one or other method stand out?
Also on the show, Chris and Xand (I think Xand is the one with the beard, by the way, although it may be a false one they take turns with) hope to establish if the best way to handle pain without drugs is to meditate or swear your head off. Talking of swearing, BRADLEY WALSH AND SON: BREAKING DAD (8pm, ITV) contains surprisingly little under the circumstances. It’s a father-and-son US road trip series, where Bradley shares quality time with his lad Barney, but it also features loads of adrenalinefuelled experiences designed solely to freak Bradley out. So when he completes a parachute jump with barely a single rude word, I have to say he soars in my estimation. Not as much, mind you, as whoever’s edited the footage.