Burn it off

If, however, you're one of the many people who started the year by joining a gym, only to have gone off the idea the minute your membership fee was taken out of your bank account, you'll be pleased to hear there are many other ways to burn off calories - some of which are far more fun, especially if there's more snow to come before the spring...

Building a snowman: Stick at it for an hour, and you could burn up to 285 calories.

Snowball fight: Who'd have thought exercise could be such fun, with throwing snowballs burning up to 320 calories an hour?

Shovelling snow: Clearing your driveway or pavement of snow for 30 minutes means losing 200 calories along with it.

Sledging: If there's enough snow around to get the sledge out of the garage, an hour of whizzing down a snow-covered hill, then walking back up to the top again, could use up around 475 calories.

Sailing: There again if all that talk of snow is making you shiver, why not enter our competition to win a week's Le Boat boating holiday in France? You could burn up to 170 calories an hour by going boating - not bad for something so relaxing (so don't forget to enter our competition for your chance to win).