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If you're trying to lose weight but your eating choices are already good, there's just two potential routes to follow: cut out an existing meal window (known as intermittent fasting), or exercise (increase physical activity): either route achieves a calorie deficit so that your energy requirement feeds on body fat. Adam Cox uses the metaphor of an invisibility blanket, as in Harry Potter stories, in order to show how small changes over a period can really work.

James Cameron-Wilson reports on box office +13%. Avoiding animated #1 Dog Man, he found #5, September 5, a true-life drama about TV's coverage of the Munich Olympics kidnapping of Israeli athletes totally engrossing, if uncomfortably timely. At #6 is The Brutalist. Despite admiring its many exceptional attributes, including the acting, he found the characters in this 215-minute labour of love tiring. He admired the film but has no wish to see it again. He enjoyed The Gorge on Apple TV+ which begins as a Tom Clancy thriller but ends up being more like a Richard Curtis movie. He found it barmy, surprising and ludicrous.

From the world of tech, Steve Caplin talks about the perfect way to cook a boiled egg and a giant barbecue that is controlled by your mobile. There's a touchscreen display for a bicycle, a camper van for an eBike and a one-bedroom flat that fits into a trailer and can be set up by one person in an hour with all – or at least most – mod cons. Glasses are to have hearing aids built into them to reduce discomfort, an ePaper frame will display your photos on the wall and you will soon be able to touch up your old videos and Super-8 movies and massively improve them.

Professor Tim Evans of Middlesex University says that people are misreading Donald Trump. Discussing Greenland, Gaza, the Panama Canal, North Korea, NATO and more, he says that there is coherency there. Trump enjoys chaos and is actually thinking several chess moves ahead. He is forever and a day a New York real estate developer – loud, proud, bold and radical. Tim feels that with Reform consistently ahead in the polls and poised to have the largest UK party membership, this is the most important development in British politics in 40 years. The Conservative Party may haemorrhage money, talent and members and could even find themselves the fourth party behind the LibDems at the next election.

Russ Mould of A J Bell looks at activist investors in the wake of Elliott's interest in BP, listing the many companies in similar positions. He explains the four principal things they are looking for and they only tend to get loud and aggressive if they feel they are being ignored. Any CEOs whose companies fit the criteria should be prepared for activist interest, particularly as the UK market is so cheap compared to the US. Private investors may benefit from activist investors, providing they are interested in the long-term health of the company concerned.

Whatever you may think of trade tariffs, there is no doubting the massive trade imbalance that has developed between China and the United States over the past three decades. Deliberate currency manipulation has enabled China to become the world's factory through resisting any meaningful appreciation of the Renminbi against the U.S. dollar. Parts of Europe have also suffered much economic damage as a result of the failure to balance out regional economic differences. If strong, accommodating economic control cannot be delivered, freely-floating currencies are the answer — but not tariffs. Background music: 'Something Is Wrong' by Sir Cubworth

Georgie Frost, Simon Lambert and Helen Crane consider reducing interest rates — are they opening up a divergence between central banks in the U.S., the UK and Europe? What are the implications for mortgages and savings? They consider how investments fared in the pandemic crash and rebound, and what the implications might be as a result of Trump's trade wars. And they review Nectar's stolen points problem.

DeepSeek hasn’t dissuaded big tech’s on cloud buildout spend. Ron Gross and Jason Moser discuss what the Jobs report and the tariff headfake mean for the big macro, earnings from Amazon and Alphabet, and big tech’s $300B cap ex plans for 2025, and PayPal’s good quarter/bad reaction, Spotify’s music streaming supremacy, and Chipotle’s plans to burrito the world. Then, 19 minutes in, this year’s Super Bowl offers a rematch from two years ago, a Kendrick Lamar halftime show, and if the NFL regular season’s been any indication – plenty of ads for sports betting Ricky Mulvey caught up with Motley Fool analyst Nick Sciple for the investing angle on legalized sports betting and why parlays are the penny stocks of gambling. Finally, 34 minutes in, Ron and Jason break down two stocks on their radar: Academy Sports And Outdoors and Uber. Stocks discussed: AMZN, GOOG, GOOGL, PYPL, SPOT, CMG, DK, MGM, AOS, UBER. Host - Dylan Lewis; Guests - Ron Gross, Jason Moser, Ricky Mulvey, Nick Sciple

Think you know how the trade wars will shake out? Don’t bet on it. Jim Gillies and Ricky Mulvey discuss the reaction to potential tariffs in Canada, separating your political ideas from your investments, and PayPal’s $15 billion buyback authorization. Then, 16 minutes in, Alison Southwick and Robert Brokamp offer some ways to get your 401(k) in better shape. Companies mentioned: PYPL. Host - Ricky Mulvey; Guests - Jim Gillies, Alison Southwick, Robert Brokamp

Adam Cox is joined by Thea Watson from Bright HR. They discuss a new report carried out by Bright HR, all about business confidence. What did it find? Well, it shows how 68% of UK businesses who have embraced a technology strategy see growth as their number one objective for 2025.Shockingly though, over half of all survey respondents — many without a tech plan — say they are not expecting to grow in 2025, and more than a quarter are simply looking to survive. https://www.brighthr.com/