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November 14, 2009

Home Exercises for Anxiety: 4 Proven Exercises for Reducing the Symptoms of Anxiety

Category: Exercise, Mental Health – Denise Austin Fan 6:11 am
Do you have anxiety or panic attacks? Do you find that although you have anxiety, medication is not for you? Or maybe you are taking medication but want to supplement with some home exercises for anxiety to get even better results?

There are many things you can do at home to relieve your anxiety symptoms, reduce your anxiety or even prevent it. The number one key to treating or eliminating anxiety is relaxation, and the University of Michigan Health Center has released as guide explaining both why you need to learn to relax and how to do it.

The guide talks about the relaxation response; defined as “your personal ability to make your body release chemicals and brain signals that make your muscles and organs slow down and increases blood flow to the brain.” Drugs can to a certain extent help you achieve this, but did you know you have the ability to do it yourself without the help of drugs?

There are several different ways to achieve the relaxation response, but it’s important to understand what it is before we go into the how. When I talk about relaxation as a home exercise for anxiety, I’m not talking about taking a nap or relaxing on the couch. The relaxation we’re aiming for is a state where your body is relaxed while your mind is still alert.

Examples of relaxation techniques that you can use as home exercises for anxiety are meditation, yoga, deep breathing, Progressive Muscle Relaxation and visual imagery. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t feel your anxiety evaporating immediately as you start practicing your relaxation; all of these are techniques that can be taught, and the more you practice them the better results you’ll get.

So how exactly do these home exercises for anxiety work, and which one’s the most effective? According to the University of Michigan Health Center, there is no indication that any of these techniques are superior to the rest; they all work and you can practice one, some or all of them. It’s up to you to figure out which ones suit you better.

Meditation

There are a lot of different types of meditation that can help you, but practicing mindful meditation seems to be the one that has the best results on anxiety. Mindful meditation is about being completely present in the moment. When you use mindful meditation as a home exercise for anxiety, try to not focus on anything but what is happening right this second. Focus on a word or a phrase like “peace” or “I am very relaxed”, and repeat it to yourself over and over. If you have a hard time using words, you can try counting slowly or focusing on your breath. If you notice that you are “spacing” or that your mind is wondering off, just gently reel yourself back in by focusing on you “mantra” or your breath.

Yoga

Yoga is also about being present in the moment. There are many different styles of yoga, and you can get DVD’s for a guided yoga class in your own home. If you are completely new to yoga, I will recommend that you attend a beginner’s yoga class to learn to do the postures correctly. This will help you get more out of your home exercises for anxiety, and you will learn to avoid injury.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation may sound complicated, but it’s really not. It’s simply put a series of exercises where you tense your muscles before you gradually relax them. The “science” behind this technique is that people with a lot of stress and anxiety in their life tend to have tense muscles even when they are resting. By tensing the muscles one area at a time and then relaxing, your muscles will not only go back to the state they were in before you tensed them, they will be more relaxed.

Visual Imagery

Visual Imagery is all about using your own imagination to distract yourself from your anxiety. If you experience bad anxiety, you may not initially believe that using your imagination can be one of the really effective home exercises for anxiety, but it really can. Visual Imagery is not just about imagining things, it about using certain techniques to activate all you senses while you are visualizing. It can take a little bit of practice to get into the visual Imagery technique, but when you do, you learn to focus all your concentration inward on your imagery and it’s a quick and easy way to beat anxiety and panic.

Deep Breathing

Deep breathing is not the same as a lot of breathing. When people are stressed or anxious they tend to breathe a lot of short shallow breaths. According to the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, shallow and fast breathing into our upper chest creates short restless brainwaves. Deep breaths into the abdomen and not just the chest creates longer, slower brainwaves, similar to the ones we have when we feel relaxed. Practicing deep breathing techniques is an easy and very effective home exercise for anxiety.

November 12, 2009

You Need Home Exercise More Than You Realize

Category: Exercise, Fitness – Denise Austin Fan 6:01 am
For a healthy body and mind you need to incorporate exercise into your daily routine. You can always join a gym but many people are too pressed for time to go to the gym every day. If this sounds like you then you definitely need to design a home exercise routine that will give you the exercise you need.

If you want to start an exercise program at home you may want to consider home gym exercise equipment to get you on your way to great physical fitness.

When you design a home gym exercise routine for yourself, you must start with considering your present level of physical fitness. If you’re very unfit you want to start with a light routine that slowly works up in intensity as your body adjusts to the exercise regimen.

The next step in finding a suitable home fitness routine is to look at home gym exercises that you will enjoy and that will produce the results that you desire.

You can consider elliptical machines, treadmills, and exercise bikes for the purposes of endurance and cardio workouts and you can look at free weight equipment for building and toning the upper, mid and lower body.

There are many brands of exercise equipment available. You can get all in one machines or you can buy equipment that concentrate on specific areas of your body.

An exercise DVD can be very useful for instruction on your home gym exercises, and you can find a multitude of good books that will be very helpful as well.

Don’t forget to exercise when you are traveling. One gets smaller exercise equipment that can conveniently fit in a bag or in the trunk of your car so you can still maintain your exercise regime whether you travel on business or visit family.

It is always an excellent idea to keep a workout log where you keep track of your daily home gym exercises as well as your results.

If you are unsure about how to design your home exercise routine, then it is a good idea to obtain the services of a personal trainer to help you design exercises that are appropriate for your body type and will put you on the right track to attain your goals.

If exercise is your goal then it makes sense to start out exercising at home since many people feel too awkward to join a gym and sweat in public. Once you are into the swing of things you can then consider joining a gym because then it will at least look as if you know what you’re doing.

October 31, 2009

You Need to Quit your Home Exercise Weight Loss Program

Category: Exercise, Fitness – Denise Austin Fan 7:46 am
Home exercise weight loss oriented programs are a cheap alternative for hiring a personal trainer to lose weight. However, this is not necessarily the best approach towards exercise to shred extra pounds. In fact, who said that exercise is the best method for losing weight to begin with?

You might think that the last sentence was somewhat controversial. In order to clarify any misunderstanding let’s discover the root of unhealthy weight gain: poor metabolism. NOTE: some of you may have a condition (such as hypothyroidism) that may require more than the methods I will list here, but for the most part, poor metabolism for the rest of us is caused by two factors (no, one of them is NOT genetics): poor activity and poor eating habits.

To correct this type of weight gain you can either embark on a home exercise weight loss program, or change your diet, or both. Now I know this may seem like I am contradicting myself from what I said earlier regarding the exercise component. Of course I never said that exercise is ineffective. I implied that exercise is not the BEST method to lose weight.

The reason is simple, and is based on the amount of calories required for you to lose weight. The exercise that you would have to do in order to accomplish this is VERY intense. Not all folks can handle this. Basically you would have to be in shape in order to be in shape in order to exercises that will in turn help you do some more brutally intense exercises to help you lose weight.

Do some TV shows where overweight people exercise to death freak you out? It should. Why? Because they’re too hard, that’s why! You would need the help of fitness trainer for that. This is not why you visited this page, unless you wanted to hire a fitness to train in your own home, which I doubt is why you come here also.

Now how about changing your eating habits? Well anyone can do that effectively and cheaply. You just have to be informed of the right way to do it and, most importantly, ACT on it.

If you are unsure of the best way to go about this, you can gain access to information on how without a home exercise weight loss program here. You will discover that, thankfully, no fads, no hocus pocus, no unsafe or unhealthy forms of weight loss are needed. Also, no “special” recipes or shakes are needed to lose weight. So what is?

In a nutshell, to effectively lose weight you would have to eliminate the bad foods from your diet and start eating good foods. I know this sounds cliché-ic but it is true. You don’t have to eliminate carbs or fats or proteins from your diet, or resort to certain cleanses (Candida, colon, etc.) to accomplish this. You just have to learn to select, make and eat the right types of foods that are body-friendly.

With that being said, the rest of us have lost weight or can lose weight using this method. Wish you the best of luck doing it – cause you CAN do it!

October 27, 2009

Effective Home Exercise Planning for Tight Schedules

Category: Exercise – Denise Austin Fan 5:31 am
Most people think of home exercise as following some ‘leg warmers’ exercise video from 1982 or getting on the treadmill for 15 minutes. One of the main reasons for this narrow sighted problem is lack of knowledge about what can be achieved at home in terms of health and fitness.

Most people only know what they’ve been told or what they’ve read. Unfortunately most of what people are told is skewed or misleading for a host of reasons too deep for us to get into in this article. The important point here is that there is a better way to go about getting the body you want and the fitness levels to go along with it.

So often, a home workout routine gets reduced to 15 minutes of wasted time because of frustration, half hearted commitments and lack of confidence in one’s own program. Many times the fitness failure epidemic kicks in and people quit their home exercise plan altogether.

People are often misled to believe that that can only achieve incredible fitness at home if they make a big investment in home exercise equipment. Treadmills, multi-station weight machines and elaborate stretching devices, just to name a few, are all pushed on the public under the guise that without this stuff ‘you are eternally doomed to a fat body and poor health’.

The truth is, all you need is a few square feet of floor space and the right mindset to make continuous and stunning progress in your quest for home fitness success. Sure there are some effective little gadgets that can add some variety and fun to your workouts but the number one piece of equipment on your list should be a comfortable floor mat. If you can’t spring for a mat – just fold up a soft comforter and you are ready to go.

Before getting off the floor there are at least 87 exercises that you can do ranging from torso and lower body stretches to thigh tighteners and core strengtheners. It doesn’t matter if you are a first time exerciser or ‘on-and-off’ fitness veteran – a creatively structured home workout routine can deliver results to rival any fitness center workout. I say this not just from knowledge of the body but from many years of training people in their homes and offices for various health challenges and physical fitness goals.

Of course, if you are a body-builder or power-lifter, what I’m saying here may sound like a joke to you and that’s alright because I wrote this article for the vast majority of people who just want to look and feel good, both physically and mentally. But, let me just offer you this (from personal experience) you should start thinking now about ways to reduce the high intensity stress and strain on your body – while still maintaining (and most likely improving) your overall health and fitness. High volume, heavy weight and machine type training routines are a long term ticket to aches, pains and injuries – some of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about. Enough said.

The flexibility of a home exercise routine shows its value when you go on vacation or away on business – the same principles you follow at home can be done at a hotel, at a friends house and even in the outdoors, depending on the climate. For example, I regularly take my clients to local, public playgrounds for some of the best full body workouts I could ever dream up. It’s amazing what you can do when you look at a playground with an eye for fitness training programs. Another plus, is that these types of workouts can be fun for family time as well. Take your kids to the park, turn them loose and get yourself a 30 minute cross training workout in while the kids try to copy you. You’ll get fit, the kids will pick up the healthy habit from you and they sleep really well that night, too!

August 15, 2009

Celebrities and Exercise

Category: Exercise – Denise Austin Fan 12:55 am

Aside from being celebrities, what do Jennifer Aniston, Cindy Crawford, Hugh Grant, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, Rod Stewart and Kristi Yamaguchi have in common? They’ve all hopped on the yoga and pilates trend for physical toning and spiritual relaxation!

There are some similarities between yoga and pilates, notably that they both work towards sculpting the body and increasing flexibility. Neither exercise will work the heart or lungs like a cardiovascular workout will, but they both add to an overall state of mental and physical wellbeing.

Yoga and pilates are so similar that they’re often fused together in workout videos and yoga pilates classes across America, although it’s sort of a Western fusion. In India, it is something entirely different than the German-created pilates.

Clear differences between yoga and pilates include some of the following: First, it is an ancient Indian practice that dates back approximately 5,000 years, whereas pilates is an adaptation of it dating back eighty years to a German athlete, Joseph Pilate.

Secondly, in addition to physical activity, it is an entire holistic program that encompasses diet, meditation, breathing techniques, religious edict and a moral code; Pilates is simply a form of exercise and body sculpting technique.

Thirdly, it aims to unite mind and body, as well as cleanse the body of toxins, while pilates is fashioned to strengthen, define and improve posture. Additionally, in it, you are taught to inhale and exhale through the nose, whereas pilates employs the traditional athletic mode of breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth while performing an action.

Lastly, it can generally be done with just a mat (although sometimes props are used), while instructors ensure everyone’s in proper form; pilates, on the other hand, has specific machinery designed to assist practitioners.

Athletes and dancers often engage in “pilates for sports” classes, either in large groups or one-on-one with an instructor. However, one needn’t attend a class to get started with pilates — in fact, there are many videos (Eleonora Goya, Dian Ramirez, Leslie Sansone, Kathy Smith, Denise Austin, Karen Voight, The Method yoga, MTV, Prevention, etc). Of course, you won’t get quite the same workout without the elaborate weight systems, but it could be a good launching point for people who are curious but not quite ready to commit to a gym or studio.

Some of the most popular videos include:

- “Yoga Zone”;

- “Living Yoga – AM/PM”;

- “Basic Yoga Workout For Dummies”;

- “Total Yoga: The Flow Series”;

- “Yoga: Mind & Body with Ali Macgraw”;

- “Crunch Yoga Mama: Prenatal Yoga”;

- “Yoga Practice For Strength”;

- “Ashtanga Yoga with Richard Freeman”;

- “The Power of Hatha Yoga” and;

- “Kundalini Yoga: With Grace and Strength.”

For the practitioners seeking spiritual teaching as well, classes and center training are best. Choosing between either classes or videos is all just a matter of preference.

August 13, 2009

Exercise Programs

Category: Exercise – Denise Austin Fan 6:59 pm
Are you under pressure to lose weight? This is the common goal of many Americans, and other people around the globe. This predictability concerns the aging process.  It just doesn’t seem to cut us any floppy. As your body grows older, it becomes less willing to burn those extra calories for us. What’s with that So for all you kids out there, get ready for a rude awakening. One day you will actually have to work to get those pounds off. This brings me to the contemporary fat loss exercise. Do you have one in progress While there are countless ways to drop fat, you should try and find one that suits you. By this I mean one that you like. What activities do you take pleasure in?

When it comes to fat loss exercise, a great many of us turn to aerobics. This is the well-known gem. We’ve all seen the results of those countless aerobic workouts From Richard Simmons to Tae Bo, to Denise Austin, there is a variety to choose from. Personally, I recommend the Tae Bo as a great fat loss exercise. Not only will this program get you fit and trim, but it will aid you in self defense. This is something everyone needs to work on. Aside from the standard aerobic classes, there are other options at hand. Have you considered bicycling as a means of fat loss exercise? This hobby is enjoyed by thousands. Picture a nice bike ride through your neighborhood or some trail in the woods. That is much more exciting than staring at a gym wall. Then there are the countless treadmills and stationary exercise machines. These are also well known as fat loss exercise machines.

Do you need help ditching those extra pounds Maybe you need a personal trainer with an ideal fat loss exercise up his skin. Or maybe you need a gym membership to get you started. Have a professional plan out a fat loss exercise regime for you to follow. It doesn’t get any easier than that, folks. It’s time to get that body the way you want it to look. Stop gorging on drive-thru garbage and ice cream sundaes. Remember, you don’t only need a good fat loss exercise to get in shape, but you also need a proper healthy diet. The two go hand in hand.Hop online and get informed about what all is out there. You’ve got nothing to lose, but those extra pounds.

August 1, 2009

Denise Austin Workout Plans

Category: Exercise – Denise Austin Fan 4:43 am
Denise Austin promises that you will Lose Weight, Get Fit, and Feel Great Today! She starts with a few questions to tailor you diet, then it’s right into the meal plan and diet to help you shrink those fat zones in as little as 4 weeks.

You start by putting in a few stats, then you answer questions about your body, exercising, regular activity, and how easily you loss weight. She then sends you to get your Success Plan, the plan that will help you lose weight.

The Success Plan is a mini-plan telling you what you will focus on when you signup. The plan focuses on exercising, your diet, and daily motivation to keep you going. She gives you your ideal weight, along with the daily calorie amount to reach that weight. After this, it’s time to signup and starting trimming those fat zones!

Your plan will help you:

Shrink your fat zones!

Increase your muscle tone!

Minimize your waistline!

Firm your thighs!

Increase energy and strength!

Your plan includes:

Personalized exercises to zap your fat zones

Delicious meals to help you reach your weight goal

Daily motivation and support to keep you feeling great!

Lose Weight with your customized meal plan:

Total plan to tone your arms, shoulders, chest, and whole body

Delicious Shrink-Fat Meal Plan

Daily motivation and support to keep you feeling great

Exclusive Message Boards and personal fitness journal

Denise Austin has helped thousands of people get the body they want, let her help you!  It’s only $3 a week to join, so join now and start losing weight.

For Reviews on Denise Austin’s Diet go to True Diet Reviews.

Or Join Now !

July 26, 2009

Exercise Obstacles

Category: Exercise – Denise Austin Fan 10:28 pm
Hopping in and out of planes is exercise enough, you say. But that’s not the kind of exercise that will condition your heart, make your reflexes and joints more fluid, keep the sugar levels or keep you from swinging from one mood to another!

Nor is it the kind of exercise that will make you euphoric after a good cardiovascular session. You need to counteract the effects of jet lag, artificial air in pressurized aircraft cabins and sky fatigue. Suzanne Schlosberg says,

“Sometimes your travels help you recognize how humdrum your workout routine has become. At home, it’s easy to fall into a rut – to use the same weight machines in the same order, week after week, month after month, simply out of habit. But a trip may take the routine out of your routine. You may have no choice but to try new strength exercises or jog in the pool instead of swim laps. And you might find these new pursuits so enjoyable that you add them to your fitness repertoire at home.”

Common Obstacles

What are some of the reasons why travelers do not incorporate exercise while they’re on the road?

They’re stressed or too tired

They don’t feel comfortable about working out in unfamiliar surroundings

They don’t have access to a hotel gym

But if they made just a tiny effort to change this thinking, they’d be on the road to fitness sooner. Engaging in exercise allows you to get out of that bubble of meetings, seminars and tours.

Walk when on the Road

When traveling, have a pair of good walking shoes (trainers preferably) so that you won’t feel so daunted about getting from one side of the airport to another.

Having the right pair of walking shoes will encourage you to walk up the stairs instead of take the escalator, to walk instead of taking the conveyor belt, and to transfer from one concourse to another on foot instead of taking the shuttle service.

You may not know it, but walking these long distances with your luggage in tow serves as a combination/weight lifting exercise!

Fitness while Flying

Once settled comfortably on the plane, make sure you time your stretching and walking periods. If it’s just an hour’s flight, walk around the plane once and do your stretching at the back of the plane; if it’s a three hour to five hour flight (east to west in the North American continent), try to get up from your seat and walk around at least once every hour, doing leg extensions and trunk/neck movements.

If you’re crossing the Pacific or Atlantic oceans, those killer flights need not kill you. Increase the frequency of your stretches and walking.

Airlines such as Japan Air Lines show videos of how travelers can incorporate flexibility movements while seated or standing. Take full advantage of these videos. The exercises may help you ward off fatigue and jet lag.

A note about DVT

In the last five years, there have been reports about flight passengers, especially in economy class, suffering from DVT – deep vein thrombosis.

The link between confining airplane seats and deaths from DVT (formation of deadly blood clots) has been established by the United Nations World Health Organization. It has nothing to do with gender, risk factors or genetics. Everyone is at risk in economy class! This should constitute compelling reason to integrate exercise while high in the sky.

To make exercise possible while traveling, schedule your flights so that when you get to your destination, you don’t rush through dinner and then go to sleep.

Try to arrive during the late afternoon/early evening, to give you time to shake off the fatigue from the trip, and have at least an hour to do exercises either in your hotel room or in the hotel gym.

Important “to do” things when traveling

Be fully rested before a trip – have the usual “to pack” items ready well in advance so you’re not scampering for them at the last minute, depleting your energy levels.

Time your sleep correctly – as soon as you board, get the local time of your destination and set your watch accordingly. If it’s already night time in your destination, wear blindfolds and ask for a pillow and try to catch a few winks.

Drink plenty of water – wine and cocktails will only dehydrate you further; note that humidity levels inside aircraft is below 10%, so water is your best bet.

If your job requires you to travel at least four times a month, ask your company’s travel department to book you in hotels with gyms or a swimming pool.

Make time out of your travel schedule to insert a workout into your grinding schedule.

Here’s a friendly suggestion: get up earlier in the morning and before or after breakfast, head over to the gym and do a brisk walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes, or do the rowing machine (great for the core muscles, back problem reliever) for 10 minutes.

This session is just to wake you up from your travel stupor. See if you can walk to your business appointment instead of taking a cab (that’s another 10 minutes).

At night before going to bed, go to the hotel gym again and lift weights for 10 minutes, to complete your workout for the day. This way you did your cardio and resistance training, two essential components of a fitness program.

Now, tell us, doesn’t a 10-20 minute session sound less intimidating than clocking 1.5 hours in the gym?

Working out with Friends

Another friendly suggestion: if you’re traveling in a group, ask a colleague if he or she would do a game of squash or tennis with you. The concierge can give you local addresses of sports or recreational centers in the vicinity.

When there’s no Gym!

If the hotel gym is crowded or “temporarily closed for maintenance,” you can still exercise – in the comfort of your room.

Here are some exercises that you can perform:

Turn on the TV or sound system and jog in place; or look up the TV guide and see if some old Jane Fonda or Denise Austin shows are on. Get on with the beat

Jog in place or jump rope (great cardiovascular workout)

Conduct floor exercises (described below)

Floor exercise 1: the Cobra (or back extension). Lying on your stomach as though getting ready for push-ups, keep your hands on your side with palms facing down and fingers pointed forward. With your hands, push to lift your torso off the floor (ensure you’re lifting head, shoulders and chest only).

Keep pelvis on the floor and your head looking ahead. Hold and then release. Repeat 3 times. You should feel your spine lengthen. Joe Decker recommends not just pressing back with your hands, but also pushing your upper body up and forward. Do not tilt your head back to look at the ceiling (many people make this mistake). This puts a strain on your neck.

Floor exercise 2: Crunch (for lower abdominals). The lower abdominals are the weakest muscles in your torso because they are rarely worked, and they’re the first to sag after childbirth and after menopause.

This exercise will help:

Lying flat on your back with your knees bent, cross your arms over your chest. Squeeze your buttocks, tighten your abdomen and push your lower back into the floor. Hold for 10-20 seconds, breathing normally. Relax, and then release. Repeat as often as you can, without overworking yourself

Floor exercise 3: Hurdler’s Stretch. Bend the knee towards the front, and then tuck your lower leg in toward the opposite thigh. Stretch gently toward the straight leg. Do not bounce. This movement is like the ballet movement when an arm goes above the head gracefully, which stretches the sides of the trunk to increase flexibility.

If you pick up any exercise book, there will be a rich inventory of exercises you can perform while on the go. Pack this in your bag so you can refer to it for correct form and posture.

Yoga

Yoga on the train? Yes! A news report was published in the Montreal Gazette recently saying how many overstressed Germans still hide behind their papers rather than exercise. We’re sure Americans and Canadians are no less guilty.

So these commuters are being taught yoga and relaxation techniques on their way to and from work. Instructors are now in what the German government calls “wellness trains” in southern Germany. This was an initiative taken by Deutsche Bahn – Germany’s state-owned railway. The organization decided to offer relaxation and yoga techniques to calm an anxious work force.

This article along with several others that I will be posting over the next several days is YOUR key to fitting exercise into your life.

To keep things organized and simple, the articles will be broken down into five easy sections:

Section 1: Assessing Physical Damage And Accepting the Importance of Exercise

Section 2: No Matter How Busy you Are, there are Ways you can Exercise

Section 3: Busy Traveler? You can Fit Exercise into your Trips (Which you are reading at this moment)

Section 4: Exercise Aids To Go

Section 5: Information / Resources for the Hurried and Harried

Read them in order, or if you wish, focus on the section that is most relevant to you right now. Regardless of how you choose to read these articles, you can be confident of one thing: once you apply the advice within these pages, your busy life will include something new and important: exercise!