My fit and influential friend: How Denise Austin changed my life

Each weekday morning I make sure the air purifier is on before I leave the bedroom. It drowns out the noise I make jumping around in the den and allows my husband to sleep a little longer. I hurry along to watch, on Lifestyle channel 23, the beautiful and older-than-she-looks Denise Austin. She’s a longtime exercise enthusiast who has two shows, one at 6 a.m. from a desert resort and one at 6:30 a.m. from a beach resort. I like the beach one.

Denise leads me in warm-ups, aerobics, targeted exercises and cool-downs. It’s all interspersed with commercial breaks during which we are reminded to exercise through the breaks. “Keep burning fat, I’ll be right back.”

Denise also reminds us that if we don’t “squeeze our buns, nobody else will.” I don’t want my buns squeezed. In fact, if anyone tries, I am now strong enough to deliver them a swift kick-box, thanks to Denise. She has taught me that, plus yoga, tai-chi, stretching and weight training; and she has become one of my most influential friends.

Her mottos run all throughout my mind. “Our spine is our lifeline,” “zip up those abs” and “I eat right eighty percent of the time.” I focus on posture more because she reminds me to, and I crave the SmartZone candy bars made by her sponsor, Hershey. I even notice if I buy potatoes from Idaho “for healthy appetites like yours.”

I feel better since I have been working out on a regular basis, and that is why I keep up with Denise’s early-morning perkiness and take in stride that she can hold a 15-second runner’s stretch while chatting like a set of wind-up teeth. I tolerate a lot from friends who prod me to do my best. I find myself springing up stairways again, shopping until stores close and vacuuming my carpets without feeling faint.

For years I exercised off and on at a health spa. I had trouble, though, getting there. The employees at the spa motivated me well, but they could never come into my home as Denise does. I once joined an aerobic class, but I never liked that the two or three men in the class seemed to enjoy looking at the shapes of their classmates more than the workouts – the perverts. No men in home, except my husband who waves good-bye as I’m doing the yoga move, downward-facing dog. He’s the only man I know who loves me enough to return home in the evening after seeing that.

Denise urges us to buy her stuff, but I’m a careful consumer. She works out in tight, swimsuit-looking outfits. I work out in knit pajamas. Denise wears new tennis shoes. I go barefoot. Dennis has a weight bench. I push together three kitchen chairs. She uses shiny dumbbells. I use some slightly stained ones I found at a thrift store. She uses (and plugs the sale of) her balance ball. I sit on the couch cushion. I invested in an off-brand step for our step-aerobic exercises, but I want one like Denise’s. “Mine is eight inches high,” she tells us, “and increases the effectiveness of the workout.”

Denise talks: I listen. Denise cha-chas: I cha-cha. She lunges: I lunge. She tells me not to sit down during commercials because I “can burn up to 300 more calories that way.” Here’s my weakness: I would rather eat a pancake or call my daughter during those five-minute reprieves.

For those who have never seen the show, watch it one morning. Denise is as sweet as a Sunday school teacher. And for those who want to feel better (and maybe even look better), try working out along with her. She’s right when she says, “You won’t believe what your body can do until you challenge it.”