Celebrity Big Brother Fitness Equipment

New Year has brought an influx of celebrity related TV shows, including Celebrity Big Brother 2012. 

Today marks the start of international fitness week, which runs from 1^st February to 7^th February. The aim of International Fitness Week is to encourage people to change their lifestyle and improve their overall fitness.

As an incentive to get involved more than 400 gyms across 15 countries are offering free training sessions for non-members.

Over here in the U.K ex Spice Girl Mel B has become the face of fitness week; The star launched International Fitness Week on Thursday, stating ''I want to encourage everyone to find what works for them and make being active part of their lifestyle.

''It's easier than you think to get totally fit and we will show you how.''

The trimmed up star will soon be hosting US TV show Dance Your Ass Off, was launching the week at a central London Fitness First gym where they are offering free sessions to visitors with passes which are available on the International Fitness Week website.

www.internationalfitnessweek.com 

Local runner, Noel Bresland, 34 has completed a marathon inside a capsule of the London Eye on a treadmill.

Noel from Manchester, ran the equivalent of the 26.2-mile (42.2km) course on a treadmill in a time of three hours and 51 minutes.

He was raising money for two charities - Children with Leukaemia and Bliss - as part of an attempt to finish 223 marathons in 10 years.

He set himself the challenge after his nephew Ethan, who was born prematurely, died at the age of 223 days.

So far he has run 30 marathon-length courses and has raised nearly £25,000.

"I am determined to reach my ultimate goal of 223 marathons," Mr Bresland said.

"You haven't seen the last of me, as having overcome my fear of heights, we are now developing plans for a marathon in a plane and hot air balloon.

Mr Bresland is planning to run the London Marathon dressed as Little Miss Naughty later this month.

According to research out today eating Tangerines could protect you against heart attacks, diabetes and strokes as well as staving off obesity, as they contain Nobiletin, which helps prevent these conditions.

The study was undertaken by researchers at the University of Western Ontario, in Canada, were they fed two groups of mice a high fat content diet and the other group simple sugars.

The first group that were fed the high in fat diet became obese, had elevated cholesterol, high blood levels of insulin and glucose and a fatty liver, all these symptoms increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease. 

Whereas the second group of mice that were feed the simple sugars diet, which had tangerines in, gained a normal amount of weight and showed no rise in cholesterol, insulin or glucose.

Lead researcher Dr Murray Huff said: ‘The Nobiletin-treated mice were protected from obesity.

With obesity in the U.K rising more and more people are being diagnosed with high cholesterol, brought on by an over consumption of fatty and sugary foods. Once diagnosed many suffers have to maintain a healthy diet and exercise to control their cholesterol. Here is some advice on how to control your cholesterol level.

Take and Make Note of What You Eat

If possible try to keep some sort of food diary, this doesn’t have to be permanently, but using one for a month or two when you first begin to control your cholesterol can help as you will be able to pinpoint trouble areas in your diet.

Find and Use Replacements for High Cholesterol Ingredients and Meals

When you are eating meals and snacks at home you have the advantage of controlling exactly what you eat and what ingredients you put into your body. A great way to lower cholesterol is to modify usual recipes to a low-fat, low-cholesterol version, which can be done with most meals.

Avoid Fad Diets

Often Cholesterol is linked weight. The key to losing weight and maintaining a low cholesterol is to take your doctors advice and stick to a safe, healthy diet rather then to fad diet, as this can that damage your health. Just simply follow your doctors advised diet and combine with an exercise routine and you will start to see results.

Set Realistic Fitness Goals

Instead of over doing it and setting off hoping to achieve too much at once, choose to focus on regularly modest amount of exercise for example try walking, go swimming, play a sport with a friend. It doesn’t have to be much in order to see results. 

When people decide to lose weight, they usually decide to focus around the stomach area. Whilst this is a good area of the body to work on, many people just focus on the stomach, which is a waste of time.

Rather than focusing on a specific area to burn fat, try to adapt to exercises and routines that utilize the rest of your body and that allow you to burn fat and calories.

A great way to lose weight is by using compound exercises. Compound exercises are exercises that work a combination of two or more muscle groups in one exercise. If you combine compound exercises with free weights, you can lose weight fast and effectively.

Effects of compound movements can be:

• Burn more fat and calories
• A more affective workout in less time
• Utilise more muscle groups
• Short rest periods for increased heart rate.

Remember you cannot spot reduce your stomach but with effective exercise like compound exercise with free weights, you will burn excess fat all over, including your stomach.

A report this week has highlighted that active video games such as ‘Just Dance’ or ‘Wii Sports’ for the Nintendo's Wii or 'Dance Dance Revolution' for the Playstation, can help children reach their daily level of recommended exercise. The studies researchers say “these games could be a good way to increase activity, if they replace games played while sitting.”

Active video games, which require movement as if taking part in a real sport, exercise class, or other activity, have become more popular recently.

The study involved 39 children aged 12. The researchers tested their energy output while using a range of games, and also while walking on a treadmill at 3 miles per hour. Six games systems were tested: three products aimed at consumers, and three sold to gyms and physical education organisations.

All the games increased children's energy output to moderate or vigorous exercise levels. Of the games tested, Wii Boxing had the lowest energy expenditure. The highest was for Jackie Chan Alley Run, available on the Xavix system (which is on sale in America).Children playing Wii boxing or Dance Dance Revolution had about the same energy output as children walking on a treadmill. The other games had a higher energy output.

The study also measured children's enjoyment of the games. Girls enjoyed dancing games the most, whereas boys were most keen on Wii Boxing. Interestingly, the children who were heaviest enjoyed the games more. The researchers point out that enjoyment is important, because children are more likely to do exercise if they find it fun.

British film star Tom Hardy is bulking up - for his upcoming role as villain Bane in Christopher Nolan’s next Batman installment, The Dark Knight Rises.

The Bafta winner showed of his already impressive 12 stone ripped, muscular physique when he appeared on Alan Carr’s Chatty Man on Monday, but revealed to the host that he has to gain more weight in order to reach the 13 and a half or 14 stone target.

"I'm going to need to bulk up a lot for it. That's a lot of weight to put on and I've got to start shooting in May. I'm 12 and a bit now, so I've got under three months to do that. Fat - a lot of fat. And trickery." He told Carr.

Hardy is no stranger to bulking up for starring roles, he famously gained an excessive amount of weight to portray Britain’s most notorious prisoner Chrales Bronson.

In order to gain the weight for Bronson Hardy’s regime consisted of non-specific exercises such as press ups, push ups, abs work and resistance training. When interviewed by AskMen Hardy said “My approach was to do a lot of repetitions in order to send messages to my muscles: this helps them start to grow in a way that you can’t make them in the gym. To achieve dense muscle, you need a specific kind of training.”

When asked how do you lose the weight once you have gained it Tom said “It’s much less daunting once you’ve put your foot on the road to it. I’m a notorious couch potato and I don’t like exercise. Half an hour of physical exercise, like jogging or fast walking a day is a start. Then there’s your diet. You cut out sugars, fat, soy sauces… anything that’s nice. Tea and coffee is replaced by boiling water with lemon. It’s amazing how quickly you get into it. There’s also herbal tea and a lot of water, obviously… about two litres a day. It’s about motivation and it has to be something that’s realistic for you to keep up.”

Exercise and brain training, according to scientists, may treat chronic Fatigue Syndrome, commonly known as ME. They say other methods used to combat ME are less successful.

Reports have indicated that over a quarter million people in the UK alone suffer from ME. Scientist are yet to discover the cause of the condition. Symptoms of ME include excessive tiredness, poor concentration and muscle and joint pain.

To carry out the study researchers analysed three methods of treatment and evaluated their effectiveness towards ME treatment. The study used the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), exercise and planning activities on 641 ME sufferers.

Results showed that CBT and exercise therapy were the most successful methods of treatment.

CBT was found to return 30 per cent of patients to normal levels of physical functioning and fatigue.

However Action for ME believed that the results of the study were exaggerated and previous results of alternative studies did not reflect the outcomes of this study.

The findings were welcomed by The Association of Young People with ME. It called on the group to repeat the study using children.

Renowned for his mad - professor type style of cooking, TV chef Heston Blumenthal has set his sights on something much more challenging then creating edible wallpaper, Heston wants to try and persuade bosses of the NHS largest children’s hospital, Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, that cheap, processed food is not acceptable and may possible be stunting recovery from illness.

In tonight’s first episode, screened on channel 4, Heston attempts to provide fun and healthy meals for the children of Alder Hey hospital, on a measly budget of £3.34 per child. From just £3.34 per head, Heston introduces his ‘Bet You Can’t Eat That’ menu, featuring a ‘snot milkshake’, a ‘vomit soup’, and ‘worms on pizza’, stating “It’s healthy ingredients disguised as fun.”

Although the new menu is well received by patients, the staff on the other hand don’t respond well to the changes. The head of catering at the children’s becomes extremely defensive insisting, “90% of the food at the hospital is cooked fresh from scratch.”

Faced with the challenge of improving the nations health whilst cooking without a kitchen, for hundreds, for less than £1 a meal, without trained staff, in some episodes, this is really is a Mission Impossible for Heston.