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Quick tips to do at home

Sitting on your couch watching television feeling like a couch potato? Get up, go into your refrigerator, grab a gallon of milk; go into your cabinet, grab a can of vegetable; or go into your bedroom, grab a hardcover novel and that is all you need to have in order to exercises. You only need one item, and any of these types will work. Ready to do some quick, simple exercises?

You can do all of these exercises standing in front of your TV!

1. Hold your item in one hand, extend your hand down in front of you and do ten curl ups with the first arm. Switch arms, do ten curl ups and repeat that three times. This will tone your biceps.

2. Hold your item in one hand straight above your head, bend at the elbow and lower your hand behind your head down to about your shoulder. Do ten repetitions with one hand, switch hands, do ten repetitions then repeat three times. This will tone your triceps.

3. Hold your item with both hands straight out in front of you, at about chest height. Stand with your feet at about waist width apart, twist at the waist and bring your hands all the way to your left, then twist all the way to the right. Do this twenty times, rest (about 30 seconds) then repeat. This will work your abdomen.

4. Hold your item in one hand, stand with your feet at about waist width apart, and straighten your arm by your side. Bend all the down, reaching your arm as far down to the floor as you can go, aiming for the outside of your foot, bending from the waist only. This will work your oblique, the side of your abs.

5. Hold your item with both hands in front of you and stand with your feet at about waist width apart. Get a strong stance with your feet and bend at the knees as if you are about to sit on a chair, holding the item at about chest level. Be careful to sit back when squatting and not to let your knee bend too far over your feet. This will work your gluteus, hamstrings, and quadriceps.

These are just five easy exercises you can do with any amount of weight you can find easily in your house. Next time you are bored watching TV, get up, grab some weight and do some quick exercises, which if done on a regular basis could really give you significant improvements to your physique.

Want to laugh?

One of life's mysteries is how a two-pound box of candy can make a woman gain five pounds.
For this and other jokes about dieting, dieting excuses, and more, visit butlerwebs.com.

What is the Riot?

The ultimate question for this blog is to figure out why everyone is so interested in dieting (myself included). If you google diet, it reads there are 156,000,000 search matches. The United States’ population just reached 303,000,000 and if you google diet there are 156,000,000 search matches related. This totals half the amount of websites for dieting as there are people in the country. If this was possible, you could look at it as if one of every two people in America has made a website that includes the word diet. This of course is not the case but the numbers are surprisingly high. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you see related links to diet. One link reads how to lose weight. Is everyone concerned about losing weight?

Look at the entertainment industry; it is clear that celebrities are worried about being skinny. From Lindsey Lohan to Paris Hilton, these famous figures are skinny and constantly focused on losing weight. On the home page for E online, the new video up right now is about how celebs quickly slim back down after having a baby. Not only is there an stress on being skinny, but being pregnant, or just having a baby is no longer an excuse to pack on a few extra pounds. There is the constant emphasis on how skinny or fat a celebrity looks in a picture. How can Americans escape the reality of how today’s culture is so focused on being thin? It is all around, on TV, online, in advertisements. While watching The Today Show on NBC one morning, six out of eleven commercials that came on were advertising either a weight loss product or a product that promoted a healthy weight. The constant reminder of the way a person looks is inescapable.

With such a strong emphasis on dieting, it also creates an easy target to make fun of. Jean Teasdale, a writer for the satirical newspaper The Onion, has written an article about her own experiences with dieting. Her story is funny because she faces many of the problems everyone deals with while dieting, which include not being able to stick to a diet, or getting sick of the same old diet everyday. It pokes fun at all these dieters, but reading it makes you stop and think about what dieting has come to. Why are people always focused on losing weight? Do people diet just to say they are dieting to make it seem like they are trying to lose weight? Obviously I do not know, but many people including Jean and myself struggle to understand the ways in which to diet.

Tired?

Can exercising actually make you more tired? If you are an endurance athlete the New York Times article entitled “Sleep After Hard Workouts? You Must Be Dreaming” says yes. This could be a problem for many busy people trying to stay awake at work. The answer? Sleep all day and not go to work? Of course that is not possible, but is there an a practicable answer? If you find your most tired an hour after your workout, plan to exercise an hour before you want to go to sleep for the night, that way it does not interrupt your plans. If that does not work try to take a power nap during the time you feel most tired. If there seems to be no solution that fits your needs, do not give up on exercising. You may be a little tired now but the benefits will last a lifetime.