Yesterday's Horizon programme on BBC2 talked about how most of us take up exercise to lose weight, but on its own it doesn't work. They showed that jogging for 15 minutes at 6mph uses up 16 calories. But a pound of unwanted fat is 3,500 calories. Most of us just don't have the time and the rest of us just don't want to exercise like this.

But there were some helpful suggestions. Maintaining a high calorie output just doing normal stuff can expend an extra 500 calories a day. So, if you walk instead of using the lift, stand instead of sitting, fidget instead of staying still, your body starts to use up extra calories even when you are asleep. For most of us, this seems a realistic approach. It is about being inefficient and wasting bodily energy, where most of our lives aim for efficiency (like using the remote instead of getting up to switch over).

I have blogged about these things many times. But the programme offered something new and interesting.

They showed that this kind of low level persistent activity can help us to move fat out of our bloodstream where it can clog our arteries and into our muscles where it can be used up.So it can protect against heart attacks and strokes. And that a few short bursts of high intensity exercise (HIT) is as effective as many hours on the treadmill. A Scottish researcher at Birmingham University (there was some nice footage of Glasgow in the programme!) shows that 3 minutes a week of HIT is all you need. Anything where you are working hard, for 3 shots of 20 seconds, in fact so hard that you are yelling to help you work harder, does the trick. And the trick is to get the fat stores in your muscles released so that the brain demands more energy from the fat stores around the organs. This can protect against diabetes and cardivascular disease.

The fat around our organs (fat above the waist) is the problematic fat. Hip and thigh fat on the other hand can be quite protective of good he

So after the programme I did 3 bursts on the exercise bike and will do the same 3 times a week for a month and see if I feel better.

I have been recommending yoga to my clients for some time now. There is lots of research which shows that it helps reduce anxiety. I am keen on it because of the breathing techniques. Shallow rapid breathing is implicated in anxiety and panic attacks and yoga can teach you deep diaphragmatic breathing, the sort actors and singers use. But as well as that, new research shows that stretching exercises, such as with yoga, increases the level of antioxidants in our blood, protecting us from cell damage. Antioxidants are also found in those superfoods - essentially any bright coloured fruit or veg. So for all these good reasons, read what Caroline Smart, a yoga teacher in Glasgow, has to say about yoga.

I was very lucky to discover yoga when I was 17. A TV series in the 70s called Yoga for Health hooked me and now, over 30 years on, I am a trained Yoga Scotland teacher. The great thing about yoga is that it is a journey to good health and it offers many different types of path to get there. May be you just want a gentle incline. Or perhaps you are after the challenge of a steep climb. You need to decide which path suits you best. Ultimately the goal is well being (both of body and probably more importantly, of mind). Sometimes people are put off by the strange sounding names: Iyengar, Bikram, Ashtanga, Dru. These are just the different teaching methods and may refer to the name of the teacher who inspired it (Iyengar) or the style (Ashtanga). See the glossary below for further information. All these types of yoga are essentially hatha yoga which means your route to total wellbeing is through a physical approach. You may have already come across some of the poses: cobra, tree, mountain, etc. Many are named after the natural world and the shape the pose makes.

Practising the poses gets your body a bit more supple and under your control. This doesn’t mean getting your feet hooked behind the back of your head stuff. A back bend might be simply lying on your tummy and lifting your head and shoulders off the ground. An upside down pose could be lying on the ground with your legs leaning up against the wall (believe me, this is very refreshing!).

And yoga can help you quieten your mind. Anyone out there with grasshopper concentration? No, it’s not a yoga technique! It is probably where most of us are today with the hundreds of distractions that fill our minds with a ticker tape of worrying thoughts. The quickest way to still an overworked mind is simply by turning your attention to your breath. Just focus on the breath being drawn in and out through your nostrils. Feel it on the inside of the nostrils as it enters the body, and then, when you are ready to breath out, feel it as it leaves the body. See? Everything else has been blocked out. Yoga teaches you how to fill your lungs with nourishing oxygen-rich air and then how to empty them completely.

Many of the problems associated with hyperventilation and panic attacks come from bad habits in breathing. Maybe over the years and leading a stressful life you have forgotten how to breathe properly and any breathing takes place in the top of your lungs. Yoga teaches how to relearn good habits. Visualise a jug filling a glass full of water. As you pour the water in, first the bottom of the glass fills, then the middle, then the top. To empty the glass, first the water comes out of the top, then the middle and then the bottom. So it is with belly breathing. As you fill the bottom of the lungs with air, it forces the diaphragm down leaving no room for the belly except to push outwards. As you empty the lungs and the diaphragm is drawn back into place, so your belly is drawn back into its usual position.

Your experience can often depend on the teacher. It may take a few tries to find both the style of yoga and teacher that are right for you. It is wise to find out whether the class is right for you - beginner or advanced.

For classes with me here in Glasgow, email ninianetta@yahoo.co.uk. For hatha yoga classes in Scotland visit www.yogascotland.org.uk.

Hatha: Classes with this name are probably more suited to beginners who want a gentle introduction to the poses and basic breathing techniques.
Dru: A graceful form of yoga based on flowing movement using the breath. Good for beginners.
Vinyasa: Relatively fast paced combining breath and movement. Salute to the Sun often introduces the class.
Bikram: A sequence of 26 poses carried out in sauna-like condition so that toxins are sweated out of the body. Better for advanced students who know the poses.
Iyengar: Usually quite physically challenging, using props such as belt and blocks. Often suited to men because of the physical strength aspect.
Ashtanga: Power yoga. Even more physical than Iyengar. Suits people with lots of energy to burn and who want a body like Madonna’s.

If you get deeply involved in yoga you may be interested in its traditional beliefs. For example, that yoga breathing directs energy (prana) around the body to ensure that the main energy channel travelling up the spine is free of blockages. To move energy upwards, there are 7 wheels (chakras) located from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. These wheels are also associated with emotional states: any blockages (or, indeed, too open a chakra) can cause problems. A blockage in the throat chakra (associated with communication) might mean that you find it difficult to express what you feel. Too open a heart centre (associated with compassion) might mean that you are taking on everyone else’s problems and becoming overwhelmed by them.

While these beliefs might not fit in with your view of the world, research does show that yoga practice reduces anxiety by reducing the levels of cortisol in the blood. Well worth a try.

Exercise where the goal is weight loss has contrary results. I have blogged about this before (8 March 2011). Exercising to reduce weight is linked to disordered eating which can be caused by or trigger low self-esteem and can result in increased weight.

Exercise for health and wellbeing on the other hand is a most excellent idea, promoting suppleness, strength and stamina.

But what about when you are pregnant? I found the book Essential Exercises for the Childbearing Year very helpful and it seems the author was many decades ahead of her time. New research suggests that stretching exercises are protective against pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia is more common when you are overweight. Exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia even when weight remains the same.  Research in 2009 reported that simple stretching exercises consisting of slow muscle movements performed 5 times a week starting at 18 weeks, reduced the risk of pre-eclampsia significantly more than walking for 40 minutes 5 times a week. That report and another by the same researcher showed that more women will stick to doing stretching exercises than walking. Perhaps it fits in more easily to everyday life.

Research just published in the American Journal of Perinatology by Sowndramalingam Sankaralingam and colleagues suggests that this difference may be due to stretching exercises reducing oxidative stress in blood vessels. Oxidation damages cells in the body, and it seems that stretching reduces oxidation, whereas walking doesn't. (Most of us know now that dark coloured vegetables and fruit  contain anti-oxidants which help to protect us from oxidative cell damage.)

The researchers tested biopsy samples obtained during cesarean sections from women who had been following either the stretching or the walking regime. The stretchers had more of the antioxidant Superoxide Dismutase and higher Plasma Transferrin levels (which shows that antioxidants are in the blood). Plasma Transferrin levels continued to increase throughout pregnancy among the stretchers but not among the walkers.

The researchers conclude that the beneficial effect of regular stretching exercises during pregnancy beat the benefits of walking and that this may be due to the higher antioxidant protective effect of this low-intensity exercise. So these exercises go beyond strength, suppleness and stamina, and increase our general good health. Perhaps all of us should give them a try, not just pregnant women.

Depression is a risk factor for obesity. How can that help when trying to manage our weight?

According to Sarah Markovitz in Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, depression makes obesity more likely because it causes change in their immune system and how their hormones respond. But the research also shows that depression causes difficulty in generally taking personal care, getting up and about, overeating and having negative thoughts. This is the bit that I think is of general interest to people who worry about their weight.

While most of us who want to manage our weight better are not obese, many suffer from low self-esteem and low mood. So improving our mood and feeling better about ourselves is likely to have a positive impact on our ability to manage our weight. And if your experience of dieting for you is a series of failures, then dieting might worsen your mood........

Studies have shown that regular exercise can make you feel good (pleasure hormones are released about 20 minutes into brisk exercise - the dopamine rush). So the weight loss achieved by those who get into regular exercise and enjoy it, could be because they feel better about themselves and do less comfort eating.

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy can get you feeling better, treating yourself as a good friend rather than haranguing you and pointing out your weaknesses. We can get into the habit of aggressive and unkind self-talk. And you can get out of the habit too.

The reasons men and women give for taking exercise have been shown to be different. Research show that when exercising for health reasons (to get stronger, more supple, fitter) self-esteem is high for both sexes.

Women's motivation for exercise is more often related to weight and shape reasons than men. As I have said before, exercising for these reasons is linked to disordered eating and this research supports this. "Overall activity level was related to greater eating disturbance for women". These terms, disordered eating, eating disturbance, tend to be correlated to or result in low self-esteem, increased weight and for some, serious eating disorders.

For both genders, exercising for weight loss, tone, and attractiveness reasons was highly correlated with measures of disturbance. The researchers note that these motivations for exercise "can be used to identify people who might develop eating disorders and/or body image disturbance".

Exercising for health is great. But it is not the most effective way to lose weight if that is your goal. It brings with it a range of potential concerns. With hypnotherapy, you can learn to accept your shape the way you are, and at the same time, learn some effective ways to manage a healthy weight. Losing weight without these risks.

Peter Katzmarzyk and colleagues at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center examined the links between time spent sitting (at school, work, and at home) and mortality (death) in a representative sample of more than 17,000 Canadians. They report that time spent sitting was associated with increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality (there was no association between sitting and cancer death). Individuals who sat the most were about 50% more likely to die during the follow-up period than individuals who sat the least, even after controlling for age, smoking, and physical activity levels.

The researchers also examined the association between sitting and mortality after control for body weight. They report that sitting remains a significant predictor of mortality. This suggests that all things being equal (body weight, physical activity levels, smoking, alcohol intake, age and gender) the person who sits more is at a higher risk of death than the person who sits less. (Fidgetting has been shown to be an effective strategy.)

Most of us sit for most of the work day and so most of us are at risk. And at home too, we spend little time working in the kitchen, cooking, laying the table, washing up. Even in front of the telly we don’t get up to change the channel. Our whole environment seems to be geared to minimising effort.

What to do? Throughout the day move about and fidget as much as possible. Seek out opportunities to make more effort. Walk whenever possible. Be inefficient. Make two runs up the stairs instead of one.

You will have noticed that men tend to have fat above the waistband, and on the whole women are fat round the bum. Male pattern fat is also called visceral fat, and it is metabolically active, and is one of the causes of hypertension, adult onset type 2 diabetes and other unpleasant illnesses.

This kind of fat is the muffin-top. Exercise is very helpful in dealing with the problems this kind of fat causes. Even just walking a few more hundred yards a day will help. Get a pedometer and see if you can add 2,000 stops a day to your normal routine.

Muffin top often occurs during and after the menopause, as some of the female hormones are reduced. We all have the male hormone testosterone, but in women at menopause, it is allowed to run free, thus triggering visceral fat deposits.

So, fat around the backside may not look lovely but it is not unhealthy. If you have a muffin top, see what sort of exercise you can include in your daily schedule?

If there were a medicine that helped you feel good about yourself and greatly reduced your risk of cardiovascular disease, would you take it regularly?

This medicine is exercise. The Surgeon General in America says this: I want to encourage you to eat more nutritiously, exercise regularly, and maintain healthier lifestyles.

What could you do to increase your level of exercise? I am not talking here about obsessive joggers or wearing pink shiny gymwear, but just adding a few more steps a day. 2,000 more steps a day could stop you gaining weight. How much walking is that? Probably the gap between 2 bus-stops (not in the countryside though - that can be miles!!)

Get a pedometer and check your current activity level in steps. Then see what you could do to boost that by just 2,000 steps. To boost your motivation, try hypnosis.

If you have thin hips and a big belly — the famous muffin top — you’re probably more at risk for disease than someone with a big bum and a small waist. And while you can't change your natural shape, muffin tops benefit from exercise to get rid of the fat around the waist. Read on to find out how muffin tops affect health.

Exercise really helps if this is your type.