No1Reviews.com >>

Weight Loss Programs >>

Like another of our favorite online weight loss sites, JillianMichaels.com, DeniseAustin.com is part of the brand empire of one of America's most famous (and most loved) fitness names. Denise Austin is the star of numerous television fitness shows, including 'Getting Fit with Denise Austin' (ESPN2) and later 'Fit and Lite' and 'Denise Austin's Daily Workout'. She is a professional trainer and gym instructor, prolific author and columnist and a member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. Her brand is incredibly successful, encompassing books, DVD's, fitness equipment, diet products and even a skincare range. Her online weight loss program, dubbed 'Fit, Forever!', has received numerous awards including 'Best Fitness Site' from Good Housekeeping Magazine. Denise Austin indicates that the site is intended to help people make smart choices to improve their mind, body and spirit. She says that everyone can lose weight by eating right, getting fit and feeling great!

Denise Austin has always, in all of her work, advocated the benefits of steady, sustainable weight loss and a sensible approach to exercise and fitness. This balanced approach is certainly visible in the way in which DeniseAustin.com is arranged - healthy eating and fitness are given equal importance, and the site makes clear that it is a combination of both that will provide for successful weight loss. While the site's membership fee is very similar to many other sites in our top ten, including its closest comparator, JillianMichaels.com, a particular gripe we had with DeniseAustin.com is that users have to pay an additional $19.95 at the start of their membership of the program to pay for an exercise DVD and exercise ball. This is irritating, especially as users may already have one or both of these items (especially due to Denise Austin's significant commercial proliferation!), and there is no option to decide not to purchase these items at the start of subscription.

That said, we were impressed with the dietary and fitness programs offered by DeniseAustin.com, and felt that they were produced with the specific needs of members in mind. The Fit Forever program is intended to operate as a kind of 'virtual personal trainer' for new members, easing them into the system and starting off their weight loss. While members remain subscribed to DeniseAustin.com after this six-week induction, users should be able to manage the system without such focused support, and can incorporate it into their daily lives from then on. The Denise Austin fitness program lasts 15 minutes each day, and combines a range of activities (all of which can be done at home, often with the aforementioned exercise ball) intended to improve cardio-vascular fitness, tone your body and speed up weight loss. Users also have access to a high quality (if somewhat limited) selection of recipes and meal plans intended to run parallel to the fitness plan. Users can also track their weight loss using the aptly named weight loss tracker, and record their feelings, cravings and more in the online journal. We did think the site lacked a meal and exercise tracker, which is often useful in allowing users to document calories eaten and calories burned, to help them identify what works best for them.

DeniseAustin, as with many online weight loss programs, also provides users with an excellent set of community features intended to support dieters as they progress towards their weight loss goals. Users can take advantage of message boards, and a buddy scheme in order to motivate themselves to keep going with the program and hit their weight loss targets. For some, daily newsletters and motivational messages from the site will help to keep you on track, but we suspect that for many, this will be a little too much, and there doesn't appear to be an option to turn these off. Generally though, the community support and motivational features of Denise Austin do the job of keeping members on the path to their weight targets, and enjoying the process.

Just like JillianMichaels.com, this site isn't perfect, but users are buying into the reputation of Denise Austin more than anything else. We were impressed by the complement of features and options available, but the site simply didn't offer enough variety to compete with those sites that rank higher in our reviews, such as eDiets.com or Diet.com. If you're interested however, check out the site by hitting the link below.