Denise Welch doesn't need a gym membership to stay in shape. A few beach steps and a pool ledge will do just fine.

The chat show ‘Loose Women’ panellist and actor, now 68, recently shared a look at the workouts she completed poolside and on the beach in Malibu, following her son Matty's wedding. 

“Welch began with a run along the beach before moving into a simple bodyweight circuit,” wrote Kate Cheng in a Women’s Health article. “Using beach steps, benches and poolside sun loungers as equipment, she performed exercises including incline press-ups, tricep dips, air cycling and squats.”

The incline press-up targets the chest, triceps, shoulders and core. Welch used a raised surface like a bench or step, keeping her body in a straight line and lowering her chest toward it with her elbows tucked at roughly a 45-degree angle before pressing back up.

The tricep dip followed, working the triceps, shoulders, chest and core using nothing more than a bench and body weight. Sliding her hips off the edge with legs extended, she lowered her elbows to about 90 degrees before pressing back through her palms to straighten her arms.

Air cycling handled the core work. Lying on her back with knees bent to 90 degrees, Welch pedaled her legs through the air in large circles, targeting the lower abs, obliques and hip flexors while keeping her lower back pressed to the floor.

The squat rounded out the circuit, hitting the quads, glutes, hamstrings and lower back. Standing with feet slightly wider than shoulder-width, she pushed her hips back and lowered until her thighs were roughly parallel to the floor before driving back up through her heels.

Basically, you can do a workout anywhere, as demonstrated by Welch as per the Women's Health article.

But exercise is only part of the fitness; the rest is all diet and dedication.

The Strategy Welch employs to keep her weight off

Denise Welch's transformation didn't start in a gym. It started with giving up alcohol.

Her weight loss journey began back in 2013, right around the time she married her husband and stopped drinking. But the pounds didn't disappear right away; she found herself substituting alcohol for food instead.

"There is this thing that if you take alcohol out of your life, you immediately lose weight, but actually, it's very often the case that the complete opposite is true," Welch told the Express.co.uk, as published by Good to Know.

Weight management program LighterLife became the plan that changed things. Welch lost two stone on it ahead of her 2014 wedding and has maintained the loss ever since, crediting the program with teaching her to pause before eating and check whether she's actually hungry or just stressed.

Maintenance mattered just as much as the initial loss. Welch follows a 5:2 approach, warning against the common trap of abandoning healthy habits once a goal weight is reached.

She still allows herself treats, often fish and chips on Sundays, framing it as an informed choice rather than restriction. Running rounds out her routine, alongside therapy that helped her address emotional eating at its root.

Do you think having a good plan is the key to lasting weight loss? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Zaid Quraishi

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi