National Bandanna Day - Oct 26

Today is National Bandanna Day which helps raise important funds for young people with cancer. Please help Canteen raise funds and awareness through the purchase and wearing of a bandanna!

Wearing a bandanna sends the message to young people with cancer that they are not fighting it alone.

If you would like to buy a bandanna please visit Woolworths, Woolworths Petrol, Wendys, Super Cheap Auto, BCF, Goldcross Cycles, Amart, Ray’s Outdoors, Rebel Sport, Newslink, and GNC Live Well or street stalls nationally today.

Your support means that CanTeen can continue to run vital counselling and support programs as well as work to establish special youth cancer centres and services to help young people rebel against cancer.

SHE Magazine Body Beautiful feature - October 2

SHE Magazine's October edition came out today (published in the Gold Coast Bulletin) and I was lucky enough to participate in the mag's Body Beautiful feature!

I was joined by mummy and blogger Carly Electric and ex-Big Brother housemate Charne White where we talked body image, confidence and dealing with our body 'issues'. Since falling pregnant I have seen my body change dramatically and it was great to be able to discuss how my body has changed over the years and how I have grown to love my imperfections and be happy in my own skin. I feel like it was important for me to participate in this as I haven't always loved my body and growing up I did feel the pressure to look a certain way.

I just want to thank Liz, Lauren and Chantay and everyone at SHE Magazine for making this such a fantastic, positive experience to be part of.

Here are a couple of snaps from the publication : )

McDonalds loses Heart tick and beat for healthy options

Via AAP

McDonald's will lose the right to display the National Heart Foundation's Tick on foods marketed as healthy options.

The fast food giant pays about $300,000 a year so it can put the trademarked Tick next to fish burgers, salads and chicken wraps. 

But the Heart Foundation has told McDonald's it is removing the company's right to use the Tick, which has been used to promote its foods during the past five years, News Ltd reports.

A number of smaller takeaway chains, including gourmet pizza group Crust, will also lose the Tick, but the symbol will remain on supermarket foods.

The foundation's chief executive Lyn Roberts said the move was not a criticism of McDonald's but a change in direction to concentrate on ingredients delivered to restaurants and food outlets. 

The foundation also plans to announce a new plan to conduct random tests on restaurant and takeaway food for levels of saturated fat and salt.

What does this mean for you as a consumer? I know that I never went to McDonalds with the hope of eating something healthy – I went for the French Fries, Cheeseburger and McNuggets!

I barely go to the fast food chain, but at least they offered something that was deemed healthy so that people who wanted to the option of choosing something that was better for them, could do so.

What are your thoughts regarding this? Are you surprised that the ‘tick’ has been taken away? Did you or anyone you know actually choose the healthy options offered on the McDonald’s menu?

Let me know!

Making changes for the better

With lots of new and exiting things happening in my life, I’ve decided that I want to do a complete overhaul so that I can be in the best physical shape and have the healthiest mind/body I’ve ever had.

I’ve decided to join Hello Sunday Morning (http://hellosundaymorning.com.au/) and have joined many others who have taken the pledge to give up alcohol for a minimum of three months.

I can honestly say I am pretty proud of myself for making this commitment – it’s not as though I rely on alcohol, but I do like to have a glass of wine from time to time. It’s more the excessive consumption on a weekend that I think I really need to cut back on.

I think binge drinking in Australia, especially from 18-30 year olds is a growing problem and it’s sad because it often causes irreversible damage to those who abuse alcohol.

As part of my total transformation I’ve also decided that I want to know more about the food me and my family are consuming. 

I love cooking, as most of my friends would know, and I’ve realised that it’s no good putting things into our bodies when we don’t even know what they are. For instance, if you read the back of a chip packet and there are several different preservatives, added colours and flavours and ingredients that you can’t even pronounce… why would you eat something that you couldn’t even say?

I’ve decided that anything I cook, I am making from scratch so that I know exactly what is in the meal I’ve made.

Cutting back on red meat and animal products in general is also something I’ve committed to doing and to clarify, I don’t mean turning vegetarian.

What many people don’t realise is that consuming meat-and-three-veg is not an ideal diet to survive on. It’s proven that red meat causes cancer if consumed on a regular basis (or more than four times a week).  Saturated animal fats are among the worst kinds of fat we can put into our bodies.

So in the spirit of understanding the things I consume, I’ve decided I am going to do a course in nutrition – not full time, but I just want to take it up as a part-time hobby, because I’m generally interested in making a change and being better educated when it comes to what I put in my body.

I have a couple of dear family friends who are battling life-threatening illnesses at the moment and they remind me that at the end of the day, being healthy and happy is the main thing in life. It’s not about materialistic crap – if you don’t have your health, you don’t have much of a life, so it’s important to look after yourself.

I am not judging anyone or making any outlandish statements by doing this – it’s just a personal decision and something I want to do for me. I still endeavour to be social and go out with friends who are drinking, but I’ll just stick to the mineral water thank you very much!

If anyone has participated in a nutrition course (on the Gold Coast) I’d really like to hear about your experience and what you got out of it.

Up in smoke

There has been a lot around lately about smoking and the proposed new Labor plan to introduce plain packets to deter people from buying them.

I am not a smoker and I really have to question the effectiveness of such a plan. Would someone who has smoked for 30 years give up just because their smokes come in a plain packet?

With several Coalition MPs backing Labor’s move, which the government says will cut smoking rates and improve public health, there have now been calls for the government to go further and ban donations from tobacco companies to parties.

In the Courier Mail, WA Liberal senator Chris Back was quoted as saying he didn’t believe plain packaging would cut smoking rates.

"If the product is so bad that companies can't use their own brand to actually sell it then the government ought to ... say, should it be legal in the first place?'" he said.

Federal health minister Nicola Roxon admits that although the move to remove advertising on cigarette packages may not reduce smoking rates, that it would bring about a change in how the tobacco companies operated.

Have you all seen the recent $61 million campaign based around lung cancer and smoker’s cough on television and billboards? I saw an ad on the back of a taxi, with a man coughing up blood and the slogan saying The cost of his cigarettes isn’t the only thing he will cough up. Clever words from a PR standpoint but I am not sure of the overall impact… 

We have all seen those graphic ads on TV where they cut the chest of a smoker open to reveal blackened lungs and clogged arteries… I think that it’s unnecessary for people to have to see this kind of thing. I don’t condone smoking and I am aware of the health risks, but you can’t force people to quit by implementing shock and awe tactics.

People know smoking is bad for them and still decide to smoke; I don’t believe that a new multi-million dollar campaign or selling blank cigarette packs is going to change that.

I feel like this will be a never-ending battle until smoking is eventually made illegal, which seems unlikely to happen.

Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of preventable death and disease in Australia. It kills 15,000 people and costs taxpayers $31.5 billion a year.

Currently, 16 per cent of Australians are smokers. That equates to 3,618,888 Australians.