Melbourne Boot Camp

While talking to a taxi driver in Malaysia he had an interesting story of how his mother extracted latex from rubber trees and the transportation involved.

The process of extracting latex harks back to the traditional methods called tapping, which involves making an incision in a spiral like pattern around the trunk of a palm tree. Every day the tapper will collect the latex that had weeped from the palm tree into a little bowl on the side of the trunk. On average a person tap 100 to 150 palm trees per day.

The most interesting part of this story was that the taxi driver’s mother tapped up to 500 palm trees per day and collected 728 gallons of latex or 25 to 30 L (the equivalent weight of 25/30kgs). The most amazing part is that at the end of every day his mother who was 55 would carry the day’s worth of latex over her shoulders into 2 aluminium buckets connected by flexible timber rod and travel 2 -3 kms to the deposit zone.

On average the tappers would work from the age of 18 to 55 years old with the children clearing the ground around the canopy of the palm trees of weeds and other plant material. This work was very physically exhausting with minimal pay which made this a very demanding type of work exercise.

Very funny fitness quote regarding why a fitmate couldn’t make it to our Carlton Boot camp one morning “Reversed car hit wall missed Boot camp”.

It all started when Lisa L’s mum asked her to move her car, she thought she could park the car closer to the front door as she had some stuff to unload.

As Lisa went to reverse car, she inadvertently hit the accelerator to hard and when straight for the pillar and up onto the patio. She doesn’t quite know what happened as it was all so fast.

However I love her optimism, if she had driven forwards, the pillar could have gone through the windscreen or the verandah may have fallen down.

“Hasn’t been my year, anything that could have happened has happened (in bad stuff). So with 2011 a new year full of optimism and only good stuff ahead:))

With our Fitstyler awards now 12 months away, I think Lisa has blown away the competition very early for the best excuse for missing boot camp.

Shaken but not stirred:))

Very funny seeing some guys doing some Christmas dancing in the park in preparation for a surprise performance at their primary schools annual concert. With nice balmy weather conditions and plenty of enthusiasm will surely make this a big hit.

While there are many different activities conducted in the park I haven’t yet seen the West side story style dancing, well I would have to give hundred and 10% for their enthusiasm and attitude.

I guess a little alcohol may help to ease the nerves of practicing in public however this is not the recommended or ideal way of overcoming stage fright. Perhaps I can adopt some of their moves for one of our Fitstyler boot camp sessions:))))

Our local park has seen many activities recently, including the annual dogs Christmas party that saw a massive turnout.

With open space options becoming a scare commodity as increasing urban density places pressure on land usage, it’s great to see people out and about enjoying our magnificent parks.

With consumers becoming more health conscious and trying to adopt a healthier lifestyle, is food advertising misleading consumers to make inappropriate choices.

While advertising standards govern what claims can be made in respect of the particular products or services and Food Standards Australian and New Zealand addressing some issues regarding contents of products it’s a free for all with saying whatever you like regarding the benefits of particular foods or insinuating the source of the ingredients.

A good example of a product is the Spring Valley apple juice, this advertisement was placed on the side of the tram shelter. It gives the impression of freshness, purity and nature, that the juice is derived from a natural stream with abundant wildlife in the background.

While consumers obviously know that Spring Valley product doesn’t come from a stream, it does create the overall impression of freshness, purity and nature that together projects a healthy product.

However when you look a little bit deeper at the nutritional panel, it paints a different story with 99% of the Apple juice being reconstituted. So is reconstituted juice really fresh, Does the tagline in the advertisement “where spring comes from” really give a true indication that the product contains reconstituted juice?.

Well reconstituted juice contains aseptic juice which is apple juice which is being heated to kill any bacteria and other nasty stuff installed for anywhere up to two years.

On the front of the actual Orange juice label is a mini label stating that each serve contains 9% of the daily energy intake, however the product contains 12.3% sugar.

There is also a note saying a rich source of vitamin C however the ingredients panel states that vitamin C (absorbing acid) has been added. So in effect it’s one step away from actually consuming a vitamin C tablet however in a more digestible form. It makes for an interesting question if the products is natural and pure given the added Vitamin C and what has happened to the vitamin C naturally contained within the Apple juice.

So while drinking apple juice in the reconstituted form is better than a soft drink, it does beg the question whether there should be more responsible advertising standards in regards to the messages being projected at consumers.

While this isn’t in the same category as Cokes misleading advertisements, we need to have some accountability.

Last night there was a dog’s Christmas party at Edinburgh Gardens in Melbourne.

Unfortunately while I was running Boot Camp, I didn’t have my camera with me to take the photo of 200+ people out enjoying a lovely BBQ with their dogs.

Being in the inner-city, you wouldn’t expect to find so many dog owners given that we have smaller backyards and in many cases no backyard at all however people are using their local parks as an extension of their own backyard.

We are very fortunate in North Fitzroy to have this absolutely magnificent Victorian Park. With our very abundant rainfall over spring and now into summer, the trees of full of new foliage and the grass is growing at such an accelerated rate that the Council workers are almost back on a weekly basis to mow the lawn.

So if you own a dog and live North of Melbourne, check out Edinburgh Gardens and meet other dog owners.

If you’re looking to do some exercise yourself with your dog, we have put together some fun exercises with your dog to get you started.

At fitstyler we also encourage people to bring their dogs along to boot camp provided that they are well-behaved and don’t present a risk to other Fitmates.