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Finally there is an acknowledgment of the dangers of secondhand smoke by the City Of Melbourne and Frankston councils.

Melbourne City Council will roll out there zero tolerance crackdown on smokers dropping their butts on the footpath with a $234 on the spot fine for discarding a lite cigarette or $117 fine if it’s extinguished.

Frankston City Council are taking a tougher stance with a proposed exclusion zone for smoking which is still to go before council for approval. If common sense prevails, the new trial will commence in September and end on the first of March 2011. This will ban smoking on 3 major streets including opposite the railway station.

With all the documented studies of the dangers of second hand smoke, I find it strange why smoking is still allowed where members of the public are exposed to this carcinogenic toxic gas.

Making changes, whether to your eating habits or changing smoking behavior is usually slow, too many immediate changes leads to people reverting back to their old habits within a short period of time or resisting the change all together.

The major breakthrough was the ban of smoking in pubs , cafes and restaurants, followed by the ban of smoking in outdoor areas, within 5 meters of children’s playgrounds and then in cars with children.
Of course there was the fear mongering saying that patronage would be effected which is wasn’t so of course fear will be more fear mongering campaigns, especially when the big tobacco companies are the big losers.

Well today at 6.00am it was 10º at Boot camp, 24º degrees cooler than last Tuesday morning at 6.00am when we had 34.2º.
So when they talk about Melbourne having 4 seasons in a day, I would like to redub that to “Melbourne four extreme seasons in one month”

For the weekend SNOW has been forecast down to 1600 metres in the Alpine areas of Falls Creek and Mt Hotham. Definitely, very extreme weather conditions!

At least we received some much needed rain and some mosquito and fly eradication with the colder temperatures. Funny though when I arrived at 5.45am and there were dark clouds looming in the distance, I said to myself that we will be fine and it will not rain during the session. Guess what, within 10 minutes of finishing the second session from 7.00-8.00am it bucketed with heavy rain. So maybe a coincidence but I must say that it rarely rains during our sessions.

Also a big congrats to all the Fitmates who braved the earlier heavier showers to attend our morning session. Once again it’s about commitment and overcoming the fears and belief systems that hold you back.

Well it seems to be occurring quite regularly, last night we had the Hottest overnight temperature on record in Melbourne at 32.3 degrees at 5.57am.
So by the time we started Boot camp at 6.00am it was almost at the temperature when we cancel the session.

It seems with climate change, we are experiencing these record breaking weather conditions with greater frequency, it was only in Spring last year that we experienced the warmest overnight temperature on record at 30 degrees at 6.00am

The current highest recorded daily minimum temperature (from midnight to 9.00am) was perviously 30.6 set in February 1902, so at 9.00am today, a teenee wenee bit warmer at 30.8.

So what’s next, 25 degrees overnight in Winter?
Hopefully Victoria will be ok with regards to the threat of catastrophic fires in the country areas with no more record breaking overnight minimum temperatures.

With the opening of Bike Park in Melbourne, cyclists have the unique situation of having public facilities dedicated to commuters riding to work.

In the Victorian era, Melbourne had large buildings whereby commuters could leave there bike while going about there daily tasks in the city, be it shopping or going to work.
Before the advent of the car and an integrated public transport system, the bike was the primary means of transport.

Fast forward to 2009 and we are experiencing a resurgence in this forgotten form of transport. Unfortunately riding a bike to work does have it’s logistically challenges, a place to leave the bike, shower facilities and a place to leave your nice sweaty bicycle apparel.

While I was in Amsterdam, I notice a similar facility for bike storage, it was huge!!!

With Melbourne’s roads getting more congested every year and the only government solution being building more freeways and toll roads, a cheaper and more economic way of getting people into the city is by bicycle.

The grand opening of bike park at Banana Alley on Flinders Street was on exactly one week ago, for more info check out www.bikepark.com.au.

Introducing bike parking and shower facilities is a move in the right direction to reduce road congestion or maintain the current levels of car usage.

The City of Melbourne Council has introduced a new Traffic light Nutritional Guideline system to food vendors at the food court at QV in Melbourne’s CBD to enable the public to make more informed choices about the nutritional value of foods without having to navigate any food labeling information.

The guidelines have been simplified into 3 colours, Red, Amber & Green which is universally understood by most people when referenced to traffic lights.

Red – less healthy choice

Nutritional value = Low
Saturated fat and/or sugar and/or salt = High
Kilojoules = High
Overall: Minimise/reduce consumption

Amber – ok choice, more about moderation

Caution to be exercised
Saturated fat and/or sugar and/or salt = Moderate
Kilojoules = High if consumed in large serving sizes
Nutritional value = Not significant enough to influence decision to purchase
Overall: Moderate consumption, foods are mainly processed

Green – The healthiest choice
Nutritional & Fibre value = High
Saturated fat and/or sugar and/or salt = Low
Kilojoules = Low
Overall: Aim to consume these when making decisions to buy

So far 9 Food Outlets have participated in this program that has been every menu item have been analysised subject to the accreditation process of Nutrition Australia.

This lead to some changes in the type of cooking oils used, substituting high fat diary products with low fat, leaner cuts of meat and introducing more fresh fruit & vegetables.

Check out the Melbourne City Council’s website for more info about the “Green Light, Eat Right” campaign

So overall definitely a move in the right direction by Melbourne City Council in introducing the traffic light nutritional guidelines.