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By having self belief and positive thinking with what you want to achieve, anything is possible to change your life. After a job loss Bruce’s self belief that you can achieve what ever you set your mind to had awesome results.

A common trend amongst the manufacturing sector in Australia occurred at the compressor manufacturing company Bruce at worked at for a number of years with 40% of the workforce being made redundant. With Bruce being his early 50′s, the prospect of gaining employment would be challenging and for a lot of people may represent a very low point in their life.

Well for Bruce and Lindy this represented a watershed moment where they were kindly pushed to pursue their own business, something that may not have otherwise eventuated.

From there home in Melbourne’s bayside suburb, they sold the house and purchased this beautiful B & B with restaurant called “The Shed at Trawool” in the foothills of the Strathbogie Ranges in Victoria with there severance pay.

Well for Lindy and Bruce who had zero experience in hospitality, this was no obstacle as they had the belief that they can make it happen and learn the skills necessary to run a successful business, in Bruce’s words “Would rise to the challenge” while Lindy new she was a great cook and could adapt to managing 45 people after her experience managing a medical centre.

Successful it is, within only 6 months from the initial purchase, the booking’s over winter have been very strong with patronage to their restaurant regularly filling to the 45 person capacity.

They recently had a couple celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary. The great thing about this positive change that Bruce and Lindy made was there work/life balance is in check, if they want to take some time out to relax during the day, they can as they recognise it’s all about getting balance in your life, rather than go, go, go all of the time.

Often we talk about making changes in our life, where it’s setting goals for weight loss, trying to get a better work/life balance, spending more time with the family or big hairy audacious goals such as selling the family home and buying a business.

Ultimately you have to believe in yourself and think positively about achieving your goals.

In the Age today was an article about how there is a movement away from owning physical stuff such as DVD’s, CD’s and books to digital versions or electronic formats.

What is being experienced is by owning less stuff and having less attachment to physical stuff is leading to lower levels of stress and more freedom. The other benefit is saving on $$$ as you don’t need such a large house to accommodate all of this stuff and less time to organise and manage all of this stuff.

So having less possessions and things is actually creating more freedom both physically and mentally. A crazy concept in today’s world of mass consumption.

Kelly Sutton, who was featured in the article commented that “The less you own, the less you have weighing you down and the less that’s stressing you so I couldn’t be happier and more mobile . He has a website documenting all of this at “www.cultofless.com/items”.

So by having more time in your life you can look after yourself with more exercise and have the time to cook healthy meals and more importantly something we are all missing, “me time”.

It’s a bit of a cliche but you have to treat your body like a temple and worship it regularly, quite often we place higher importance on everything other than our own body, working long hours, poor diet, too much stress, limited R & R, so ultimately what we put into our body we get out, GIGO, Garbage in Garbage out.

During the stretching component of our boot camp last night a few Fitmates were commenting on how much better they feel after a bit of exercise following a hard day at the office.

These days unfortunately the stresses of work are compounded by additional financial pressures with meeting mortgages and the costs of living in our modern society. Quite often we are time poor and we have limited opportunities for physical exertion with longer working days and balancing the home/family life. Australia actually is in the top 10 for the highest average hours worked per week.

The great thing that our Fitmates noted was while they were exercising they forgot about work and could begin to unwind from the days work activities. Even one Fitmate in particular had an amazing amount of energy that was redirecting captured energy from a heavy day at the office. Even the other Fitmate’s were suitably impressed by her awesome energy at knocking out punch after punch.

Unfortunately there is a rising number of people consuming an excessive amount of alcohol in many instances as way to “unwind” from the days work activities.

This increased alcohol consumption has attracted the attention of the government to introduce educational programs recommending that people have 2 alcohol free days per week. This is really saying that there is a proportion of the population that is drinking above the recommended daily intake of 2 standard drinks on a daily basis. What may surprise people that that big goblet of a wine glass may be well over a standard drink which is 100ml for red wine.

Another by product is insomnia for some people who cannot “switch off” and keep churning through the days activities and stresses.

So maybe try fitting in some exercise after work, even if it means going for a walk around the block or parking the car a little further from the railway station or office car park. You may be surprised how much better you feel:))

With energy drinks, caffeine and other stimulants consumption on the increase, are re we turning into a sleep deprived overworked society?
With the latest revelations about The AFL’s acceptance of caffeine loading by AFL players, is this setting a good example for those who look up to these players for inspiration.

Unfortunately energy drinks represent the strongest beverage growth segment worth a staggering $593 or 23% of the impulse market in 2009, with only soft drinks representing occupying the number one spot for highest market share according to Neilsen data

Just look at the growth in coffee on recent years, the good old international roast has been replaced with a cappuccino or latte on the way to work. Even McDonalds, not to miss out on the coffee revolution has European style coffee at there drive throughs and restaurants. (I’m yet be be convinced you can produce a great coffee from a manual)

The most disturbing trend are the number of children consuming energy drinks like there having a soft drink. Suddenly the regular 250ml energy drink such as V and Red Bull has grown in size.
Not to be out done Coke Cola released there own brand called “Mother” to appeal to the youth market, with a mega can at 500ml at a whopping 32mg caffeine per 100ml or 160mg of caffeine.

The real concern is that consuming this level of caffeine on a regular basis is not great for your health. The promotion of these products are so wide spread that even when you fill up at your local petrol station there are advertisements for these types of products.

The most disturbing part of our over reliance on stimulants is why.
Are we trying to gave it all, family life, friends, the McMansion, all the conveniences of modern life, mobile phones, home computers, video games, Internet accounts, stuff, new cars, long stressful hours in the office to pay for this stuff or the time spent using these new acquisitions.

Well something has to give and it’s your health, so are we on stimulant over consumption mode to squeeze more onto the day?

A recent Nielsen poll found that Austtralians are on average spending 17.6 hours per week on the internet with 75% of those users using social networking sites. More concerning is children spending up to 22 hours in front of the computer screen surfing the net rather than being involved in physical exercise.

With Australia’s obesity rate going out of control there needs to be a change in our technilogical behavior. More alarming is that this phenomenon is starting to lead to obsessive compulsive type behavior and stress.

Part of leading a healthy lifestyle is having downtime to switch off and disconnect. I find it concerning that people cannot resist the temptation to check emails after work hours on there new smart phones even if there is a high probability it’s work related.

As technological advances in the area of instant communication and connecting with information, we are slowly eroding any down time.

It’s interesting that people often site the lack of time or tiredness for not exercising or adopting a healthier eating regime but as a society we are prioritising gluing our eyeballs to the computer or mobile phone screen, be it looking at/sending emails, SMS messaging, instant chat and surfing the internet.

I often wonder whether life back in the 1950′s may have been better for your health without all the latest technological gadgets.

We are moving towards a fatter, more fatigue society and unfortunately the internet and social networking responsibilities aren’t helping.