Fitness first relaunches

As part of RNIS Healthy living month.
Fitness First relaunched and RNIS was invited to try them for one week
As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

And so they did attend.

Fitness first started in 1990's and today they have branches all over Australia.

The Melbourne Central one is quite good. We enjoyed the sauna, the exercise bike, the kettleball class and the hardcore one. We tried everything.


The classes are at lunchtime and during the evening and they go for half an hour. Do not have food less than half an hour before your gym sessions as it takes about half an hour for your food to digest. You will get sick and sore stomach from it if you go straight after food.

The kettle ball was great, we did lots of lunges for 30 minutes. But was easily tired afterwards. I might have to do some at home everyday. Lifting a heavy 6kg ball was hard. At home I don't have 6 kg balls.  My instructor was great in showing me the techniques.

The instructors are lovely and they take you through step by step as to what you need to do. At the bike we burned 103 cal per half an hour and we rode 7km. On the first day I was super tired.

There are lockers available for use by the members.

Some essential items sold here should you need

Free hairdryer for use by the members

The shockwave was the better one of the two classes that I went to. Here you can try lots of different things in three rounds. Each time after the first time it gets faster and easier. This shockwave there was rowing, jumping, block climbs and running. And giving my bum and legs a good workout.

Membership starts from $104 per month.

Want a snack afterwards? You can buy the health bars for $2.20- $3 or you can bring your own. I'm lucky to be near an office full of free water but if you are not then its best to bring your own.

Real fit food demo

RNIS was invited to this event by Realfoods but had to buy their own pizza.
As part of RNIS Healthy living month.
As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Each semester Realfoods has a cooking demonstration which is themed. This one was themed around Brain food and eating the right foods for it. It was during Mental Health and Organic week.

Held at their cafe, it attracted a lot of people. People that you don't normally see at RMIT. It was also two weeks before the end of semester exams. Hence this was a good time to learn about a healthy and positive mind.

You are what you eat

This is all about making the right choices. Try and have salads more days of the week. Do visit the markets on Saturdays and Sundays for fresh local produce.

Green tea helps to improve your concentration. In Japan many people drink it and it helped their memory.

Being positive

Think positively. Also try and make the right decisions.



Other tips

Be active. Exercise every day. Try eating lots of greens.

Wake up early. When you wake up early your metabolism is a a lot faster meaning that you burn a lot more fat.

Relax. Close your eyes for a minute and breathe in and out for a few minutes.

Many thanks to Realfoods for the invite.

Annoying Brother by Claudia

RNIS bought a Groupon for this which was $8 for breakfast burrito and coffee.

Annoying Brother is in Carlton and its known by locals and bloggers such as Eat and be merry for their coffee and breakfasts alike. The owner is a lovely guy who lives in Preston.

The funky decor

Tip jar

Salt,pepper and sugar

The atmosphere is lovely and the place is close to the number 96 tram into the city. The place is small and kitchy just like the rest of Carlton.

My short black smelt a little whiney and tasted flowery. They do have single origin and that's what I had in the form of a short black.

There was one other table and they mixed up there orders as well as mine. They almost gave me a ham and cheese croissant. Fortunately they told me that they were just new.

The waitress was outside cleaning the window on a bar stool and it looked really unsafe. She looked like she was going to fall.

I am a little miss no meat and I ordered my burrito with no meat in it. On the first presentation there was bacon in there. I had to remind the waitress of my order of no bacon. Luckily they remade it and it was suburb. I love the fresh avocado in there and I loved the tomato relish. The eggs were just perfect. It was just like the way I make it at home.

Rating: 13/20 Good burrito, but letdown by bad service. I really do hope that they pick up their game or otherwise they will not be business for long.

Perhaps they should invest in a small step ladder.

Alcohol

 As part of RNIS's Healthy living month
As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

It is important not to get too drunk. Each year many first year International students get too drunk whilst in Australia because they are not used to our drinking culture and the standard cup sizes. So here is a guide to help you.

How much should I have in a day?

Men= not more than 4 standard drinks per day
Women= not more than two.

Don't drink every day as it is not good for your live, skin and cells. Do drink occasionally like once every three weeks.

There are light, mild and heavy beers. For the light ones you can have one glass. There are cocktails which have a little less alcohol in them.

What are the effects of drinking too much?
There are several such as being too violent, crashing, feeling faint and the list goes on and on. It is an offense to be drunk in a public place and if you are drunk in a public place then you can be fined $5000 for it.

It is also an offense to be driving whilst you are drunk. It does take at least 1-3 hours for your alcohol to have digested. In Victoria you must have 0.00 (L and P plates) or 0.05 (fully licensed) blood alcohol limit to be able to drive.

So the message is: try not to get drunk. You can always say no at the beginning of the shout by saying that "I'm not going to drink!". You could also say that "I will be working the next day and I need a clear head". Or "I am driving".

Hare and Grace

As part of RNIS's Good Food month series

Hare and Grace is a very popular lively bar at the corner of King and Collins street which is a short walk from my workplace.

Pine decorations

Homemade sauce

But it gets busy at lunchtime with all the suits coming in and dining on their $15 lunch special which happened to be wagyu burger. Apparently the steak and wagyu burger deal has been raved about by foodies alike and it happened to be one of Hare and Grace's special.

The atmosphere is relaxed and casual at lunchtime and they have another lunchtime special as well which is 2 courses with wine for $40. Now they did not tell me that my Entertainment membership is not valid for specials eventhough in the book it said that it is. When I looked at the Entertainment book site it said that it was. I could pay the $15, but its just a note for other members.

The wagyu was to die for. It didn't take long for it to arrive at the table, but I saw that there were others waiting for food and drinks which seemed to take a little bit longer. The lady that served me was charming, the guy that settled my bill was not. He seemed tired and hungover.

I loved the brioche bun and the salad in the burger. It was plenty there. But however they could have caramelised the onions to make the burger more worthwhile. I didn't mind that they forgot the ketchup in the burger. In fact I liked it that way as it is good for those that want to lose the weight. But the melted cheese is good.

Rating: 14/20- good meal. The service leaves a lot to be desired. And what's with the No Entertainment deal for all their specials?

Sumosalad and the Couch BBQ

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

The Couch had their BBQ on one fine evening at Flagstaff gardens. Here everyone had heaps of fun. There was soccer and loads of talking and sharing.

But since I am pescatrian I couldn't have meat. So of course I had to have salad with bread. With that in mind I went to Sumosalad in Melbourne Central. Here they are outside the train station hence they cater for commuters who are on diets or who just want to be healthy.

They have three sizes to take away: small, medium and large. The small is from $8 and the large is $11.93 (your choice of three salads). I chose a superfood salmon one with rice, beetroot and dahl and pumpkin and feta. I enjoyed them but the one that I particularly loved was beetroot. It had lots of flavour in there and not too much dressing. They are low in fat and great in providing lots of nutrients, hence they are good for dinner in summertime. You can add superfood to your salad for $1 but I thought seeing as I have a superfood in there, I did not.

They also do wraps as well but its mainly for lunch

After dinner I enjoyed playing a little bit of soccer in the park. And I enjoyed enjoyed patting some very cute friendly dogs. 

My month on all things vegetarian, fish and biodynamic yogurt by Claudia

This month as part of RNIS's healthy living month I decided to embark on all things vegetarian, fish and biodynamic as a chance for me to learn about being fit and living a healthy lifestyle. A lot of the times International students eat too many fatty food as it is cheap. But what they don't know is that all the fatty food is doing a lot of damage to their systems which might not be covered by OHSC (eg liposuction).

What they also don't know is that being healthy is not that expensive at all.

A wee bit about myself and why I decided to do this challenge

I am a student who didn’t do much exercise and ate out too much. As a result I have put on 15 kgs in the winter time. I had my heater on too high. I also had a coffee addiction to flat whites.

I also developed sore knees due to having to carry too much weight. As a result of all the fatty food during the winter months and being cooped up indoors I developed a lot more pimples. During wintertime I had irregular sleeping patterns which contributed to my weight gain.

Healthy eating

This month I ate salads on a regular basis as well as homemade pasta. I did not know that most of the foods outside contain MSG (known as a type of fatty oil). A lot of the meat dishes outside contained this.

Outside I ate a lot of seafood and vegetarian dishes. Sally was very understanding about this and so were some of my other friends. I did accidentally sneak in a piece of meat but that was from a Teppanyaki.

I had many juices, yoghurts and museli to get rid of the fat. The first few days I had a little bit of diarrhea because of all the bad fats stored inside during winter. One place that I went to was Five Plus smoothie and you can read about it when it is posted.

During this month I learnt about portion control. During winter because I was stressed out a lot due to uni and family pressures I ate waay too much. In winter I ate about 3-4 servings of fruit which had a lot of sugar. In wintertime I didn’t eat as much vegetables as in the summertime.

Some habits that I changed was enjoying a long black rather than a Flat white. Flat Whites have a lot of milk and calories. I started enjoying muesli and yoghurt and plain bread. I also started loving tomatoes and fresh produce. During this time I went to Fredericks. I also started seeing that soup and sushi are full meals not just snacks.

Losing the weight

It was quite hard at first as I am a slow weight loser, but slowly the weight came off. During that time, being a girl I had a very heavy menstrual flow hence it helped to take some of the load off.

Exercise and play

This month I did a whole heap of exercise including walking in the park and playing in the park. It was so much fun but it took some time to get used to. I also did some incidental exercise such as crunches whilst waiting for the kettle to boil. I also ended doing some of the housework for my flatmates for once

Doing a lot of exercise made me sleep better at night. By day 5 almost all my pimples were gone.

Our tips

• Your plate- it should be half veg, 1/4 carbs, 1/4 seafood and meat.
• The carbs should be the size of your fist
• Wake up early in the mornings as it helps your metabolism.
• Drink lots of water

Our resolutions
 We have started writing and road testing healthy solutions for next years Bupa Health blog competition. We are not in it to win but we would like to pick up lots of good things along the way and share them

This post is a part of Bupa's best blogs competition for 2015

Beer Deluxe's International Food Garden

The Food Garden is on every Wednesday from 5pm right up until Christmas. It is held in Beer Deluxe's beer garden. Beer Deluxe is known for its specialty beers and good times.

For every ten stamps you win you'll go into the draw to win a STA $500 voucher. Prize to be drawn on the 17th of December.

You'll need to collect your passport at the Paella station (by the way it is $5 and the best paella that I have tried) and then get your stamps at the individual stations (by the way the stations rotate each week). But this week it was Eat Your Chicken and Hoa Pinoy. Eat your Chicken is a Thai Food stall that does chicken but they also do vegetarian food.

For starters I had an Asian Duck breast slider ($5 each). It came with slaw and was messy to eat. With a slider I would have prefered a brioche bun rather than the McDonalds like bun. The duck was overcooked. How could I tell? It was tough and dry.

The paella ($5) was great.

Eat your chicken's Pad Thai noodles ($10 for the vegetarian one) was small but moreish and was just right.

The entertainment at the bar was great and I loved sitting outdoors on this spring like day. The outside beer garden seemed to get busy fairly quickly so you do need to book ahead via Dimmi. But people also got takeaway.

Great on Beer Deluxe for having such an event for all the alcoholics as they say you should have some food for every one drink you had and the bar food can be dull and boring. Great on them for bringing life into their bar

Do come along for the adventure

McDonald's Rump steak wrap

As part of RNIS's Healthy Living Month
As part of Bupa;'s best blog competition for 2015

This week the RNIS bloggers found themselves at the Maccas pop up shop.

McDonalds rump steak has about 11-20grams of fat and has heaps of saturated fat which is not good for your heart. The mini taster has 1250 kj (energy) which is only good for a sometime treat. It didn't have a lot of lettuce but it had lots of beef rump which is fattening.

Fresh lettuce

Tray of them for everyone

The tortilla wrap was oily and had heaps of msg in there.

Now it is only $3 at Maccas for the small wrap. Do buy and have a salad as well to be on the healthy side.

Kotodama at The Bottom end

Kotodama is a Japanese meetup event and this event was organized at a little bar called The Bottom end. The Bottom end is a student bar in the seedy part of Melbourne right near BrimCC Organic Japanese. They don't have many vegetarian things but they do have a $10 burger and chips special. And rad drinks.

But they are rather smelly and the floor is really sticky. But I guess we are not here to judge a bar on that. Rather their accoustics and drinks they serve. They serve $10 jugs of beer on a Friday night which went well with large groups.

Their yakisoba ($5 for a small) was rather salty and a little bit meaty for their vegetarian ones and their Agedashi tofu for $4 was a bargain.

But what I thought was $2 was the small lemonade which was actually $4 and there was a huge lineup for that. Oh well. They had two people at the bar when they should have had more people to serve the 500 guests or more. But at least they have two bars which were both pumping.

But at least the DJ was good and so was the band

Many thanks to the various Japan clubs for organizing this.