Technology: Fit Bit

Fit Bit is a watch that tells you as to how many calories burnt and consumed. They come in a few different styles and designs. This one is a Charge Fitbit. The watch is comfortable to wear. I got this as a present from a friend. Normally it retails about $150-$200 and its a good Christmas gift for gym freaks.

Fitbit Charge 2 from the Fitbit site

With it comes an app that allows you to see how much you are burning and you can log your food intake in.

Healthy International students talks about the Fit bit app.

This is only for people with the Fit bit. This app is really easy to use and it tracks your exercise. Here it will tell you how many calories you have burnt throughout.  The app synchronises the Fit bit so you'll know when the battery is low.

It is easy to use. When you sign up to Fitbit it will automatically sync your devices. You just need to enter your fitbit type in there and then it will show your fitness info

(from https://healthyintstudentssiterubixcomblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/30/fit-bit-app-by-akira/)

Do buy the watch if you are step conscious. You can buy this here

Hahn releases a new beer

Hahn is a well known beer company which uses the best ingredients to make their beers. They are an Australian beer company which started about two decades ago.

Hahn are always thinking of some cheeky ways to promote their beer. This is just one of them

This beer smells like apple and works well with pretzels. It has only 0.2% of alcohol. This is great for people that can't tolerate too much alcohol. This is super light and is healthy. This is not sweet at all. It also works well with barbequed meats and pulled pork rolls.

This beer is available at all BWS stores and Dan Murphys so do get yours now.

Product review: Fuze tea

Fuze tea is a new tea drink which was just introduced into the market in sometime January. RNIS first heard of it at the Australian Open when the teas were being sampled.

Fuze tea from chiukatherine@instagram

This is not as sweet as other teas as they use stevia in their teas. This is great for your fluid intake. They use stevia which is a natural sweetener and is quite alright for Febfast; a challenge in which we participated in.

There are five flavours: peach, mango, original, raspberry, lemon. You can buy them in big 1L bottles or smaller bottles for on the go at Woolworths and Coles. They are usually about $1.50-$6 depending on what you buy and where. The city stores might be a little bit more expensive as they usually have to cover the high rent.

Do buy your healthy tea now and make sure you stay hydrated

Melbourne releases a new monopoly board

There is a new monopoly board and its all about Melbourne. Here it feautres Melbourne's best coffee places, restaurants and attractions. All of which make up Melbourne. Today it was launched and it retails for $50 in toy stores and MYER all over Melbourne.

For the chances and community chest the acitivites would be things like betting on horses at the Melbourne Cup or dining out, things that would be uniquely Melbourne

For Monopoly lovers this is a good gift for anytime

 

What goes where?

BROWN
London: Old Kent Road and Whitechapel
Melbourne: Hosier Lane and Hardware Lane
LIGHT BLUE
London: Pentonville Road, Euston Road and The Angel, Islington
Melbourne: Great Ocean Road, Dandenong Ranges and Eureka Skydeck
PINK
London: Pall Mall, Whitehall and Northumberland Avenue
Melbourne:  Emporium Melbourne, Queen Vic Market and Chapel Street
​ORANGE
London: Vine Street, Marlborough Street, Bow Street
Melbourne: Etihad Stadium, Rod Laver Arena and Flemington Racecourse
RED
London: Trafalgar Square, The Strand and Fleet Street
Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, Arts Centre Melbourne and Royal Exhibition Building
YELLOW
London: Picadilly, Leicester Square and Coventry Street
Melbourne: Brighton Bathing Boxes, Bells Beach and St Kilda
GREEN
London: Regent Street, Oxford Street and Bond Street
Melbourne: The University of Melbourne, Shrine of Remembrance, and Melbourne Zoo
DARK BLUE
London: Mayfair and Park Lane
Melbourne: MCG and Federation Square
UTILITIES AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Melbourne Water; Flinders Street Station, Southern Cross Station, Parliament Station and Melbourne Central Station

Do buy it now

Advertorial: The Yelp App and free/discounted stuff

Yelp is an online review company from the US. It started in Australia about three months ago and is going strong.

Here users can find and check in their places. The app tracks your location. You can write reviews good or bad in there.  As a student I love getting free stuff so checking into places is worth it and you can get a badge or two from there for just the number of times you have checked into places.

I got a free palata from Chillbro palatas. A palata is a Mexican ice cream and mine was lovely. There are other free stuff that you can get from cafes and restuarants such as free wine or hot drinks or food. Some of them such as Gaylord offer 10% discount.

The app is free to download and its quick. Signing in to it is really easy. You can't write reviews on the app but you can write them on the website on your computer.

It is available on iTunes and Google Play. It is free to download

Advertorial: The Zomato app and free risotto

The Zomato App has been around for a little while and works on any phone. Here you can review, check in and take photos of places. Like the website you can comment on stuff.

Occassionally restaurants will offer free food to those that check in as part of their promotion and The Lounge at 243 Swanston st did just that with their $9 lunch menu. You can choose from 9 items for $9 each day.

Here I chose the risotto which was quite cheesey. It had lots and lots of onion on top and was lovely.

You can download the app from Google Play and iTunes and it is free for everyone

Advertorial: Sipahh straws

RNIS received this product at a launch of Tinitrader

 Sipahh straws is a fun and innovative way to drink milk. This is a great way to convince those that don't like milk to like it. Here you open the packet put the straw into a cup of cold milk and drink away. There is no need to stir it in. And it's suggested that you drink it within five minutes and that was true.

We tried the strawberry one and that was really great. There was bursts of flavour and there was a bit of sweetness. The flavour was in those little tiny beads in the straw.

Do buy these straws for a good healthy afternoon treat. You can get them from your local supermarket

Colgate's new Optic white toothpaste

 Colgate has been around for a long time and now they introduce whitening.

It instantly brightens teeth within a few days. I got this toothpaste at the Melbourne Spring fashion festival and it worked a treat on my teeth.

Now I love coffee and tea and always have brown stains on my teeth.

All the stains from my teeth were instantly removed. Now I can smile with whiter and brighter teeth. You only just need a little bit of toothpaste.

Naked protein bars

Naked bars have been around for a while and I have first seen them at Fitness first

I got this from one of my showbags so I thought that I would try and share. It is normally available at Woolworths.

This is a really good snack to eat and my coach said that I need to eat every 2-3 hours and a good snack full of protein and carbs. The coach also said that you need to consume 2g of protein for every 1kg I weigh for muscle mass.

This bar has about 8.2g of protein and has raw cacao. Here it gave me the energy to do whatever I want. Hehe. I was full afterwards.

Do go out and buy this healthy snack instead of your usual chips and chocolate bars.

Vanilla protein shake done the commercial way and not the Herbalife way

I really didn't like this vanilla commercial shake that I made with the sample from Fitness first. It was not sweet nor thick. It was really watery. I shook it really well.

The ones at Herbalife are more filling and they are less heavy. In fact a tin of this is just a small canister that can fit in your bag. It just costs about $70-$80 and can only be bought from your local lifestyle centre which there are a few in Melbourne with always more popping up. Where as the ones at GNC and GoVITA are huge and expensive.

Sorry guys.

Old El Paso's new restorante tacos

Old El Paso is a Mexican food company which has been around for many years. It is a favourite household brand in Australia. Old El Paso has just released a new product that is supposed to taste good as well as saving time in the kitchen.

It is their new taco kits which you buy and make yourself at home.  Like the original ones these are always easy to make. You just need to buy the meat and the veg and they will take care of the rest.

I liked the steak taco better than the chicken tinga as it was sweet and the steak was very tender. It is easy to make.

Do yourself a favour and buy the Old El Paso's new taco kits available in your supermarket in the Mexican food aisle

Bondi Chai

Bondi Chai is a Sydney based company which has been successful for a while and they just released a new flavour. I picked up the sachets from the Melbourne Town Hall at an event to promote affordable housing for everyone.

I picked up two sachets so I had it twice at home with a lovely book to read

 I made this chai without milk for lactose intolerant people and I tried another one with milk. The oe with milk was a lot less sweeter than the one without milk. For health reasons I didn't froth the milk. Nowadays I like things without the froth in them as it tastes much better.

Bondi Chai isn't as spicy as some of the other chais are. The best chai would still have to be at the Indian stall hands down.

Cafe Italia's BARGAIN night

Cafe Italia has this BARGAIN night on the last Wednesday of each month and it is $20 all you can eat gnocchi. Here there are five different gnocchi meals that you can choose from and some of them is vegetarian and others are meat.

The $20 special. Picture by Cafe Italia on Facebook

You need to book and you can call the cafe directly. The cafe is in a laneaway in Carlton just off Lygon st.

You can order as much as you want but you can't takeaway and you can't vary the meal. It is just like a normal buffet. I came at 7pm and had three courses and bread (note the dessert one I had to pay an extra $8). I had only just water and no other drink. Other people however had wine.

Flowers

Their pastas and products

The atmosphere was pleasant and the staff were friendly. But because the restaurant was busy everything took long to come. I had the gorgonzola and pear gnocchi and the pesto with pine nuts gnocchi. For dessert I had the fried gnocchi which looked like a huge jam ball and it was really nice.

I found the pear and gorgonzola gnocchi to be too cheesy and there was not enough pear in there. However the gnocchi was pillowy in texture. The pesto one was really nice but again it had a little too much sauce. I loved the crunch of the pine nuts though. YUM.

The bread was just ok, maybe a little bit stale but who can complain.

But the dessert was the best part and it was fun! I really enjoyed the homemade jam and gnocchi ball with the cream. I had a ball eating it.

Rating: 15/20- two for the price of one for me and the dessert was amazing. I don't know why people don't stay around for the dessert as that is the best part. Do come to their next one and to find out when that is follow them on their Facebook page.

Windows Lumia

We tried the new Nokia Lumia 532 for the first time thanks to Study Melbourne. We tell it like it really is. Our phone is a big smartphone with a white back cover and a black front.

Image courtesy of windowsphone.com

This phone is rather easy to use, but hard to insert the SIM for the first time. But you need to charge it for at least a good few hours. I got the Nokia Lumia 532.

Some disadvantages of it

The cover was really hard to open and I needed a guy to do it.
Everytime when you plug it into the charger it automatically turns on.
It is hard to turn it to silent

Advantages

The WI FI works well and you need to have a Microsoft account for most things which is free

The pictures are really clear and like a Windows laptop it is touch screen with multiple facets. The phone has Office and other things. The One note app was useful. It in fact makes note creating a lot easier. You can type your note in using predicative text.

You can use Instagram Beta and I tried this on RMIT's WI-Fi which is really good. Unlike my last service the WI-Fi connections are pretty good.

The auto sync is really easy to begin with. Just simply plug the Windows phone into your laptop and its all good.

Line was really easy to use and it is included in your data plan. Line is another messaging app which is fun to use.

Facebook messenger works well with this. I can easily send messages on the go.

Do try the Windows phone and its available in every department store as well as the Optus store. This phone is locked to the Optus and Amaysim network.

X50 Supplements

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

I got this at one of the Fitness Expos for free to try it out and so I did.

X50 is a supplement used for detoxing you. They are found at all GNC Livewell stores.

They have green tea and are about 10 cals for each sachet. The drink was mango flavoured and really sweet. I added it to my water.

I had 20 times more energy. But then I could not sleep at night due to all the caffeine in it and I was hungry all the time.

Do drink this drink if you really want to lose weight and don't mind the hunger feeling. For me I won't be buying this drink again. I prefer my water and usual green tea.

Macro Quinoa Snack pots.

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Herbalife and Bupa say that you should be snacking every two to three hours and at the last workshop we learnt that we were not getting enough protein in a day. They say that you should have 2 grams of protein per day for every kg you weigh to ensure a healthy weight loss.

We could be helping more people to be healthy. 7 out of 10 Australians are overweight due to poor diet practices.

RNIS paid $2.50 for one of the pots which is currant and coconut. We love the Macro brand as its a very clean and healthy brand of food. In it, it has 4 grams of protein per serve. It kept us full for a while. Its small but very moreish. It wasn't too sweet which is good. Lots of sugar is bad for you and lots of sugar is found in many health products on the market.

Did you know that quinoa is a low GI food that has lots of protein to keep you full? Well it is. Do go and buy this product from your local Woolworths.

Windows Lumia and Amaysim

Thanks to Study Melbourne, Rewards Central and Amaysim RNIS did not have to pay. RNIS chose a Windows Lumia phone after careful research.

The sim card. Image courtesy of techgeek.com.au

Windows Lumia has been on the market for sometime now.

Amaysim is Optus's sibling company which means that you can have an Optus phone and then use Amaysim.Amaysim only sells the sim cards online and via their retailers. They don't sell phones though.

With Amaysim's website it was really easy to set up and sign up for their "Pay as you go" rate plan. There is no need to pay for the things that you don't use and the phone calls are pretty cheap. Also you can order and activate your sim and keep your old number. They will then send you the sim via mail.

The calls are cheap.; It is 12c per minute and the signals are good. It is 3G enabled.

With the phone though I ordered it via Harvey Norman and picked it up in store. Ordering online via the Harvey Norman site was really easy and points were credited to my Rewards central account. The points takes about 30-60 days to be credited to your account.You can choose between your Paypal or your credit accounts. Signing up is very quick and is done within seconds.

With Harvey Norman's Click and Collect it is really simple and quick. The order is usually processed within a few hours and you'll just need some photo ID and the order number to collect it.


Students do go with Amaysim as it is a lot cheaper and you can recharge whenever you want. They have all sorts of different plans to suit you

Beetroot smoothie from Maxcare pharmacy

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

This is an easy smoothie recipe which is good for winter and good for when you are at home studying.

I tried this recipe courtesy of Maxcare Pharmacy Airport West

Smoothie- Image courtesy of Maxcare pharmacy on Facebook.

Beetroot smoothie – a quick way to stimulate the digestive system and help the liver in detoxification processes. Beetroot is rich in nitrates that help improve blood circulation and lower blood pressure.

Preparation time: 2 minutes

Ingredients:

1 and half cup of organic sweet and creamy Greek Yogurt
1 cup of fresh strawberries (frozen if fresh strawberries not available)
2 tablespoons of Bioglan Beetroot Powder

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. It is that simple.

Bioglan Superfood Beetroot Powder is available in all pharmacies in Melbourne and Australia.

The Thermomix party at Prahran Market

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Every year there is a Thermomix party at Prahran market to promote the Thermomix and Prahran markets goodness. Last years party was full of a lot of samplings. This years we were treated to a few recipes. Such as the green juice, meatloaf bread and dip.

Beetroot salad

Samples

Dip and crackers

Making your own gluten free bread is easy and you can do this and many other things in the thermomix.The thermomix weighs our your ingredients and they help you chop them and melt chocolate. They also have a beeping system for warning you if things do go wrong.

Cooking in there is a breeze

The dip was great, but what was even better was the brownie which was full of chocolate goodness.

The salad too was great and it was easy to toss everything in there with the lemon and the olive oil. Yum I say. Dare I say more.

Do buy the thermomix if you can as that saves you time. For every thermomix it comes with a dish tray thing to steam vegetables. It is about $1900 but it will save you from having to go out everytime you can;t be bothered cooking. Also do feel free to change things around to your liking.

Soy milky with museli

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Soy Milky is a product by Sanitarium designed for those that can't have full cream milk. My friend bought the milk for me.

Soy milky was good but it didn't have a lot of that soy flavour. And it wasn't too sweet for me. It worked well with the museli and chia seeds

Do buy this milk if you are health concious.