Year: 2010

sunday life: does a power balance bracelet make you stronger, better?

by

This week I test a Power Balance bracelet.

88319_4_468

So. I’ve been wearing one of those little silicone wristlets imbedded with two small holograms for a fortnight now. I felt compelled to test one. Power Balance bracelets are like Zumba – a phenomenon that crept up without my noticing. One day I woke up and everyone was wearing one. Or dissing them. Do they work? Do they make life better? I suppose I had to find out.

It’s been an interesting sociological experience. There are a lot of people out there who love to hate an energy adornment and tell you all about it. Day one, I was tyre-kicking at an open for inspection down the road and the real estate agent scoffed at me: “The only good thing about those bracelets? They help you spot a wanker”.

Oh, like Bluetooth earpieces, I almost said. But didn’t.

On the flipside, wearing a Power Balance bracelet is a bit like owning a vintage Peugeot. You attract other owners (who wave at you when they pass).  So it was that I kept meeting strangers sporting a PB who wanted to welcome me into their little club. They emerged at the gym, from behind the lat-pull machine, nodded at me, and asked, “How you finding it, eh? Performing better?”.

There are several of these energy bracelets on the market, but the Power Balance is the original and has attracted the most parochial following – Shaquille O’Neil and David Beckham wear one, so does, seemingly, every second AFL player. They’ve also attracted the most impassioned disdain. The Australian Skeptics seem hell-bent on exposing them as a scam, demanding scientific proof that they work, and Today Tonight has waded in.

The PB claim is that the holograms are ”embedded with frequencies that react positively with your body’s natural energy field” to improve flexibility, balance and strength. The company doesn’t reveal exactly how this occurs. But, as I write this column this morning (literally!), I received a press release announcing such claims contravene the Therapeutic Goods Act and the company have been forced to pull their advertising.

So. This aside, do I think they work?

Read more

a guide to hot bike helmets (you asked for it!)

by

OK, I’m back on the Campaign to Ride a Bike, a loose gee-up I’m waging on my blog – and beyond – to get more people riding. You can catch up on some of my rants here and also here.

But a big barrier for a lot of people is the goddamn helmet. How to preserve one’s vanity and the planet?

cat helmet

(PS. The cat in a melon hat was sourced by my new (!) assistant Jo Foster who has an incredible knack for finding obscure factoids, cricket trivia and pictures for this blog. She also likes threatening me with Dance-off Tuesdays and Sing-a-long Wednesdays in my office. Performance terrifies me. Jo finds this funny…ANYWAY…)

I personally struggle. I promote riding unencumbered by style restraints. But helmets just ruin the whole flow, especially for a chick. Plus. Um. Confession: I don’t always wear a helmet.  Like when I scoot down the road for dinner, or to the beach in the morning. Illegal I know. And irresponsible. But I must come clean. I sometimes debate the protective worth of them (the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story recently on whether bike helmets do any good if you’re interested). And I rationalise things in my own head thus: I’ve been riding for 32 years (and have never pranged); if I have an accident, I want my brain to go along with my body; and riding sans headwear makes for some very defensive riding.

That said, if I’m going far, or cross-country, or racing, I wear one.

And I’ve recently found some styles that are getting me a little more excited about wearing them more regularly. I’ll share a few:

Read more

a few generous things to do cos it’s Christmas!

by

Christmas time, right. Time to care, really. In my family, we don’t do presents…which leaves a gaping hole for giving in other ways. Below are a few ideas, based mostly on some projects I’m working on… 1. give $2 to the homeless in your ‘hood. I’m an ambassador for StreetSmart. So, is Stephen Fry! In … Read more

Sunday Life: try this “push back” holiday out-of-office reply!

by

This week I push back

oliver12-001

I know about a dozen people who simply don’t reply to email. I used to wonder how they got anything done, or sustained a social life. But they’re always at parties and are some of the most successful, adroit people I know.

OK, surely, then they’re in a permanent state of guilt-squirm. I mean, imagine walking around with that many unreplied emails hanging over your head! That’s a heavy karmic cloud, right there! But, nope. They’re unperturbed.

My friend James, one of the dirty dozen, says he feels justified in being so electronically AWOL “People think that because they’ve spent five seconds firing off an email asking something of me, they deserve a response that will take me 25 minutes to research and compose,” he says. “It doesn’t weigh up.”

In the past, he says, you’d have to compose a letter or pick up the phone, which required more considered application and was deserving of considered help. Which is actually a terrific point.

But isn’t he afraid important stuff won’t get done? No, he says. If it’s important to him, he does in fact reply (clearly mine rarely make the cut). If it’s more important to the other party, he says, they’ll find another way to a) get their answer or b) make it easier for him to give them their answer (eg: “Dear James, could you please advise which of these three carefully thought-out options works best?”).

Which sounds horribly selfish. But on consideration, it’s supply/demand theory applied to the time-poor economy. You want it more, you do the work.

Catching up with the Jameses of the world is bloody infuriating. But I wonder if they’re not the survivors… the post-nuclear fall-out cockroaches of this frenetic information age.

Read more

Be a strong container

by

I’ve followed Daily OM for many years now and have chatted to Madisyn Taylor in the past and found her to be the real deal. She meditates each day to come up with her daily advice. And takes Tuesdays off to have a better life.  I like this post for today’s outlook about grounding yourself. It gets us to imagine being a Strong Container for Our Spirit. I think this is important – for ourselves and others.

92183_2_468

Grounding ourselves is a way of bringing ourselves literally back to earth. Some of us are more prone than others to essentially leaving our bodies and not being firmly rooted in our bodies. There’s nothing terribly wrong with this, but while we are living on the earth plane it is best to stay grounded in the body.

One of the easiest ways to ground ourselves is to bring our attention to our breath as it enters and leaves our bodies. After about 10 breaths, we will probably find that we feel much more connected to our physical selves …Just a few minutes of this can bring us home to bodies and to the earth, and this is what it means to ground ourselves.

Read more

tuesday eats: why i eat animal fat and sit in the sun

by

I have a vitamin D deficiency. So this is what I do:

* I sit in the sun most days – sometimes in the middle of the day – with no sunscreen on, no hat. No slipping or slopping.

* I eat full-fat saturated animal fats. Like cheese. And meat.

There, that got your attention!

tanning4

A lot of you out there would also have a D deficiency. Which is not great. Because D is proving the most underrated nutrient in the world of nutrition –  it helps to prevent osteoporosis, depression, prostate cancer and breast cancer, diabetes and obesity. I’ve been told my deficiency is contributing to my digestion problems, my thyroid issues, my calcium deficiency. Some are claiming it’s the biggest health challenge we’re facing.

Here’s the funny thing:

* Sunlight is the best (and really only) way to get Vit D. But we’ve been told to cover up and stay out of the sun for years. Ergo we’re deficient.

* We need full-fat food to synthesise Vit D once it’s in our system. But we’ve been told to stop eating such food for years. Ergo we’re deficient.

And it gets funnier (in the cruel ironic sense):

* We stay out of the sun to avoid skin cancer. But studies show we have a faaaaaar greater chance of dying from a Vitamin D deficiency-related cancer than of a sunburn-related skin cancer.

Read more

the heart-opening joy of a road trip (plus my perfect Tweed Valley itinerary)

by

I get “city fever” a hell of a lot.

I’m always saying to friends, “I need to get out of Sydney”. And so I take off for a weekend. Or a week. Or a month. I guess it’s a bit to do with growing up in the country. But I think it has a whole lot to do with the kind of life I (and many of you) lead – frenetic and up close with rarely a view of the horizon.

90795_5_468

I need to see an horizon to get perspective. And so I do road trips.

They’re not always road trips. Sometimes, they’re train journeys. Or bike trips. But they always have a destination, require a map and involve camping or pubs in small towns where the crickets are louder than the traffic.

Last week I did a road trip through northern NSW, around the Tweed hinterland area, along parts of the The Rainforest Way. It was sublime and the area is a perfectly cultivated area for a road trip – solo or with others.

I went solo.

A Tweed Valley Road Trip:

This is what I did, in case you’d like to do something similar. I like sharing recommendations about, so I’ll give a blow-by-blow account which you might like to save.

I should also highlight that NSW Tourism organized the trip for me, but I was not a guest as such of any of the places I recommend, so they’re true recommendations.

Day One: Byron at Byron and a gin martini in the rain

I flew into Gold Coast, hired a peanut of a car and headed south to Byron. And checked into Byron at Byron.

I’m not a resorty, retreaty, spa kind of girl. I prefer more rustic digs where I can do my own thing. So I wasn’t as excited about Byron at Byron as I should have been.

B at B is the retreat for the anti-retreaty. The accoutrement are here – the massages, the steamrooms, the yoga classes – but they don’t work to a stringent timetable. You can choose to use the facilities or you can choose to simply to be there. And not get too earnest. And not be on a schedule. And instead hang in the rainforest. The accommodation is all about jutting you out into the bush with sunlight and gumtrees and lyrebird cracks seeping in through the louvres and meshed balconies. I also like that they have kitchens. You can self cater. Or you can walk the long boardwalk through the rainforest to the restaurant with chef Gavin Hughes who uses local produce in his bright, fun meals (be sure to have the Bangalow pork!).

The fresh berries chef Gavin picked that morning (he does tours of the Farmer's Markets on Thursdays
The fresh berries chef Gavin picked that morning (he does tours of the Farmer’s Markets on Thursdays

I got still. And sat for a bit. Then went for a very slow shuffle along Tallow’s beach, just through the rainforest from my bungalow.

A slow shuffle at sunset in the rain: now that’s good for the soul!

Read more