It is a wintry August evening and I have my window open to let in the crisp city air. I am chilled to the bone, but my room smells the way car tyres do after a burnout and I hate it. It smells this way because I have my own home gym. When I think…
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The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) has launched its $1.8 million initiative aimed at increasing the number of women and girls participating in sport. Monday’s launch of Changing the Game: Increasing Female Participation in Sport included the support of ambassadors such as Chelsea Roffey, the first female AFL Grand Final umpire, and Bridie O’Donnell,…
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If you’ve ever trawled the internet for information on how to lose weight (read: lose your mind), I’d wager you’ve come across at least one article claiming sex improves your fitness. If not, here’s one from the BBC. This is because sex is, technically speaking, exercise. That’s right! Your muscle aches after vigorous rounds of…
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UK man Peter Lloyd is suing his gym for 10% of his annual fees on the ground of gender bias. He claims that the council-run centre is discriminating against him as a man for instituting women-only hours. Men and boys are banned from the gym for approximately 442 hours a year (80 minutes a day),…
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We’ve all heard, or had forced down our throats, the importance of exercise and a healthy balanced diet. I personally never thought it necessary to abide by the healthy body, healthy mind mantra. I spent my adolescence avoiding exercise like the plague. My contribution to P.E. was sarcastic commentary offered from the sidelines. In retrospect…
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It’s the second day of spring – that means it can only get warmer from here! I don’t know about you, but now that winter’s finally over I feel less like a fat caterpillar in my coats and scarves and more inspired to venture out into the fresh air. Looking for ideas on what…
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I’ve mentioned before that I don’t read print magazines much anymore. Nowadays, I will usually only read if I’m bored, or if I’m at the airport and need to kill time. There’s too much in “women’s” magazines that raise my blood pressure and I like to keep it low. Caffeine addiction already does the damage,…
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From year eight until year ten I only ate intermittently. Of course, by year eleven it had gotten to the point where I had stopped eating all together. Needless to say I did not have a positive relationship with my body. I didn’t like it because it ran into things, couldn’t catch or throw, and…
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Today my father told me he wanted to walk to our local café for coffee. We’ve both been walking a lot more recently because my parents have downsized to one car and, as my mum is still working, she has the car the vast majority of the time. I thought it would take the both…
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Being somewhat slow to get on any band wagon, I have recently been enjoying the amazing world of smart phone technology. Initially sceptical, I failed to see the use of a phone covered in fragile glass and struggled to understand how it could work without clearly defined buttons. Five minutes in and I became a…
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Weight loss and wedding bells seem to be waltzing hand in hand to the theme song of the Ten Network’s Biggest Loser Singles.The program’s enthusiastic press release claims that this year the contestants will be ‘seeking the companionship that their weight has long denied them’. Whether or not you find the equation of obesity and…
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I am not someone who enjoys group exercise. I’ve never been a fan of aerobics, team sports, aqua aerobics, or boot camp – it seems like complete torture to me – myself and a group of complete strangers united in an active dislike of the perky instructor, or me, the last one in the row,…
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I went for a 6.5km run this evening. I am not particularly sports-inclined, and I hadn’t excessive energy to burn. It wasn’t because the sun was gloriously shining and the birds were serenading from the electric lines. I wasn’t bored; in fact, I was rather engrossed in designing a lesson plan – a rarity in…
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Something that has always confused me is this: Why, if society wants fat people to exercise, lose weight and be trim, taut and terrific, are there no exercise clothes for fat people? Why are fat people ridiculed every time they set foot in a gym or are seen exercising outside? I have a friend that…
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