Friends and fans pay tribute as the star loses her very public struggle to live.
Reality TV star Jade Goody succumbed to cancer last week knowing she had provided for her two young sons’ futures — and that she’d lived her unconventional life exactly as she’d wanted to.
Shooting to fame with her often uncouth outbursts on the UK version of Big Brother, then spinning her notoriety into a career as a celebrity, Jade was unapologetic until the end.
“I want to be remembered for being the mouthy bird off the box. The one who irritated and entertained people in equal measure,” the 27-year-old told a British magazine before her death from cervical cancer.
“But I also want to be remembered as the girl who put up a fight and would never let herself get beaten down.”
There’s no doubt she was remembered by people from all walks of life, with tributes after her March 22 death coming from British PM Gordon Brown and American Idol host Simon Cowell. Comedian Stephen Fry described her as “a kind of Princess Di from the wrong side of the tracks”.
The zesty scent of lemon essential oil is not only refreshing; it’s a blues-buster as well.
A study published in Neuroimmunomodulation shows that depressed patients who inhaled lemon oil each morning needed fewer antidepressant drugs than those who did not; other research suggests that lemon oil improves mood, concentration, and accuracy. It is thought that the smell stimulates the hippocampus, which is the part of your brain that is responsible for short-term memory, alertness, and physical balance. Get your day off to a great start with this zingy, citrus-y treatment:
Sprinkle 10 drops of lemon essential oil into a washbasin filled with warm water. Dip a clean face-washer into the water, wring it out, and proceed to briskly massage your body with it, using small firm circles. Start at your feet and move upwards, always moving towards your heart, which stimulates your circulation.
Sprinkle another 5 drops of lemon oil on the face-washer and place it over the grating in the shower recess. Run a warm shower (if you make it too hot, you will feel lethargic afterwards, rather than invigorated) and step in. Steam from the warm water disperses the oil and spreads the aromatherapeutic benefits, without any extra effort on your part. (Note: Placing the oil on the face-washer rather than on the shower floor reduces the risk of slipping.)
Finish with a short blast of cold water at the end of your shower for a dynamic morning wake-up call. Make sure you let the water play on the nape of your neck and chest for a super-stimulating effect. This shakes off morning grogginess and also closes your pores, which protects your immune system. When you get out of a steaming-hot shower, your pores are left wide open, allowing the heat to leave your body.
Towel off – and resolve to keep that fresh, focused feeling with you all day.
Your Say: How do you add citrus to your diet? Share your tips below…
Two antioxidant flavonoids that you’ve probably never heard of – kaempferol and luteolin – may hold the key to fighting ovarian cancer, often called ‘the silent killer’ because it has few symptoms and is usually only diagnosed at an advanced stage.
A study of 66,940 women at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, USA, published in the International Journal of Cancer, found that diets high in kaempferol (found in broccoli and green tea) and luteolin (found in carrots, capsicums and cabbage) were associated with a 40 and 34 per cent reduction in ovarian cancer risk, respectively. Study leader Margaret Oates says, “This is good news because there are few lifestyle factors known to reduce a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer.”
Your Say: Have you heard about kaempferol and luteolin already? Share you thoughts below…
Strength training does not make you 'big'. To get big muscles you need to train a lot, very hard and with very heavy weights and you also need testosterone. This is hard enough for men and extremely difficult for women...
Strength training does not make you ‘big’. To get big muscles you need to train a lot, very hard and with very heavy weights and you also need testosterone. This is hard enough for men and extremely difficult for women.
Muscle is denser than fat, as it stores water and energy. Pay more attention to body measurements or clothing size than weight.
Muscle is an ‘expensive’ tissue; it raises your metabolism and burns more energy (and fat) all day, which is great for weight loss.
Protein builds and repairs muscles and carbohydrates provide exercise energy, so eat enough quality sources of both.Gallery:12 exercises for strength training at home
Strength training works only the specific muscles used in an exercise and not fat stored on top. There is no such thing as spot reduction; strength training makes you tighter, firmer, stronger and shapelier. Fat loss is a result of negative energy balance, that is using more energy than you eat and genetics and hormones determine the pattern in which fat is lost.
Strength training gives women, gorgeous firm curves, toned limbs, lots of energy and prevents bone density and muscle tissue loss which otherwise decline after mid twenties.
Resistance training, strength training, weight lifting are all similar terms meaning pushing or pulling against a force which could be water resistance, body weight or dumbbells against gravity or pulleys or hydraulics on a machine.
Gallery: 12 exercises for strength training at home
Related video
Tips for effective training
You can do a huge range of exercises just with your body for starters. Some of the best bodies in the world are trained mostly with body weight; those of dancers, gymnasts and martial artists.
Basic equipment enhances training effects. Start with light weights and more repetitions for safety.
You can use dumbbells or plastic milk bottles with handles filled with water or sand.
Always lean proper form to prevent injury; try books, the internet or ask an expert.
Perform exercises in front of a mirror to ensure proper form. If anything hurts stop and seek medical advice.
Always do strength training slowly and under control. Speed and swinging risks injury.
Don’t hold your breathe while doing exercises.
For fast, effective workouts, mix exercises up, rest less and perform more than one at a time, such as a squat with a bicep curl. It raises your heart rate and burns more kilojoules.
Remember to stretch; Flexibility training is essential for range of motion, injury prevention and relaxation.
YOUR SAY: What body type are you and are you happy with your shape? Tell us below…
The city of Kota Kinabalu on Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, is your doorway to a world of lush tropical rainforest, incredible wildlife and a shared history created by war.
A short hop from Singapore, Sabah offers you so many different sorts of experiences, it’s hard to believe it’s only part of an island. From watching orang utans at play to breathing cool mountain air as you gaze across a lush tea plantation, you can enjoy a variety of holidays all in one place. From your base in Kota Kinabalu, the thriving capital on the west coast, you can reach every attraction on offer.
There’s no need to miss out on comfort, either, just because you hanker for adventure, with four and five-star hotels to stay in, for a fraction what you’d pay in Australia, with a wide choice of other types of accommodation to choose from in the city or beyond.
The tropical rainforest will enchant you with its riches, from tiny orchids to soaring trees entwined with vines and the teeming animal life. Australians interested in our history will also want to retrace the steps of the Sandakan Death Marches and remember the thousands of Diggers and British troops who lost their lives. So, for a trip that promises surprises and unique sights and sounds, Sabah is a destination that will not disappoint.
There is a special connection the Sabahnese feel with Australians and it was forged in war. In 1945, in the face of an Allied advance, the Japanese forced 2428 prisoners of war (POW), including 1787 Australians and 641 British troops, to march 250 kilometres from Sandakan, in northern Borneo, to Ranau in the west, in three groups. Their torturous journeys took them through thick jungle and, already weakened by years in captivity, thousands of the POWs died or were killed by their Japanese guards along the way. Of the thousands that set out, only six marchers – all of them Australian – survived. It remains the single worst atrocity committed against Australians in war. Memorials marking the start and finish of the marches can be found in Sandakan, where a memorial day is held on August 15 each year, and at Ranau, and there is also the Kundasang War Memorial situated on the fringe of Mount Kinabalu Park. Today, the visitor wanting to pay their respects can travel the same route in relative comfort, but will still be moved by the thought of those brave men struggling through a hostile environment.
To find out how to retrace the journey of the marchers, visit www.sandakan-deathmarch.com
The jungles of Borneo host an amazing array of animals, birds and plants. One that visitors are keen to see is the majestic and endangered orang utan. The best way to see the “Man of the Forest” is at a sanctuary, either the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary, 40 minutes outside Sandakan in the west, or at the orang utan reserve found behind the Shangri-La Rasa Ria Resort at Kota Kinabalu, in the east. At these sanctuaries, the orang utans have been rescued from lives as pets or they are orphans, and are being rehabilitated, so, one day, they can return to their natural habitat, the forest. It’s a thrill the first time you hear the rustle of leaves and, there before you, are orang utans playing or feeding. You don’t have to stay at the resort to visit the orang utan sanctuary, but it’s well worth a look, with its family-friendly beachfront position and plenty of activities to keep everyone happy.
For more details about seeing orang utans, visit www.sabahtourism.com
No visit to Borneo would be complete without seeing Mount Kinabalu Park, Malaysia’s first World Heritage site. A botanical paradise, the park covers 754 square kilometres and the focal point is the breathtaking mountain itself. More than 4000 metres high, the mountain is never out of sight for long as you travel up the winding road towards it. The fitter among you can take a guided hike to its peak, but those after a less strenuous experience can enjoy a walk around the botanical gardens at its foot. The gardens are a showcase of the fascinating plant-life that inhabits the park.
For more information on Mount Kinabalu Park, visit www.sabahtourism.com
A refreshing place to stop is the Sabah Tea Garden, on the road to Mount Kinabalu. The views are spectacular from the plantation, which spreads across the foothills of the mountain. You can take in a tour of the tea factory, where you’ll learn all about tea cultivation and sample some of the top quality tea produced here. You can also stay overnight or longer in a traditional bamboo long house or a more luxurious guesthouse. After the tropical atmosphere and bustle of Kota Kinabalu, the cool breezes and peace of the Tea Garden will refresh you as much as the tea.
For more information on the Sabah Tea Garden, visit www.sabahtea.net
Among the incredible array of wildlife to be found in Sabah, the fireflies are one of the most fascinating. A good place to see them is at the Monkey Tops Safari Eco-lodge and Fish Spa, at Kota Klias, 100 kilometres from Kota Kinabalu. Situated on the edge of the Klias River, Monkey Tops has a variety of nature-spotting activities to offer. Hop on a cruise boat and be taken on a guided tour to watch proboscis monkeys as they feed and find a suitable treetop for the night, or the smaller long-tailed macaques, silvered leaf monkeys, kingfishers, eagles and maybe even crocodiles – the forest is teeming with life. After dark, you can dine under a canopy of stars, on a deck built out into the river. When the night has descended on the jungle and all is dark, re-embark for a short trip to find the fireflies. Arranged like Christmas decorations, the fireflies will have you gasping in wonder at their twinkling beauty.
For more details, visit www.borneostarcruise.com
FLY: Singapore Airlines to Singapore then a connecting flight to Kota Kinabalu with its subsidiary, Silk Air. Phone 13 10 11 or visit www.singaporeairlines.com
STAY: You can either opt for the four-star luxury of the Novotel Hotel in Kota Kinabalu for a fraction what it would cost in Australia, or stay at one of the many budget hotels available in the city or elsewhere in Sabah. Visit www.sabahtourism.com for all your accommodation options.
On and off the catwalk, Paris Fashion Week is one of the world's great spectacles. Mike Dolan discovers that the glamour, glitz and gossip often spills into the city's palace hotels and restaurants.
When Nina Simone sang “I love Paris in the Springtime”, it’s doubtful she was referring to the seven days of Paris Fashion Week, when the usual procession of Manolo Blahnik shoes and Prada bags becomes a stampede. Yet it’s a time when the City of Light dazzles the world, like no other city can. “It’s as if someone flicks a switch and all the lights burn brighter,” says the concierge at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, one of the city’s famous palace hotels and a favourite haunt during Paris Fashion Week. “It’s when the Golden Triangle becomes a magnificent catwalk, when everyone on the Champs Elysées, rue de Rivoli, Avenue George V and Place Vendôme dresses – how do you say – to impress.”
Plaza Athénée
Long before Hollywood location scouts chose the Plaza Athénée for the film The Devil Wears Prada, this circa 1889 eight-storey building – with its scarlet awnings and window boxes of red geraniums – was a favourite of Marlene Dietrich, Jackie Onassis and Grace Kelly. Since a sensational renovation in 2000, it’s become the hotel of choice for a new generation of fashion industry players. Light, airy and elegant, the decor at the Plaza Athénée has given baroque a thrilling new look.
Sensational views of the Eiffel Tower and the hotel’s proximity to the couture houses and big-label boutiques on Avenue Montaigne are drawcards. Yet it’s the hotel’s Le Bar that effervesces with fashionistas.
A blue, backlit frosted-glass bar and clubby leather chairs serve as perfect perches for the impeccably turned out. Anyone who intends to blend in should adhere to the de facto dress code of conspicuous labels.
Sarah Jessica Parker
Men at the Plaza Athénée should remember that loosening their tie is unthinkable, even if you are Leonardo DiCaprio, a regular guest, along with Cameron Diaz, Johnny Depp, Beyoncé, Sarah Jessica Parker, Scarlett Johansson and Kirsten Dunst.
Staff at this chicest of all Paris hotels acknowledge guests with the slightest nod. Celebrity or not, there’s no fawning or cooing here. Take this as a signature of discretion and not Parisian rudeness.
Behind the scenes, Leonardo is referred to as a VP4 – code for the hotel’s highest-level VIP guest. Popular with Leo and other VP4s is the Plaza Athénée’s three-star Michelin restaurant, opened by legendary French chef Alain Ducasse in one of the hotel’s sensational Art Deco salons.
More favoured by the figure-conscious fashion crowd is the hotel’s large, leafy courtyard, where carb-free meals can be nibbled in discreet, dappled shade. Another drawcard is afternoon tea served in La Galerie des Gobelins, where guests gossip while indulging in exquisite little feather-light cakes and petits fours.
The Ritz
At the other end of the Golden Triangle, on Place Vendôme, is the Ritz, the grand old dame of Paris palace hotels. Coco Chanel resided here for more than 37 years, declaring, “For me, the Ritz is home”. So do the Versaces, Donna Karan, Madonna, Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham.
Today, for a mere $6800, anyone can spend a night in the Chanel Suite, a vast two-bedroom space with a spectacular view of the Vendôme column. Pricey as the suite is, it’s always solidly booked during the fashion collections. US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, instantly recognisable by her huge sunglasses and bob, always has a suite at the Ritz during the shows. Ms Wintour, it is said, was the inspiration for Meryl Streep’s role in The Devil Wears Prada.
This formidable fashion player, however, has to keep her eyes peeled when she arrives at the hotel. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I have been physically attacked” by animal activists for wearing fur, she said last year. In 2005, Ms Wintour, known in fashion circles as “Nuclear Winter” for her aloof manner, was famously hit by a flying tofu pie outside after the Chloé show.
Anna Wintour
The Ritz has two hot spots, the Bar Vendôme, the preferred lunch venue for retailers, editors and older designers, and the Hemingway Bar, the hotel’s black sheep bar, named after famed author Ernest Hemingway and popular with Johnny Depp, Kate Moss and the enfants terrible designers John Galliano (Dior), Alexander McQueen (Gucci) and Julien Macdonald (Givenchy).
Prior to her tragic death in a fatal car crash in a Paris tunnel, Diana Princess of Wales rested with Dodi Al Fayed in the Imperial Suite, where the two bedrooms are replica’s of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s old rooms at Versailles. In fact, the Ritz was the building where the princess had her last moments of happiness.
Vendôme bartender Colin Field once said, “I always say that the Hemingway is the Left Bank and the Vendôme is the Right Bank.” In other words, the Hemingway is artistic and unconventional, as opposed to the well-buttoned and more conservative clients at the Vendôme. Even so, it was on a stool “on the Right Bank” that Glenda Bailey, editor-in-chief of US Harper’s Bazaar, is reported to have told John Galliano, the English designer who has headed up Dior since 1995, that he was stuck in a rut and needed to move on.
Not even big fashion players, who it must be remembered get their couture clothes for free, are immune to high prices. Many of them have been drifting away from Bar Vendôme – where a club sandwich costs $60 – for nearby Café Marly in the Louvre on the rue de Rivoli, where a similar crust is just $23 and the view of I.M. Pie’s glass pyramid is free.
The Ritz, owned by the late Dodi Al Fayed’ father, Mohamed, is all about Versailles glamour – endless gilt, 18th-century antiques, tapestries, vast mirrors and frescoes – and is not to everyone’s taste, especially the bright young things. Hence, the inexorable rise of Hôtel Costes, the new kid on the block, located on the rue Saint-Honoré.
Launched by brothers Gilbert and Jean-Louis Costes in 1996, this 82-room “petit palais” now reigns supreme as the foremost fashion hangout among the new young designers and fashion editors. The editor of UK Harper’s Bazaar, Lucy Yeomans, who transformed the ailing magazine from society handbook to fashion bible, has been seen holding court at the bar.
The brothers, who rose from provincial obscurity, are said to dislike ostentation. Not that you would guess this from their hotel’s opulent decor. Think refined 19th-century brothel. Flashy celebs beware, though, Paris Hilton was denied entry for being Paris Hilton.
Another Costes brothers’ hangout is Restaurant Georges, perched on top of the Pompidou Centre, with its spectacular views over Paris, where Karl Lagerfeld invited his friends for a rooftop shindig to celebrate a collection.
Louis Vuitton
Behind all the fabulousness, famous faces and flashbulbs are two titanic conglomerates – Moët Hennessey, Louis Vuitton (LVMH) and Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR).
LVMH runs Dior, Fendi, Marc Jacobs, Guerlain, Kenzo, Givenchy, Donna Karan, Kenzo and Loewe. PPR, which bought Gucci for almost $12billion in 2005, controls Yves Saint Laurent, Sergio Rossi, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Balenciaga.
The men who run these multinationals, LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault and PPR CEO Francois-Henri Pinault (husband of Salma Hayek, after an endless on-and-off engagement), are the Bonapartes of fashion. Seldom are they seen on the street. Their staff take care of every venue they visit, booking Versailles, the Grand Palais or the Museum of Decorative Arts for a show or a party, if needs dictate.
No one, however high and mighty, is immune from gossip. When Gucci’s new boss, Robert Pollet, came over from Unilever, where he managed ice-creams and frozen foods, Paris was rife with snide remarks along the lines of, “Does a man who sold frozen fish sticks think he’s going to define the next modern moccasin with the double ‘G’?” True to form, fashion is rarely predictable and that is why
Dave, a Chinese-Vietnamese restaurant at 12 rue Richelieu, near the Palais Royal, has become a vortex on the Paris scene. Every fashionista feels an exquisite mix of dread and table envy as they make an entrance over its threshold.
Owned by Hong Kong émigré Dave Cheung, a friend of the late fashion photographer Helmut Newton and his wife, June (aka Alice Springs, a fellow snapper from Melbourne), this is where everyone aspires to eat, but few are seated.
After a Galliano show, Carine Roitfeld, the English-born editor of French Vogue, famously arrived proclaiming, “Just what we need. Three thousand-dollar outfits that make us look like 19th-century hookers”.
The restaurant’s red and gold decor is covered with photographs of celebrities. There’s Leonardo DiCaprio and model Gisele Bündchen, who both had to wait 20 minutes on the pavement for a table, Tom Ford, former chief designer for Gucci, designers Stella McCartney and Azzedine Alaia, and Jonathan Newhouse, the chairman of Condé Nast International.
Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton
Dave is notoriously indiscreet, but gets away with it. Of the Leo incident, he said, “Can you imagine? Leo came to introduce Gisele to moi and he was not happy at all. But what was I supposed to do – tell my beloved friend Helmut Newton to get up and leave? Or should I have got rid of John Galliano?” Carine Roitfeld, perhaps?
US designer Marc Jacobs once said, “There are some bitchy people in the fashion world, but nobody is stupid enough to offend Dave.”
When Helmut Newton died, his widow, June, and Anna Wintour held a memorial service during the couture shows, just around the corner from Dave. Karl Lagerfeld, dressed in knee-high crocodile boots and a leather choker, attended, along with Tom Ford, Manolo Blahnik, Anouk Aimee, Charlotte Rampling, Mario Testino, Jane Birkin and Stella McCartney.
After the service, 80 people filed into Dave for canapes. Most of the food was left. “Fashion people live on vegetables – bok choy, broccoli and a little tofu. They are so afraid of carbohydrates,” said Dave.
L’Hôtel
Across the river on the Left Bank, at 13 rue des Beaux-Arts, is another hotel adored by the fashion crowd – L’Hôtel, where Oscar Wilde regularly stayed and died, in 1900, in room 16. It’s a boutique establishment with only 20 small rooms.
When Elizabeth Taylor was shown L’Hôtel’s largest suite, she said, “Now that’s perfect for my lugguage, but where shall I sleep?” It was also here that actress Claudia Cardinale took over the tiny switchboard next to the reception so the hotel operator could go out for lunch.
Back in the Golden Triangle, on the rue de Rivoli, is Le Meurice, the hotel where the Shah of Iran first heard he had been dethroned. Queen Victoria stayed there, as have dozens of crowned heads since.
The hotel’s Spa Caudalie is the size of a Greek temple and offers much sought-after wine-based treatments. It’ the pamper palace of choice among the fashionistas, who like to sip vintage bubbly at the hotel’s Fontainebleau Bar, after having a champagne facial.
The hotel’s most notorious guest will always remain Salvador Dali, who one day ordered a flock of white sheep to be brought to his suite. Chaos ensued as Dali fired blanks at them from his pistol.
Collette Dinnigan
Paris’ palace hotels have seen it all before and their staff deal with the most demanding fashion players with ease. Popular on the city’s fashion scene is Aussie designer Collette Dinnigan, who spends two or three months a year in Paris, often in a suite at the Hôtel de Crillon on the Place de la Concorde. “I’m always there in March and October for the collections, and I love it,” she has said. A favourite among Hollywood beauties, such as Kate Bosworth and Charlize Theron, Dinnigan celebrated 10 years of Paris fashion shows with a lunch for about 60 people at the Crillon.
A 20-minute stroll away is the Four Seasons Hotel George V, famous for its giant floral arrangements by Californian Jeff Leatham.
“Basically, I’m the John Galliano of flowers,” Jeff modestly announced last year. “What I wanted to do was set the George V apart.”
Like Galliano, who revolutionised the houses of Givenchy and Dior, 32-year-old Jeff has done just that to the lobby at the George V. Once he adorned the lobby with a floral tableau so large it elicited astonished oohs and aahs from guests, before it was nominated for the Guinness Book of Records long after every bloom had withered. Word has spread fast. Now flower lovers drop into the lobby just to admire Jeff’s displays. Chronic hay fever sufferers would be well advised to give the George V lobby a wide berth.
“When Cher was here, I was told she didn’t like roses,” said Jeff. “But I knew she hadn’t seen what I could do with them. So I filled her room with all these incredible black roses and she went wild!” Wild with pleasure or displeasure, one wonders. Either way, Jeff, who orders 14,000 flowers a week at a cost of more than $1million a year, is not saying.
And in case anyone is tempted to splurge on their credit card during Paris Fashion Week, here’s a cautionary tale from Oscar Wilde, who found living on a budget beneath him. On his deathbed at L’Hôtel, with his bill unpaid, the great man of letters said, “I am dying, as I have lived, beyond my means”.
Singapore Airlines
FLY: Singapore Airlines (tel: 13 10 11; www.singaporeairlines.com) starts daily A380 services from Australia to Paris, via Singapore, on June 1. From Singapore, the airline has daily connections on its fleet of Boeing 777 aircraft (awarded for its remodelled economy cabin and the second widest business class seat in the sky – after the A380) to Milan, Barcelona, Zurich, Frankfurt, San Francisco, Houston, Seoul, Delhi, Mumbai and Hong Kong.
The A380 is the biggest and quietest commercial passenger aircraft in the sky and its seats are on to decks connected by two stairways.
There is enough room on its wings to park 72 cars.
The wingspan is 15 metres wider than a 747, but it’s only two metres longer.
Maximum flight range is 13,140km – 1800km greater than the 747, but still not enough to go non-stop from Australia to Europe.
Seats on the maiden flights between Sydney and Singapore were auctioned for charity and raised $1.44million – Singapore Airlines donated $255,000 each to the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick.
Strength training does not make you ‘big’. To get big muscles you need to train a lot, very hard and with very heavy weights and you also need testosterone. This is hard enough for men and extremely difficult for women.
Muscle is denser than fat, as it stores water and energy. Pay more attention to body measurements or clothing size than weight.
Muscle is an ‘expensive’ tissue; it raises your metabolism and burns more energy (and fat) all day, which is great for weight loss.
Protein builds and repairs muscles and carbohydrates provide exercise energy, so eat enough quality sources of both.Gallery:12 exercises for strength training at home
Strength training works only the specific muscles used in an exercise and not fat stored on top. There is no such thing as spot reduction; strength training makes you tighter, firmer, stronger and shapelier. Fat loss is a result of negative energy balance, that is using more energy than you eat and genetics and hormones determine the pattern in which fat is lost.
Strength training gives women, gorgeous firm curves, toned limbs, lots of energy and prevents bone density and muscle tissue loss which otherwise decline after mid twenties.
Resistance training, strength training, weight lifting are all similar terms meaning pushing or pulling against a force which could be water resistance, body weight or dumbbells against gravity or pulleys or hydraulics on a machine.
Gallery: 12 exercises for strength training at home
Related video
Tips for effective training
You can do a huge range of exercises just with your body for starters. Some of the best bodies in the world are trained mostly with body weight; those of dancers, gymnasts and martial artists.
Basic equipment enhances training effects. Start with light weights and more repetitions for safety.
You can use dumbbells or plastic milk bottles with handles filled with water or sand.
Always lean proper form to prevent injury; try books, the internet or ask an expert.
Perform exercises in front of a mirror to ensure proper form. If anything hurts stop and seek medical advice.
Always do strength training slowly and under control. Speed and swinging risks injury.
Don’t hold your breathe while doing exercises.
For fast, effective workouts, mix exercises up, rest less and perform more than one at a time, such as a squat with a bicep curl. It raises your heart rate and burns more kilojoules.
Remember to stretch; Flexibility training is essential for range of motion, injury prevention and relaxation.
YOUR SAY: What body type are you and are you happy with your shape? Tell us below…
Sometimes you come across a plant that you’ve ignored for years, and realise it’s so absolutely perfect that you don’t know why you haven’t planted hundreds of them years ago. I had one of those moments two years ago, when I looked at a friend’s nerines. I’d never even thought of growing any before – and they can be difficult to find in nurseries too.
Yet nerines are one of the hardiest of all bulbs to grow. Even better, they provide reliable bright colour in winter when there’s not much other brightness about. If you plant a good range of nerines you can have the blooming all the way from autumn to spring.
Maybe I ignored them because a solitary nerine doesn’t have much oomph. Like most bulbs you need at least six to make a clump or, even better, dozens, hundreds or thousands…
They’re a smallish bulb, too, about 40-60 cm high, which means they take up very little room in a garden bed – just nudge them in between existing perennials, especially ones like dahlias that die down in winter.
Nerines look like lilies (one of their old names is the Guernsey lily), with strappy leaves and incredibly vivid flowers in shades of pink, white and rich tangerine/red and orange. They tolerate an enormous amount of neglect- in fact they like being ignored. Plant them and let them multiply – like most bulbs, every year they’ll double in number and sometimes multiply at an even faster rate. One bulb will lead to a glorious clumps in a few year’s time.
How to plant:
About 10 cm apart, with the neck of the bulb – the skinny bit where the leaves emerge – just at the surface of the soil. Nerines don’t like to be planted too deep.
Where to plant nerines:
I’ve planted mine at the front of the garden bed, where I can enjoy their brightness on drab winter days. But I suspect that as I allow myself to buy more of these darlings that I’ll start putting clumps everywhere – in dull forgotten corners that will suddenly spring to life, along the path to the carport maybe, and the side garden could really use some brightening up in winter…Full sun. Nerines adore any sunny spot – even tubs on exposed patios. We live in a deep valley, so nowhere here is really sunny in winter. But our nerines still thrive under the apple trees – the apples leaves drop off just when the nerines need the sunlight most. In midsummer, when the trees give deep shade, the nerines will be dormant, their leaves dried off and the bulbs resting under the soil.
What climate:
Cold to subtropical. If you’re growing nerines in areas with really severe frost, i.e. icicles on the trees country, make sure your nerines are near sunny rocks or walls, not exposed at the edge of the garden. In tropical areas you might just get away with growing nerines in above ground beds, with a little light shade. But like all bulbs, they can easily rot in long bouts of hot and humid weather or if the soil stays drenched for too long.
Care and cosseting:
Water your nerines every week – if you remember, and have enough water. If you forget, or water is sparse, forget about them. The nerines will still flower and still multiply, just not as fast. They don’t need to be fertilised, either, but a little liquid organic fertilizer once or twice a year will help them multiply quicker, and you may get slightly larger blooms. Don’t bother thinning out clumps for a decade or two – nerines enjoy being crowded together. So basically – plant them, leave them and then glory in their colour.
I think I have just convinced myself I need a treat of at least three dozen more nerines this winter!
An exclusive extract from the Great Read in the April issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly: The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Fig Tree)
Constantine came to work in our house at six in the morning and at harvest time, she came at five. That way she could fix Daddy his biscuits and gravy before he headed to the field. I woke up nearly every day to her standing in the kitchen, Preacher Green playing on the radio that sat on the kitchen table. The minute she saw me, she smiled instantly. “Good morning beautiful girl!” I’d sit at the kitchen table and tell her what I’d dreamed. She claimed dreams told the future.
“I was in the attic, looking down at the farm,” I’d tell her. “I could see the tops of the trees.”
“You’re going to be a brain surgeon! Top a the house mean the head.”
Mother ate her breakfast early in the dining room, then moved to the relaxing room to do needlepoint or write letters to missionaries in Africa. From her green wing chair, she could see everyone going almost anywhere in the house. It was shocking what she could process about my appearance in the split second it tool for me to pass by that door. I used to dash by, feeling like a dartboard, a big red bullseye that mother pinged darts at.
“Eugenia, you know there is no chewing gum in this house.”
“Eugenia, go put alcohol on that blemish.”
“Eugenia, march upstairs and brush your hair down, what is we have an unexpected visitor?”
I learned that socks are stealthier transportation than shoes. I learned to use the back door. I learned to wear hats, cover my face with my hands when I passed by. But mostly, I learned to just stay in the kitchen.
A summer month could stretch on for years, out on Longleaf. I didn’t have friends coming over every day – we lived too far out for white neighbours. In town, Hilly and Elizabeth spent all weekend going to and from each other’s houses, while I was only allowed to spend the night out of have company every other weekend. I grumbled over this plenty. I took Constantine for granted at times, but I think I knew, for the most part, how lucky I was to have her there.
When I was fourteen I started smoking cigarettes. I’d sneak them from Carlton’s packs of Marlboros he kept in his dresser drawer. He was almost eighteen and no one minded that he’s been smoking for years anywhere he wanted to in the house or out in the fields with Daddy. Sometimes Daddy smoked a pipe, but he wasn’t a cigarette man and Mother didn’t smoke anything at all, even though all her friends did. Mother told me I wasn’t allowed to smoke until I was seventeen.
So I’d slip into the back yard, sit in the tire swing, with the huge old oak tree concealing me. Or late at night, I’d hang out of my bedroom window and smoke. Mother had eagle-eyes, but she had almost zero sense of smell. Constantine knew immediately, though. She narrowed her eyes, with a little smile, but said nothing. If Mother headed to the back porch while I was behind the tree, Constantine would rush out and bang her broom handle on the iron stair rail.
“Constantine, what are you doing?” Mother would ask her, but by then I would’ve stubbed it out and dropped the butt in the hole in the tree.
“Just cleaning this here old broom, Miss Charlotte.”
“Well find a way to do it a little quieter, please. Oh Eugina, what, did you grow another inch overnight? What am I going to do? Go… put a dress on that fits.”
“Yes mam,” Constantine and I would say at the same time and then pass each other a little smile. Oh it was delicious to have someone to keep secrets with. If I’d had a sister or a brother closer in age, I guessed that’s what it would be like. But it wasn’t just smoking or skirting around Mother, It was having someone look at you after your mother has nearly fretted herself to death because you are freakishly tall and frizzy and odd. Someone whose eyes simply said, without words, You are fine with me.
Still, it wasn’t all sweet talk with her. When I was fifteen, a new girl had pointed at me and asked, “Who’s the stork?” Even Hillary had tucked back a smile before steering me away, like we hadn’t heard her.
“How tall are you, Constantine?” I asked, unable to hide my tears.
Constantine narrowed her eyes at me. “How tall is you?”
“Five eleven,” I cried. “I’m already taller than the boy’s basketball coach.”
“Well I’ve five thirteen, so quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
Constantine’s the only woman I’ve ever had to look up to, to look her straight in the eye. What you first notice about Constantine, besides her tallness, were her eyes. They were light brown, strikingly honey-colored against her dark skin. I’ve never seen light brown eyes on a black person. In fact, the shades of brown on Constantine were endless. Her elbows were absolutely black, with a dry white dust in them in winter. The skin on her arms and neck and face were a dark ebony. The palms of her hands were orangey-tan and that made me wonder if the soles of her feet were too, but I never saw her face beforehand,
“Just you and me this weekend,” she said with a smile.
It was the weekend that Mother and Daddy were driving Carton to look at LSU and Tulane. My brother was going to college next year, That morning, Daddy had moved the cot into the kitchen, next to her bathroom. That’s where Constantine always slept when she spent the night.
“Go look what I got,” she said, pointing to the broom closet. I went and opened it and saw, tucked in her bag, was a five-hundred piece puzzle with a picture of Mount Rushmore on it. It was our favourite thing to do when she stayed over.
That night, we sat for hours, munching on peanuts, sifting through the pieces spread out o the kitchen table. A storm raged outside, making the room cozy while we picked out the edges. The bulb in the kitchen dimmed then brightened again.
“Which one he?” Constantine aked, studying the puzzle book through her black-rimmed glasses.
“That’s Jefferson.”
“Oh it sure is. What about him?”
“That’s…” I leaned over. “I think that’s..Roosevelt.”
“Only one I recognize is Lincoln. He looks like my Daddy.”
I stopped, puzzle piece in hand. I was fourteen and had never made less than an A. I was smart but I was naïve as they come. Constantine put the box top down and looked over the pieces again.
“Because your Daddy was so…tall?” I asked.
She chuckled. “Cause my Daddy was white. I got the tall from my Mama.”
I put the piece down. “Your…father was white and you mother was…black?”
“Yup,” she said and smiled, snapping two pieces together. “Well look a there. Got me a match.”
I had so many questions – who was he? Where was he? I knew he wasn’t married to Constantine’s mother because that was against the law. I picked a cigarette from my stash on the table. I was fourteen, but feeling very grown up. I lit a cigarette. As I did, the overhead light dimmed to a dull, dirty brown, buzzing softly.
“Oh my Daddy loooved me. Always said I was his favourite,” she leaned back in her chair. “He used to come over to the house every Saturday afternoon and one time, he gave me a set a ten hair ribbons, ten different colours. Brought em over from Paris, made out of Japanese silk. I sat in his lap from the minute he got there until he had to leave and Mama’d play Bessie Smith on the Victrola he brunbg her and he and me’d sing:
It’s mighty strange, without a doubt Nobody knows you when you’re down and out
I listened, wide-eyed, stupid. Glowing by her voice in the dim light. If chocolate was a sound, it would’ve been Constance’s voice singing. If singing was a colour, it would’ve been the colour of that chocolate.
Food Coach Judy Davie gives you the lowdown on how — and how long — you can best store fruit and veggies as the weather cools…
With the cooler weather, produce is typically much hardier and lasts longer. That said, to avoid nutrient loss and ensure it stays fresh, you should know where to store produce, how to store it and how long for. To enjoy it at its fresh best follow our storage tips below.
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