Want to know your fitness level? You don’t need to join a gym and have a personal trainer tell you all about it. Get a rough gauge by using this fitness calculator. All you need to do is to fill in your weight and height in the cells and it will automatically do a calculation of your body mass index (BMI). Then it will tell you if you are over or under weight or just fit and whether you need more exercise!

I did a quick check on mine and I definitely need to keep up with some level of exercise. Check yours now. Just download this Excel spreadsheet by clicking here.

Note: This great calculator is not developed by me. I happen to receive this from a forwarded email and am sharing it here. I would love to give credit to the creator of this body mass index calculator but I don’t know who it is…

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Find out how fit you are without paying a personal trainer

Recently, I spotted some machines in shopping malls where you step on to it, slot in a couple of coins, and it will measure your weight and subsequently tell you how much water you should drink in a day based on your body weight.

Guess what? If you are interested to know, you don’t need to find that machine and pay the machine to tell you so. Find out for free here how much water your body needs according to your weight!

All you need to do is to download this wonderful water calculator, put in your body weight in the Excel spreadsheet and hit the Enter button on your keyboard. Your ideal daily water consumption will show up.

How accurate is this water consumption calculator as compared to the machines in the shopping malls? Well, I’ve tried the machine at the malls and also used this calculator based on the same weight, and the results are quite similar. So I would say it’s quite a good point of reference.

Now on to find out how much water your body needs to function properly….download it here!

P/S. Since this is another post I’m touching on water consumption, here’s a post you should read regarding the risk of drinking too much water in a short period of time. I thought it might be good to know.

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Do you know how much water you need according to your body weight?

Today is Earth Day. So in conjunction with Earth Day, here’s my small contribution to write about tips on living green and doing our part to save the environment. I hope we all live green not only on Earth Day but everyday after this. If you are already living green, do share more tips with the rest of us on how to do so effectively. If you are not, then it’s never too late to start in whatever little ways you can.

Below are several ideas on how you can lead your life the greener way and help to preserve the environment to be more sustainable for our future generation. Some of these green ways can be quite fun too, and if you can cultivate some of these in your lifestyle at home to include your children, all the better. Happy green living!

How to cut down on the use of paper

• At work, go paperless. Don’t print or photocopy things unneccessarily.
• If you really need to print, try to minimise the use of paper needed. For example, if you are printing a Powerpoint file that has 8 slides, instead of printing each slide on 1 page, opt to print 2 slides on 1 page, and print them double sided to make full use of the paper. That way, instead of using 8 sheets of paper, you will cut down to using just 2.
• Don’t just throw or shred away unwanted papers that have been used on just one side. You can use the blank side as paper for you to jot your notes. The idea is to make full use of it before you dispose of them. Reusing paper this way also helps to cut down on the use of a notepad or notebook which you need to purchase to write your meeting or work notes.
• Substitute using tissues with a reusable option like a hanky. I know in this time and age, no one really uses hankies, perhaps some guys still do. But it will save the use of a lot of tissues or paper towels this way.

How to cut down on the use of plastics

• Use your own reusable food containers whenever you are packing food from stalls or restaurants. This way, you can minimise the use of plastic containers provided by the food vendors each and every time you need to pack food.
• Use your own stainless steel utensils instead of asking for disposable plastic fork and spoon when packing for food.
• Bring your own shopping bags when you go shopping so that you do not need to use the plastic bags for your goods. If you do not have any reusable shopping bags, you can always purchase them very cheaply at most retail shops from supermarkets to bookstores to special stores like Tiny Tapir. If you do not want to spend money to purchase these reusable bags, you can always make use of those plastic bags that you currently have for your next shopping trips. Just keep reusing them and not collect any new ones from the stores.
• Reuse plastic bottle containers for your personal care products like hand wash, shampoo and bath creams. You can buy refill packs of your toiletries and fill them into the existing bottles instead of buying these products packaged in bottles. The refill packs work out cheaper too!

How to safeguard the environment from harmful chemicals and emissions

• As much as possible, use biodegradable products. There are many biodegradable laundry detergents, dish washing liquid, soaps, hair sprays, etc in the market. Use them to safeguard the environment.
• These days, many personal care products are also claiming to be more environmentally friendly in their production process. You can opt to support those products too.

How to travel green

• Whenever possible and when it makes good sense, car pool with family members or friends. The less harmful emission we get from cars, the safer the environment.
• Alternatively, you can take public transportation like the trains and buses.
• If your destination is not far from where you are starting off, why not take a walk? It’s not just green living, it’s healthy for you too! Just be safe when on the streets and avoid lonely paths or using dark alleys as shortcuts.
• Where possible, travel light when flying. The heavier your baggages, the more fuel the aircraft needs to burn off to carry heavier loads. If everyone travels light and avoid paying extras for your luggage weight, the more fuel we are able to save.

How to cut down on energy consumption

• Use energy saving bulbs to not only cut down on your electricity bills, but also on the generation of energy.
• Switch off the lights, fan, air conditioning, electrical appliances, etc when not in use. This saves you money on your electricity bills too!

How to cut down on kitchen and other wastes

• Reuse your kitchen waste by making garbage enzymes out of them instead of throwing them out. You can learn how to make garbage enzymes here. Learn about the many great benefits and uses of garbage enzymes and you may be a believer and supporter in garbage enzymes!
• Don’t over-shop when you go grocery shopping. Make a list of what you need and stick to your shopping list. Try not to be tempted to buy what you do not need. Think about how wasteful it will be to be throwing excessive food gone bad from your fridge!
• Instead of throwing out old items like magazines, newspapers, clothes, etc, you can recyle them or where appropriate, donate your things. Alternatively, you can reuse them to craft them into new items. You never know, some of your buttons from an old and torn shirt could be used to decorate a DIY photo frame, dried flowers can be made into pot pourri, magazine pages can be used to wrap books and presents, etc.

There are many more creative ways to live green. All we need to do is to apply some thinking and make the effort to live green within our means. I’m sure you have some great ideas of your own, do share them with us. Sometimes, it can be quite fun to live green.

Happy Earth Day to everyone!

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Green tips for Earth Day

Many people snore in their sleep. Whilst some people only snore when they are physically exhausted, others snore on a regular basis each time he or she goes to sleep. There are also those who snore mildly or quietly while others may be loud snorers and thus are disruptive sleep partners.

For those who snore regularly, do you know if you are just experiencing a non-medical threatening condition of snoring, or do you have a more serious sleep disorder that requires medical attention such as sleep apnea?

There is a difference between snoring and having a sleep disorder of sleep apnea. Whilst snoring is not a life threatening condition, sleep apnea could be potentially fatal if it is a serious case with no medical attention seeked.

Sleep apnea is a condition where the sufferer stops breathing at intervals due to a blockage of the airway, and resumes after some seconds. It poses a threat to health as the sufferer could die from a prolonged period of not breathing during his or her sleep. As such, people with sleep apnea need to seek medical care.

How do you tell the difference whether you are just snoring or you have sleep apnea? If you have sleep apnea, you will often be woken up in your sleep as you resume regular breathing every now and then. Whilst if you are just snoring, you may not be woken up like the case of someone suffering sleep apnea.

There are different types of sleep apnea conditions. For more expert opinions and information on sleep apnea, refer to this helpful article on sleep apnea.

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The difference between snoring and sleep apnea

Do you know the important differences between butter and margarine? Many people interchange between consuming butter and margarine because they are similar in functions, as a bread spread or to use in baking or cooking. People who may prefer to consume margarine normally do so because it is cheaper in price compared to butter.

But you should learn the health benefits of butter and margarine before you think about saving money and choose something that will threaten your health. Here are some of the differences.

• Both butter nad margarine have the same amount of calories.
• Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams in margarine.
• Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
• Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
• Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has less.
• Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
• Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

Margarine is known to be less healthy than butter. Read on to find out the cons of consuming margarine.

• Very high in trans-fatty acids.
• Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
• Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol).
• Increases the risk of cancer up to five fold.
• Lowers the quality of breast milk.
• Decreases immune response.
• Decreases insulin response.

Also, this is an interesting finding: Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC!

Now if you are not convinced of the unhealthiness of margarine, try this little experoment.

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

• No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
• It does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny micro organisms will not find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic!

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The difference between butter and margarine