Top 10 Tips for Making it Earth Hour, Every Hour

This Saturday, March 27, My Yoga Online is celebrating Earth Hour. At 8:30 pm local time, hundreds of millions of people all over the world will be turning out the lights for 60 minutes. Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sidney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour. Last year, just two years later, hundreds of millions of people took part; over 4000 cities in 88 countries committed to turning off their power. Earth hour is now the world’s largest global initiative for climate change.

The team at My Yoga Online will all be participating this year. We hope you do, too, and we compiled our favorite tips for making it Earth Hour, every hour, below.

Top 10 Tips

1. Replace an older furnace with a new, energy-efficient model. This can boost your home’s energy efficiency by 20-30%.

2. Calculate how much energy your business consumes using this online tool.

3. Buy green electronics.

4. Use EPEAT to help you evaluate and compare electronics, based on their environmental attributes, before you buy.

5. Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TV’s and game consoles, according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.

6. Food portal CHOW has a feature to rate the kinds of packaging used for food, based on energy used to create it and decomposition.

7. Reconsider buying bottled water. Get the facts from the David Suzuki Foundation, including how much energy is used to create them.

8. Find tons of tips on greening your home and business.

9. Check the Energy Star Canada website regularly for updates on new energy-efficient lighting.

10. Queen’s University’s Live Building Project focuses on tips for commercial spaces, but these can be applied to your home, too.

For more information, please visit Earth Hour.

For more earth-friendly insight, check out all the Green Living articles on My Yoga Online.

5 Quick Eating Tips for Weight Loss

Part of an overall health and wellness program is managing body weight and maintaining a healthy percentage of total lean body mass. To optimize your healthy body weight composition, we have some simple, yet effective eating tips that will enhance your wellness strategies.

1) A calorie is a calorie! Even though some foods are 'empty' calories offering little nutritional value, all foods contain calories, so manage your intake regardless of the quality of the food you eat:
• Use smaller dishes to eat from so you avoid overloading your meals with excess calories
• Drink water or herbal tea before a meal to help decrease the amount of time it takes to feel full
• Load up on fiber rich foods like vegetables and whole grains as fiber also increases the feeling of fullness more readily

2) Eat smaller and more frequent meals Spreading out your food intake over several meals instead of the traditional three will allow you to manage digestive hormone cycles and maintain energy levels more effectively:
• Eat your larger, more dense meals at breakfast and lunch, then tapper your meals at the end of the day with fewer carbohydrates (if you are going to eat a dessert, eat it midday so you have all day to burn it off!)
• Snacks are critical as part of this multi-meal strategy. Snacks should be nutrient dense and clean.

3) Never leave the house without food-PERIOD! Going hungry while out and about will likely force you to eat a less-than-nutritious quick fix. Plan ahead and always keep and nutrient dense snack with you.

4) Avoid the 'calorie' reduced processed foods Products promoted as low in calories or low in fat often offer little value in supporting your weight management efforts:
• Products that are 'low fat' are often filled with chemicals to enhance the flavor missing from the fat and these fats are often replaced with processed sugars-remember, fat is not always a bad thing
• Products that are 'low in calories' are often super small in serving sizes that are unrealistic (that's how the calories are reduced) or the calorie producing elements like fat and sugars are replaced with chemicals that are equally, or more, unhealthy

5) Increase your fiber intake with fresh fruits and vegetables as well as whole grains Fiber actually reduces the amount of fat and other food elements being absorbed by surrounding the food particles. The result is a portion of food is not digested and eliminated. Always optin for the salad instead of the fries. Order that sandwich with whole grain bread. Switch the potatoes for yams. Add some spinach to your pasta. Get creative with your fiber.

Have joy in eating and do it well. Dieting and calorie restriction is not effective and should be avoided. Eat for energy and invest in eating clean. Read food labels and educate yourself on healthy food options for every type of meal and snacks.

Happy Eating,
Kreg Weiss
My Yoga Online

Recommended Reading: Top Foods to Heal, Nourish, and Balance

Power of Movement Yoga Event Update

My Yoga Online would like to share the results of the Power of Movement Yoga 2009 event. The Power of Movement is the worlds largest yoga challenge in support of arthritis research.

On Sunday, February 22, 2009, 1200+ participants took part in Power of Movement - a yoga fundraiser in locations across Canada and helped raise about $250,000 for arthritis research. Check out Power of Movement for events happening again across Canada in 2010.

The Power of Movement supports the growing efforts of the AARC. The Arthritis & Autoimmunity Research Centre (AARC) Foundation is one of the three foundations at University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto, with offices at Toronto General Hospital.



The Foundation raises, manages and invests funds for arthritis and related autoimmune disease research taking place in labs and clinics across UHN. They strive to increase awareness of this large family of diseases, which affects over 4.5 million Canadians. Through leading-edge research and a greater awareness of the realities of arthritis-related diseases, we hope for a brighter future for those suffering from these debilitating conditions, and for better musculoskeletal health in Canada.

Learn more about the AARC Foundation.