A Hawke’s Bay family’s successful mission to quit smoking all started with a visit to their family doctor. Now they are encouraging other smokers to get help to quit too.

Freda Te Aho smoked heavily from the age of twelve, but finally at 70 she decided to give up and encouraged her two daughters to take on the challenge as well.

“A visit to my family doctor is all it took to realise there are plenty of services available to help you quit smoking. After giving up I noticed a huge improvement in my health. I don’t cough as much and I now have so much more energy to enjoy life.”

The family trio joined a quit support group and also started taking the government subsidised medication, Champix, to curb their addiction.

Health Hawke’s Bay chief executive Philip Grant says smoking kills 4700 New Zealanders each year. According to the New Zealand Health Survey, Hawke’s Bay has one of the highest populations of current daily smokers in the country at 24.2% compared with the national average of 19.1%.

“Giving up smoking is one of the single biggest things someone can do for their health and the health of their whanau. For people wanting to become smoke-free there are a number of no-cost support options. Your doctor or practice nurse can help identify the best way for you to become smoke-free. It can all start with just one question.”

There are a full range of government funded support tools available in Hawke’s Bay ranging from nicotine replacement products such as gum and lozenges, medication such as Champix, one-to-one quit support or links to other quit support agencies such as Aukati KaiPaipa and Quitline.

Freda Te Aho with daughter Roma Te Aho

Freda’s daughter, Roma Te Aho is grateful for the free support group and medication which helped her quit smoking. She said she used to smoke 20 cigarettes a day which was becoming financially crippling.

“Cigarette prices are astronomical. I was spending about $120 a week on smokes, so I am now saving a huge amount.” Ms Te Aho said quitting smoking also takes plenty of mental stamina and determination.

“Stopping wasn’t actually that hard, the challenge was maintaining it. A half-hearted attempt is not good enough. If you aren’t giving 100 percent, it won’t work and you’re just fooling yourself. It comes down to self-discipline and support from the available services.”

Smoking has killed 171,000 New Zealanders in 50 years (between 1950 to 2000). Today it is estimated that 4700 people die due to smoking related illnesses each year.

Cigarette smoking is still one of the leading causes of preventable death and quitting is still one of the best things anyone can do for their health and their whanau’s health. (Cancer Society of New Zealand, 2011).

The Profit, Hawke’s Bay’s leading business magazine, announced the winners of its annual awards The Profiteers at a special cocktail event at Elephant Hill last night.

PORSE founder Jenny Yule was voted by the business community as the overall Profiteer 2012, while Rod Drury of

Xero won the entrepreneur category and Kevin Atkinson was voted as Legendary Profiteer.

Mr Atkinson is the principal director of New Zealand’s largest payroll software provider IMS Payroll. He’s also the chairman of Unison Networks Limited and the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board.

TVNZ business presenter Nadine Chalmers Ross won the Expat Profiteer category.

Other winners included Joshua Woodham of Social Kiwi as the Virtual Profiteer and Bay Espresso café owner Chris Jarvis won the Rising Profiteer. Mr Jarvis has six cafes scattered around Hawke’s Bay.

The Profit’s editor Damon Harvey said it was great to see the business community acknowledge the success and contribution of local business leaders.

“We need our tall poppies, the ones that are successful, as they inspire others to also achieve in business.

“We’re also thrilled to celebrate the magazine’s second year of publishing and have now distributed over 50,000 magazines in Hawke’s Bay and beyond,” Mr Harvey said.

All six winners and the runners up of each category are featured in the latest issue of The Profit, a quarterly business magazine for Hawke’s Bay.

Other stories in the latest issue include an interview with Kiwibank chief executive Paul Brock, how to get your business back up and running after a disaster and how a young entrepreneur, Hamish Pinkham has created one of New Zealand most successful music events – Rhythm & Vines.

The meat testing, involving 5000 of this season’s Primera and Lamb Supreme lambs measures qualities such as meat tenderness, colour, taste, fat depth and yield (which is the percentage of saleable meat on the carcass).

The programme into its second of seven years, aims to link the plate back to pasture by identifying the key characteristics that influence on-farm performance.

New Zealand’s leading red meat genetics company Focus Genetics, Silver Fern Farms and agricultural research company Farm IQ, have led the project which includes progeny testing and CT scanning.

Focus Genetics Chief Executive, Graham Leech, says the meat testing aims to help farmers identify the best genetics across sheep breeds so they can maximise profitably and produce the best quality meat for consumers.

“The testing shows that quality genetics are continuing to improve yield results for farmers while also delivering meat quality improvement in characteristics like tenderness if there’s selective breeding,” said Mr Leech.

The Hawke’s Bay based company formed by the amalgamation of Rissington Breedline and Landcorp’s Genetics Division says this season, farmers are producing some of the best yielding lambs on its records.

Central Hawke’s Bay farmer, Sam Morrah says this season his lambs yielded extremely well with over ninety percent falling into Silver Fern Farms top grade. He attributes much of this success to using Focus Genetics Primera breeding rams.“It’s exciting to see that superior genetics are producing the goods for farmers. Genetics are the driving force behind any production system and they’re the only permanent improvement a farmer can make.”

“We supply Marks and Spencer in the UK through Silver Fern Farms, so it’s really important that we produce high quality lambs. It’s not good enough to just have a fat lamb anymore we need to produce lambs which have plenty of useable quality meat. We trust that superior genetics helps us achieve this.”

Silver Fern Farms Chief Executive, Keith Cooper says the company’s putting significant investment into the development of leading consumer branded products and developing measurement systems and better incentives for farmers.

The meat processors Takapau and Finegand plants dedicated three days this year to the progeny meat testing, with the final processing taking place at Takapau today.

Mr Cooper says it’s important that farmers have the practical tools available to influence their performance and genetics is clearly one of a few key inputs for farmers to improving results.

“We would like to support genetic improvement initiatives on this sort of scale because it supports our aspirations to produce sustainable farmer returns while also improving our ability to produce differentiated products.”

FarmIQ was established just over a year ago and was set up to run a seven year sheep, cattle and deer research and development programme to shift the meat industry’s production approach to a value chain base led by consumer requirements.

Farm IQ Chief Executive, Collier Isaacs says “the aim is to ensure we can consistently deliver what consumers want in the market place. It’s important to change the commodity focus in farming to a consumer focused value chain linking the plate back to the pasture.’

“Developing independent testing and measurement systems are key to the value chain approach. However, FarmIQ is breed neutral; it is the performance that counts.”

Focus Genetics Key Facts

• Largest red meat genetics company in the world
• Provides 10 to 12 percent of sheep, beef and deer genetics in New Zealand
• Supplies Australia, United Kingdom and South America
• 6 sheep breeds – Primera, Highlander, Lamb Supreme, Texel, Romney and Landmark
• 4 cattle breeds – Stabilizer, Black Angus, Red Angus, Simmental
• 2 deer breeds – Red and Waipiti
• Sells 5,000 rams, 500 bulls and 300 stags annually to New Zealand farmers

Silver Fern Farms Key Facts

• New Zealand’s leading processor and marketer of lamb, mutton, beef, venison to more than 60 countries
• Farmer controlled cooperative representing more than 18,000 farmer shareholders
• Operates 21 processing facilities throughout the country, employing more than 7,000 staff in the peak of season
• Key markets in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe, Asia and the Middle East

FarmIQ Key Facts

• A seven year programme of $ 151M, funded 40% by Government, and 60% by industry – Silver Fern Farms and Landcorp Farming Ltd
• Aims to use performance measurement to drive the optimal functioning of the red meat sector by using independent data captured in market, processing and on-farm to support effective communications between consumers, markets, processors and farmers in the value chain.

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Live today tvnz Sam broadcasting the weather and playing speedminton.

Giblingroup.co.nz is a website that combines focus on Giblin Group’s client portfolio as well as business/industry news.

Giblingroup.co.nz features

• Multi-image home page sliders that link to referring pages/posts.
• Static scrolling menus that are always displayed as you scroll down each page.
• RSS and news feeds.
• Content management that can be updated and accessed from any web capable device.
• On-going Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Be sure to have a look at www.giblingroup.co.nz today.

The Jarrod Cunningham Youth Sports Trust website (like all of our websites) was developed with content updating in mind. All features of this website (imagery, wording, pages and even layout) can be changed easily using the content management system. All without the need to know any website code.

JCTrust.co.nz features

• Large home page slider.
• RSS and news feeds.
• Large funding form that is accessible from a simple drop down button.
• Data from the form is saved to a cloud hosted database as well as emailed to a representative at JCTrust.co.nz.
• Content management that can be updated and accessed from any web capable device.
• On-going Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Be sure to have a look at www.jctrust.co.nz today.

Getonit.co.nz is a promotional website to gain attention for Unison Fibre’s ultra fast fibre internet.

The launch of the website was complimented with radio, newspaper, magazine and billboard advertising.

Getonit.co.nz recorded over 10,000 unique website hits in the first week!

Getonit.co.nz features

• Full page background imagery that fills even the largest monitors and resolutions.
• Fibre user stories featuring video hosted by Youtube.com
• Originally featured a user form which would instantly recommend an ISP (Internet Service Provider) based on your location, internet requirements and a few more details.
• Data from the form was then saved to a cloud hosted database as well as emailed to a representative at Unison Fibre.
• On-going Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Visit www.getonit.co.nz now.

Lean Meats Ltd. is a large company that has a strong presence in industry markets locally – and internationally.

Lean Meats’ website features

• Layout design that closely follows their imagery and branding.
• RSS, Facebook and news integration.
• Secure supplier login that connects directly with Lean Meats hosted databases.
• Content management that can be updated and accessed from any web capable device.
• On-going Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Visit www.leanmeats.co.nz today.

Health Hawke’s Bay had a large, content heavy website that was not visually accessible to to the public.

We have developed a website that contains all that content while providing a fresh, new user experience with easily attainable information.

Hawke’s Bay Health’s new website features

• Designed with a wide target audience in mind.
• Simple, multi-managed menu structure.
• Homepage content slider.
• Password secure sub-site/section.
• “Find a Practice” sub-site.
• Javascript drop down fields.
• Content management that can be updated and accessed from any web capable device.
• On-going Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Take a look at www.healthhb.co.nz and see the features for yourself.

Kiwi mums are now flocking to a free online website that’s been helping shed thousands of kilos of baby weight across the ditch.

Lose Baby Weight, started in Australia in October 2010, offering time poor, busy mums a full diet and exercise plan that’s safe while breastfeeding.  So far it claims to have helped mums lose over 75,000 kilos in baby weight.

Now targeting the New Zealand market with the launch of a Kiwi edition of its ebook “The Breastfeeding Friendly 28 Day Diet & Exercise Plan” Lose Baby Weight NZ hasalready picked up over 2,500 Kiwi Facebook fans, and everyday has a new mum following their healthy eating plan.

Lose Baby Weights’ New Zealand partner, Nic McCondach, Auckland, says those on the plan are generally losing an average one kilo a week, and they’re not afraid to talk about it, or the challenges and the stigma that comes in the battle to retain the pre-baby figure.

Amanda Davis (from Nelson) started the programme when her son was just seven weeks old and in eight weeks she lost eight kilos.

“This isn’t another fad diet. It’s educational, nutritious and easy to do. I turned every day chores into exercise. I now have lots of energy, no longer feel sluggish and feel the best that I have ever felt and most importantly my baby’s better for it,” says Mrs Davis.

“I’ve tried on a pair of shorts that I wore before having my two babies and I can actually do the buttons up on them without a struggle.”

Te Ani Withington, a breastfeeding mum from Blenheim has lost 3kg in three and a half weeks.

“My son is a very demanding breast feeder and at times it seemed I didn’t have enough milk at times.  Now my milk supply has increased really well, and he’s so much better for it.

“I feel so good, my energy is through the roof, I’m running around with the kids again (and actually wanting to) and my husband has even told me a couple of times this week that I’m looking good and am starting to glow again”

Ms McCondach, brought the Aussie diet across the Tasman after struggling to lose her own baby weight.

“I was fascinated that contrary to belief that new mums shouldn’t be trying to lose baby weight while breastfeeding, here was a nutritional diet that was safe to use and was ideal for busy mothers.”

“And while there should never be any pressure placed on a mother to lose weight, it’s great to have a healthy and safe way to help them when they are ready,” says Ms McCondach

A big draw card for Kiwi mothers is that the Australian Breastfeeding Association regards it as safe to use for breastfeeding mothers.

Ms McCondach says the next step is to work with the equivalent organisations in New Zealand to gain the same recognition because the foods in the diet have been specifically selected to support the milk supply of breastfeeding mothers and the exercises are easy to incorporate into daily activities.

Lose Baby Weight New Zealand e-book is a 28 Day Nutrition and Exercise Plan. For a dollar a day ($28) the new program is specifically designed to provide safe and healthy weight loss methods for breastfeeding mums.

“Everything has been designed to give mums, including those who are breastfeeding, the best nutrition possible as well as helping them lose weight. The diet plans have been designed to be quick and easy to follow but are also packed with foods to help boost milk supply,” says Ms McCondach.

The Breastfeeding Friendly 28 Day Diet & Exercise Plan has been created by leading experts in the field of nutrition and post pregnancy exercise.

Top Tips for Losing Baby Weight

1. Brush your teeth after dinner. It works as a great signal to stop eating.
2.  Try grated lemon, lime or orange zest on fruits, vegetables, fish or chicken, and experiment with herbs, spices, onions and garlic instead of fats, sugars and salt.
3. Turn daily tasks into exercise e.g skip around while singing nursery rhymes to your baby and do squats while making a cup of tea.
4. Healthy snacking eases the long stretch between lunch and dinner.
5. Add a slice of lemon or lime or a splash of juice for flavour with sparkling mineral water. Tomato or mixed vegetable juices are filling, nutritious and low calorie.
6. Smaller plates control portions. Foods take up more room and will make you think you have a larger portion than you do.
7. No matter what you are eating, put it on a plate. Don’t sit down with a bag of chips, a box of crackers or a can of mixed nuts you’re bound to overeat.
8. Reduce fat in homemade baked goods by replacing half the fat in the recipe with applesauce, plain yoghurt or peaches.
9. If you don’t have enough time for 30 minutes exercise each day, break it up into two or three shorter sessions. Take a short walk at lunch, one at break time and another one after dinner.
10. Coffee house fanatics beware – some of those coffee drinks are low in nutrition and high in calories. Try a skinny latte, which provides a full serving of dairy and about 10 grams of protein.

For Further Information

www.losebabyweight.co.nz

www.facebook.com/losebabyweight.co.nz

Contact Nic McCondach  (09) 820 8343 or 027 562 4610