Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I enjoyed a creme brulee last night. Mike made it for me and it was delicious. It was only four Points, so you can imagine how small it was, but frankly, my mind only wants one creme brulee. It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s two ounces or eight.

I get surprised sometimes at the delicious simplicity of a small dessert. I don’t need a four layer chocolate cake. If you put one in front of me, I’ll eat it, but if you put a small single layer chocolate cake that is just as rich, I’ll eat it too. I won’t feel deprived that it’s not bigger. I’ll be happy to have dessert.

After years of denying myself dessert, I look forward to it now. I will purposely eat very lightly at dinnertime just so that I can “afford” dessert. There were so many times as a child when I was told that I would not be allowed to eat dessert unless I finished my dinner. Now, I break those rules all the time.

One of the things about Weight Watchers that drew me to them is that I could eat whatever I wanted as long as it fit within my Points range. I can’t imagine a life without creme brulee and I refuse to deny myself its custardy goodness.

Strength Radio is a podcast that is pretty much hit and miss for me. I’m a woman, so I’m not interested in getting my biceps bigger. I don’t believe the hype about kettlebells, so a twenty minute conversation about them is not something that is really interesting to me. There have been a couple of interviews that have been interesting to me. One of them is this one, where Jason White (the host of the show) interviews MARINA.

• Strength Radio – Confessions of a Food-a-Holic – MARINA

Marina hosts her own regular podcast, so it’s not surprising that she is an excellent speaker. I find her podcasts to be motivational tidbits to listen to while I’m driving to work. Check her out.

Do you think of food as a comfort, a reward, or the main event of a celebration or vacation? You’re not alone, if this thread at Ask Metafilter is any indication:

• How to stop notions of comfort food

The responses to the question include the obvious diet fads that always have their proponents (don’t drink soda! Low carb! Count calories! Whole fruits!) but there are also some good suggestions for different ways to reward yourself. A couple of the suggestions I liked best:

1. Use a small quantities of really good or really expensive food as a reward.
2. Put the cost of each food you manage to avoid eating in a savings account (or a box) and spend it on non-food rewards.

The whole thread is worth a read, if only to realize that so many people have dealt with the same problem.

Patrick Deuel used to weigh 1,027 pounds. He has lost over four hundred pounds, weighing at 530 pounds now. He was called the Half Ton Man and the media has been watching him ever since he went public. According to the following interview, he went public with his story to get the word out on obesity:

• No Breaking Space – An Interview with Patrick Deuel – by Hugo Fitch

He had a few things that he wanted the world to know about obesity:

• “First, to the insurance companies, I would like to say that weight in excess of 100 lbs plus overweight is NOT COSMETIC, as they tried to tell me for the 42 years I was so overweight.” They told him for years that his problem was cosmetic and not life threatening. He had to get to 1,027 pounds before he could get treatment.

• “Not all weight problems are just some fat guy or gal overeating either. Genetics play a great big part of weight problems.” I do agree that genetics can play a big part in weight problems. I also like to believe that I have some control over my weight. When I eat healthy and limit my portions, I lose weight. My problem has always been with bingeing.

• “The second point is the medical profession’s treatment of morbidly obese people. They are greatly ignored by the bulk of general practitioners and specialists other than bariatric experts and surgeons.” This is true. Doctors seem to give up easily on patients that are morbidly obese. I have seen it happen with my own eyes, but is it because they believe the patients have given up on themselves? I don’t know.

• “The last message is about transportation for the morbidly obese.” He had to wait for a special truck to move him to the hospital because there are very few medical vehicles that can support humans outside the normal range.

There but for the grace of God go [I].
– John Bradford, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins

Via: The Food Museum Blog – Celery & Ciggies
Google News Search – Patrick Deuel

After obsessing over those 2 minutes 24 seconds for the last couple of weeks, I had forgotten about the reasons that I love to run. It took this article to snap me back to the reason I jump on the treadmill every day.

• UU World – Exercise as Spiritual Play – by Lisa Watts

Although I received this via my Unitarian Universalist magazine, this isn’t really a religious article and I believe it would apply to everyone.

It has been almost two weeks since I ran the Salt Lake 5K. I think it has taken me so long to post my results because I’m embarrassed by them. Just like last year, there was a huge pile up at the end of the race with nowhere to move. This is really dangerous when you finish a run because all your blood pools up in your legs and you faint. You can understand why I didn’t concentrate on pushing that little button on my watch. I was too busy trying to keep conscious.

(more…)

Aside from the obvious things like partially hydrogenated oil, have you ever wondered what some of the items in your favorite food’s ingredients list are? With things like Calcium caseinate, Butylated Hydroxytoluene, and Calcium disodium EDTA routinely appearing on labels, it’s hard to figure out just what’s in there and how it can affect you.

Cooking for Engineers, an excellent cooking weblog, has a very comprehensive list of food additives that you may find helpful, or perhaps frightening:

• Cooking for Engineers – Kitchen Notes: Additives

The alphabetical list includes common uses of each additive, known side effects, and a detailed description. If you’ve happened upon a food additive not listed there, you can submit it for future addition to the list.

I hadn’t heard anything about this game for a while, so it’s nice to know they are still working on it.

• Gamespot – EyeToy: Kinetic Hands-On Review

Based on the review, I am a little disconcerted by the idea that the trainer might be too vocal. I hope they have an option to turn the voice off if I want to. That really helped Yourself! Fitness last longer for me. Turning off Maya’s voice and listening to the ocean waves was a lot more bearable after exercising with her for a few months.

I have been waiting for this game for so long that I probably will have a Playstation by the time it comes out. The Xbox is really cool, but there are just more things available for Playstation. I guess I’ll start saving my pennies.

Via: DDR4Health

Everyone is talking about the new USDA Pyramid. I like this entry the best:

• The Food Museum Blog – What Pyramids, Where?

For all of you out there that are complaining that the food industry’s fingerprints are all over the new pyramid, remember one thing: it was made by the USDA. This wasn’t an eating and fitness plan created by the AMA or the AFAA. It was created by the food industry.

Glean from it what you can and discard the rest. Did anyone really believe that we needed 7-9 servings of grains?

I read a lot of comic books when I was young. I vividly remember the ads for the Charles Atlas program. I know they were marketed to boys and men, but I studied them. There were several things that I decided about life based on these ads.

• Crowded beaches are a hotbed of bullies.

• Men who are very muscular are bullies and should be avoided at all costs.

• Getting sand kicked in your face is an insult.

• I was never going to be one of those stupid girls who just stands around and lets her boyfriend get beat up.

• I was never going to be one of those stupid girls who is proud of her boyfriend when he beats up another guy.

• Saying, “What a man!” isn’t an insult.

I don’t think any of these are actually an indication of real life, but to this day, I avoid crowded beaches and muscular men. I wonder if the Charles Atlas program actually inspired people to be stronger and healthier, because their ads did nothing for me.

• Comic Book Ads – Charles Atlas “Hey Skinny” Classic Ad

• Charles Atlas Official Website