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

It appears that someone has been working on their Photoshop Skillz by making thin models even thinner:

• The Museum of Hoaxes – Too Skinny?

I sometimes wonder at things like this. When I first saw the Photoshopped picture, I thought to myself, “That girl needs to eat a sandwich.” I almost felt justified. I may not be at my goal weight, but at least I’m not wasting away.

I almost think that pictures like these and those photos of Lindsay Lohan’s ribs serve a purpose for us, whether they are real or not. When I saw that picture, I felt that being fat was better than wasting away. It is, but the best option is to be a healthy weight. Maybe these sort of pictures serve the purpose of keeping us from realizing our dreams of achieving a healthy weight. Maybe they feed our fear of being hungry all the time.

Don’t let things like this distract you. When you get to your goal weight, you will be healthy and strong, not weak and skinny.

Via: The Museum of Hoaxes – Skinny Women

I regularly read The Food Museum blog. They tend to talk about places that I don’t live near and food that I may never eat, but every once and awhile, I find something interesting. Here is a link to their views on School Lunch Reform.

• The FOOD Museum – School Lunch Reform

My views on the subject are tainted by my experience with school lunch as a young adult. Once I hit high school, I felt like I was in heaven as far as school lunch was concerned. No matter what they served, I could always have a salad. Of course, I drenched it with ranch dressing, but I always felt like I had a healthy option.

Personally, I don’t think school lunch is the problem. I think that parents that don’t provide a good example are the problem. If your children see you eat healthy in every environment, they will do the same. If your children are sent to school with immaculately healthy food in their lunchbox, then they will eat healthy (aside from trading). I think school lunch reform has more to do with the home than government programs.

When I read about this, I got really excited. It’s an online user-written system for logging and finding good places to go for a run. I didn’t even finish reading the review of it before I clicked over to see what was there.

• Welcome to Run The Planet

It is a really good idea, but the software leaves it poorly executed. I would have liked to see a spot for real addresses to log where to start and where to park. I would have liked to see maps showing where to run and how many miles the run is. Instead, the few runs that have been posted are vague descriptions with unclear directions.

I think I’ll stick with the Google Pedometer when I find myself in a strange city and need to go on a run. Shucks, it was such a good idea…

Via: Really Useful Fitness Blog – Find Local Running/Walking Trails

If you type Health and Fitness into Google, the number one search is this website.

• Health & Fitness Tips Newsletter Archive

It looks like they stopped making newsletters three years ago, yet they are still the top search result. The advice in the newsletters seems to be reasonable, even if the sponsors are a little questionable. When I tried to sign up for the newsletter, it didn’t work.

Check out the tips from three years ago and enjoy yourself.

Please address the problem of leaking in post menopausal women. I would love to run to improve my bone health but… I do kegels, still leak.

My first suggestion is to see a urologist. The body is a really complicated machine and there is no way that I could tell what your particular situation is. Make sure you take your health seriously and see a physician about this situation.

Here are some articles that discuss running and incontinence:

• Overactive Bladder – Urgency/urge incontinence – The American Urogynecologic Society: A very thorough explanation of all the situations in which women may “leak.” There are suggestions here as well as therapies that are available. They mention the importance of keeping a Voiding Diary in order to assess the situation.

• Incontinence: It Doesn’t Just Happen to Your Grandmother: A less thorough article about the issues, but concentrates on exercise incontinence. A very good description of what a Kegel Exercise is.

• DEPEND – Learning Center – About Female Incontinence: More information from Depend Undergarments. No mention of Kegel Exercises or any other options, but they have a form for a Voiding Diary that you can print up and use.

Just as you mentioned Kegel Exercises are the number one recommended way to prevent incontinence in all situations, but here are some other tips that I gathered while looking:

• Do not limit the intake of fluids before or during exercise. It is more important to stay hydrated when exercising.

• Go to the bathroom right before you start exercising.

• Use a tampon when running. This was recommended on a couple of websites and some of the women suffering from this swear by this technique.

• There are some medications available that prevent bladder contractions. Contact your doctor about those options.

• Some women wear a feminine napkin when they exercise (or there are products specifically designed for small urinary leaks). Considering how sweaty a good workout can make you, a little leakage on a feminine napkin or Poise pad isn’t going to be that noticeable.

Most importantly, don’t let this problem get in the way of your physical fitness. There are hundreds of ways to get fit and healthy. You and your doctor should be able to work out a plan so you can participate in sports and be healthy. Don’t rest until you find a way to make this work. You deserve a healthy and strong body.

This StrenthCast is with Caroline Kohles, a NIA dance instructor. If you can stand listening to the guilt trip at the beginning about paying for the membership, this is a pretty good podcast.

• StrengthCast – Caroline Kohles

They don’t talk about NIA very much, such as what it is and what it can do for you. Caroline does give a good motivational talk, however. Here’s my favorite quotation from this podcast:

“Knowing what you want is a huge present because it gives us direction. If you’re ever jealous, then that’s great! That means you want what someone else has and then you know, ‘Wow! That’s what I want!'”

She recommends getting your body on a schedule because the body does better when you have the same routines every day. She also believes that it’s best to take the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” out of your life. Instead, you should pay attention to your body. What do you naturally move towards? What do you naturally shy away from? Are these tendencies helpful or harmful to you?

The first time I saw this stuff, my Weight Watchers teacher passed around the one pound version. It was the first time I ever saw a visual reminder of what a loss of one pound of fat really looked like. My leader said, “Next time you complain about only losing a pound, remember what one pound of fat really looks like. A pound a week is plenty.”

• My Pet Fat

This company sells visual reminders like this. I can’t imagine wanting one of your own unless you actually teach people about weight loss. The most dramatic reminder of this was the one at Disneyland’s Innoventions.

Via: Hungry Girl – Monday News 08-22-05

I was driving to work and feeling guilty for not waking up early enough to ride my bike. I was stopped at the corner of 2100 South and 700 East when I saw her. She was about my height and looked like she weighed as much as I did when I started exercising. She ran for about ten steps and then walked. Then she ran again for about ten more steps and then walked. She was breathing heavily and my mind flew back to when I first started running.

The light changed. She turned the corner, running ten steps and then falling back into a walk. I drove through the intersection, filled with the memories of running. I remembered looking ahead of me and thinking, “I’ll run to that tree.” I would push as far as I could. Sometimes I would make it to the tree, sometimes it was just too much for me and I had to walk before I reached it. I felt so horrible because I couldn’t just run the entire time.

I couldn’t run every minute of every day, so I spent more time reading about running than actually running. Most of the articles in Runner’s World made no sense to me. They talked about splits and other runner’s jargon. Sometimes I found helpful things, other times I just turned the pages and looked at the pictures of the pretty runners. “That’s what I’ll look like when I run,” I thought to myself.

I remember reading a beginner’s guide to running book that said to run slow. It said to run even slower than that. I tried that on a run. It was one of the few times where I was able to run most of the way. I was working just as hard, but I felt so much better about myself because I was able to run more than I ever had before.

The first time I was able to run without walking was during my first 5K race. My goal was to keep running for the entire race. That was my only goal. I had no time goal. I had no other expectations except to run the entire race. I was able to do it and I felt such a joy at the end. It didn’t matter that a couple of people in the Walker division beat me. All that mattered was that I ran the whole way.

Now, I can run throughout my entire workout. When I’m tired, I run slower. When I’m energized, I run faster. I just feel good that I don’t have to walk. I don’t have to say to myself, “I’ll run as far as that bright yellow fire hydrant.” I can just run.

I felt like screaming, “Run slower,” out my car window at the girl running on 2100 South. I wanted to take her under my wing and tell her that she can do this. She can run every day and someday she will be able to run the entire route. I wanted to tell her to slow down and if she thinks that she is running slow, to run even slower than that. I wanted to tell her the key, but I just drove on past. There’s a whole big world out there waiting for her. I hope she is persistent enough to see it.

“Lose Weight Now, Ask Me How” The first time I saw that phrase, it was printed on a button on my store manager’s lapel. He was eager to talk about the patch that he was wearing on his inner wrist. He said that he had lost 10 pounds, but I couldn’t see any difference in his appearance. The year was 1986.

• Diet Blog – Herbalife: What’s The Deal?

Now, the phrase, “Lose Weight Now, Ask Me How” only haunts us from tattered bumper stickers on old cars. They may have ditched their slogan, but Herbalife, the diet product multi-level marketing scheme, has just celebrated its 25^th anniversary. I have a hard time celebrating twenty-five years of questionable marketing techniques and unproven efficacy.

My personal eating demon is bingeing, but the experts say that Anorexia has very similar patterns. This postcard showed up at PostSecret. We will only get better when we love ourselves so much that we want to make sure our bodies are healthy. If this postcard sounds familiar to you, make an appointment with a therapist to work through this issue. It’s worth it.

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.