I found this video in my Starling Fitness folder, but it doesn’t look like I’ve ever written about it or shown it to you. It sat around because it was such a big file. I tried compressing it, but it was still huge, so I put it up on YouTube. Unfortunately, I have no idea where I found it…
Pretty healthy diet for 1954. I’m interested in the fact that Ralph becomes so popular after eating healthy. When’s that gonna happen to me?
Kevin Smith is known for his Silent Bob character, but he is also the acclaimed director of movies like Jersey Girl (my favorite), Chasing Amy and Clerks. He writes regularly on his weblog and in January, he started a lifestyle change. You can read about it here, but if the title of his entry bothers you at all, don’t click the link.
He has a family history of diabetes. Considering his weight, he was worried that he was also going to become a victim of that disease.
So I took the glucose tolerance test – the blood test one undergoes to see if they’re diabetic or at least pre-diabetic. You fast for twelve hours, have blood drawn, down a bottle of sugar-heavy medicinal soda (in my case, orange-flavored), wait two hours, then have blood drawn again – all in an effort to track your body’s ability to deal with sugar (diabetes is, after all, the body’s inability to metabolize sugar normally). After taking the test, I went to Jersey for a week to hit some Devils games and play some poker – all while ignoring the distinct possibility that I’d passed the point of no return, and had, indeed, developed diabetes. Today, I went to the doctor’s office for my weigh-in and to face down the test results…
Which I passed with flying colors.
Apparently, my body knows what to do with sugar: it stores it as fat. Not great, but very awesome, considering the alternative. It was a wake-up call. I’ve beat the genetic odds thus far, but just because you haven’t shot yourself yet doesn’t mean you keep playing Russian Roulette. I’m putting the gun down, folks: the gun that’s filled with cake frosting.
He will be chronicling his efforts with weight loss and diet management on his weblog, so you can read more about his life there.
On another note, I feel for Kevin. The picture above was on his website with the following name: fatfuck.jpg. When I downloaded it, I renamed it to KevinSmithBefore.jpg because I couldn’t bear to let that name stand. Fat Fuck is something a grade school kid calls you, not something you call yourself. We become very attached to names, even when they hurt our feelings. I don’t want Kevin Smith to think of himself as a Fat Fuck, even if he’s overweight. Sorry, buddy! You’re going to have to be the glorious and grand Kevin Smith. I won’t let you be Fat Fuck.
What names have you been calling yourself? Time to let them go…
Update: Kevin decided to starve himself using the OptiFast program. If you care about this guy at all, please email him and tell him not to do this to himself. I have starved myself enough times to know that it will only make his weight issues worse. He is already teetering on the edge of a binge.
There were times in my life that I only felt motivated to diet if I felt bad about myself. Something would click in my mind and I would start being disgusted with myself. It seemed like the only way that I ever would be willing to go on a diet was when I was so unhappy with the way that I looked that I was calling myself names at all times. I called this “motivation.”
The reason why I had a hard time following diets is because I was starving myself. Sure, it’s hard to follow a diet when you’re starving yourself. When I took a much more relaxed and loving attitude with myself, I was able to eat healthy without the name-calling.
How do you motivate yourself to eat healthy and exercise?
What do you do to keep yourself on track?
Is being on track difficult?
If it is, do you think it’s because of the program or do you blame yourself?
There were so many times when I would demean myself and call myself lazy for not following a diet plan that was INSANE. It was the diet plan, not me that was the problem.
It looks like Peter Pan peanut butter is being recalled because a salmonella outbreak has been tracked back to their product. With e.coli on your spinach and green onions and salmonella in your peanut butter, is there anything we CAN eat?
So many times, nutritionists tell us that we should be eating whole foods. My spinach is a whole food, but because of the way it is packaged, it can become unsafe for me to eat. Now, peanut butter is very processed, but the machines that grind peanut butter in the health food store aren’t all that clean either. Which should I trust? Neither?
Over a hundred years ago, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle. It blew the lid off the food processing industry, revealing the lack of cleanliness in meat packaging plants all over the nation. Here we are one hundred years later and we are still dealing with these issues. Is the only option to grow our own vegetables? How do I assure that I don’t accidentally get e.coli on my own spinach? I can’t even imagine slaughtering my own meat. I would HAVE to get my protien from homemade peanut butter.
Eating has never been easier for the human race. We have more food than we can consume and when we try to consume it all, we end up dealing with obesity. The only problem is that we have placed the production of our food in the hands of other people and I have no way of knowing if they washed them.
This photograph was taken by Dru! and posted on Flickr. Whenever I exercise. I try to remember that I’m on the treadmill so that I can hit the mountain trails in summer. I want to see sights like this!
Dru!’s comments on this photograph:
“Fortuitous lighting on Elk Mountain near Chilliwack. I seem to be lucking out with the good light lately! This is currently the shot that I would most like to revisit, if someone gave me a time machine…”
Times like these are the reason that we eat healthy and exercise. This is where fitness can get you!
Starling Fitness is sponsoring Race Across the USA. It is a cooperative event using the Nike+ Challenge. This is a little different than anything Nike+ has on their website. The goal is to run across the United States. Going the route I chose, it would take 3,227 miles to cross the USA. The map above is the route that I have chosen.
We will walk to the following cities:
You can see the route in detail here:
As you can see, we’re taking major roads on our Race Across the USA. By myself, I don’t think I could ever walk it, but if all of us add the miles that we run or walk every day, I think we could finish this walk in about a month.
A month?
Yep, if all the people who read Starling Fitness and work out with a Nike+ added their miles together, I think we could walk across the USA in about 40 days or so. A month if we pushed it.
That’s the goal: all of us together, to Race Across the USA and in one month.
To make it sweeter, I’m even offering prizes.
To enter, you have to have a Nike+ and link it up to their online system. You cannot leave a message here to be sent an invitation. You must click on this link and ask to be added to the Race Across the USA on the Nike+ website:
You will be invited to a Distance Goal race of 1 mile. You’ll be able to achieve that goal quite easily, but keep running. We’ll add the miles of everyone together. I will check the mileage every day. As soon as I notice that we have achieved the goal of 3,227 miles, I will stop the race and prizes will be announced. The Race Across the USA starts March 1st (Thursday), so come walk across the USA with us!
Since Nike’s system isn’t set up for a cooperative event like this, you will need to check here at Starling Fitness for progress and winners.
We reserve the right to limit participation in the challenge due to our time constraints or the limits of Nike’s system.
This event is not sponsored by Nike or Apple. Starling Fitness will choose the winners based on total mileage. Our decisions are final.
I have talked before about how ostracized I felt when I was overweight. Some of it was documentable exclusion, but the rest I just chalked up to paranoia. Now, I’m thinking that it wasn’t paranoia afterall.
Dr. Pryor found that for non-stigmatized individuals, there is an “inclusion principalâ€â€”a tendency to reach out and include a group member that has clearly been ostracized. However, this inclusion principal did not apply to overweight group members, and Dr. Pryor concluded that the stigma associated with their size prevented others from including them in typical group behavior.
As if health issues weren’t enough, here is another glaring example of the benefits of eating healthy and exercising more. Next time I feel like bingeing, I’m going to remember this study. If I can stay fit and healthy, I’ll benefit in more ways than just health. People will actually include me more.
If you have been watching the Oxygen Network at the wrong time of the day, you might have seen the 30 minute informercial for Amaze RX. It’s a meal replacement shake that has about the same calories as a Slim Fast. Of course, it claims massive weight loss in short amounts of time.
Unfortunately, Quackwatch has revealed that their claims are deceptive.
The before and after pictures are of people who used Amaze Rx in conjunction with lapband surgery and the commercial isn’t very clear about that “minor” fact.
Most segments of the program do not make it clear that the testimonial-givers were lapband recipients, which means that people who begin watching after the first minute may not realize this. The infomercial contains occasional text messages that the participants used Amaze Rx to “maintain” or “accelerate” lapband results. Some of these messages lasted about 5 seconds and were large enough to read. But others lasted only 2 seconds and were too small to read without pausing the video. During the eighth minute of the infomercial, Carter says, “You have seen some of the amazing results results of lapband procedure recipients, and you have seen other men and women other men and women, just like you, losing weight and inches daily.” The phrase “just like you” suggests that the product alone will bring about the pictured results.
Forcing yourself to gag down protein shakes instead of eating real, healthy food isn’t the answer. If it was, Oprah would have stayed thin back in the 80’s when she was on the Optifast plan. The only way to lose weight is to eat less and move more. We all know that, but the solution is difficult at times. Don’t make it harder by putting yourself on a fast.
Bad form, Dr. Rick Carter, bad form…
A special thank you to our regular commenter from iPortion for bringing this to my attention. Yourself ! Fitness seems to have gotten past whatever issues that were stalling them and are soon to be releasing a new product called Y!F Lifestyle.
We are working on the next Yourself!Fitness title called Y!F Lifestyle to be released on the new game consoles and the PC. Y!F Lifestyle has many of the new features that you asked us to create and we will be releasing the details for this new product soon!
Please stay tuned for more great fitness gaming products from your friends at responDESIGN and Yourself!Fitness.
Of course, my imagination goes all haywire when I hear an annoucement like this. They said that they will be releasing this on the new game consoles and the PC. Does that mean the Nintendo Wii? Can you imagine how fun that would be? They could sell the game with a weighted Wii controller that you have to move how Maya says. It would be an even better upper body workout!
I’m excited to see what Yourself ! Fitness has in store for us!
Whenever you limit your food, you are taking away some of your ability to nurture yourself. Unless you are the kind of person who feels nurtured when you are starved, you probably get some satisfaction and warm fuzzy feeling from eating. We are hard-wired to feel good when we eat, so if you are limiting your food, how are you going to nurture yourself? That’s what this week’s question is all about:
How can I nurture myself without food?
What are the non-food activities that I can give myself?
What are the non-food rewards that I can give myself?
When I usually eat, how can I replace my usual treat with a non-food treat?
Make yourself a huge list of fun things you like to do that have nothing to do with food. You might surprise yourself at how varied it is. Did you used to like to draw but haven’t let yourself draw in a long time? Then reward yourself three times a day with some drawing time instead of food. If you are limiting your food intake, your body is going to start feeling neglected. Give yourself some nurturing without food and that feeling of deprivation will be abated.
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