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

If you took two packages of Hanes Underwear and compared them like Julia did, then you would notice a distinct difference between the pictures. The authors of Photoshop Disasters hit it right on the head:

If you’re trying to guess which one is the real leg, the smart money is on neither.

I know that using photo editing software like Photoshop is common, but I forget HOW common it is. Not even this perfectly beautiful girl on the package of Hanes underwear was good enough. Her already lovely leg had to be trimmed and molded like clay on the computer.

Personally, I LOVE Hanes underwear, but I don’t think I’ll ever look at their packaging the same way again.

In the world of marathons, I sometimes forget that 5K and 10K races are also considered long distance races. Here is a classic picture from the Library of Congress of Hannes Kolehmainen. He won the Olympic gold medal for the 5K and 10K in the 1912 Olympics.

Sometimes I forget that these races are so old. Almost one hundred years ago, this man ran that familiar 3.1 miles of a 5K. He ran it in 14:36.6 minutes, which is slower than the usual winner of the Salt Lake 5K by a couple of minutes, but twice as fast as my best time. Are we faster now than they were back then? Are we slower? There certainly are more people competing in races.

Sometimes I wonder what it was like to run in 1912. No digital chronographs. No heart rate monitors. No Nike+ telling me when I’ve finished my run, however inaccurately it may judge it, I’m sure it’s more accurate than I could have done in 1912. Is it more convenient to run now? Yeah, I think it is. That’s why we’re able to beat the Olympic time at little 5K races in my hometown.

From the look on his face, however, running is just as hard now as it was back then.

Each week, I will give you step by step instructions on how to get into a swimsuit this summer. If you’re short on time, scroll down to the end and read “The Short Version” to get your weekly tips.

If you haven’t been following along with the program, there is still time to get into that swimsuit this summer. Go back to Week 1 and get started there:

• Starling Fitness » Get Into That Swimsuit This Summer: Week 1

If you HAVE been following along, your job last week was to wear your swimsuit while you cleaned house.

How did that work? Did anything fall out? Did your sarong stay on? Do you trust the swimming suit’s ability to stay on your body during extreme work conditions? If not, buy a different one. If so, move on to this week’s challenge.

Wear Your Swim Suit in a Swimming Pool

I know it’s a radical departure, but at some point, you are going to have to test the suit out at a pool. My recommendation is to go to a pool on the other side of town or even at a hotel in your own town. You are less likely to see anyone you know at those places and you can test your suit in relative privacy.

Go Alone

This isn’t about having fun with the family. If you need to, get a sitter. This is YOUR time this week and you only need to be gone for an hour or two. You deserve two hours to yourself out of the 168 hours in a week. If you can’t take two hours to yourself in a week, you have bigger problems than swimsuit issues. Get help from friends, family or services so you can spend two hours to yourself.

Don’t Use The Gym Pool

This isn’t about exercise. This is about learning how to relax and enjoy yourself in your swimsuit. Don’t use the gym pool, even though it’s free. It’s better to get the adrenaline rush from sneaking into a hotel pool than to test your newly beloved swim suit at the gym. The BEST option would be to actually check into a hotel for an entire night of solitude and enjoyment, but if that’s not an option for you, make sure you go somewhere that feels as relaxing as it can be.

This is the week to really test drive your suit, so enjoy your hour or two in the pool.

The Short Version:

• Evaluate your current swim suit. Do you trust it to stay on your body? If not, buy a different one. If so, move on to this week’s challenge.

• Wear your swim suit in a swimming pool.

• Go alone.

• Don’t use the gym pool. Find a place that feels luxurious and relaxing.

All over Salt Lake City, we have remnants of the 2002 Winter Olympics. The Olympic Tower is one of them. A huge tower of blown orange glass, it says NOTHING to me about physical fitness or winter sports. I’m almost bitter at the “art” that was thrown up to make our city look urban and presentable.

If you were to create something that represented physical fitness, what would it look like? Do you think a hulking mass of glass is really representative of the epitome of human strength?

Wendy Bumgardner at About.com’s Walking Blog brings up an interesting idea. Which is better, treadmill or walking outdoors?

• Treadmill vs. Outdoors Walking

She suggests:

The motorized tread and lack of uneven surfaces, curbs, etc. slightly reduce your calories per mile on a treadmill. You can make that small difference up by adding as little as a 1% incline on the treadmill.

For me, it’s not strictly about calorie burning or training effects. Walking outdoors is interesting. I usually take a camera along and snap a ton of photos along the way. Then again, walking on my treadmill with my DVD player nearby, I can take myself to any place in world (or out of it). In fact, if I want to recreate a peaceful walk outdoors, I can always do so with one of my Starling Fitness Walking DVDs:

• Starling Fitness – Fitness, diet, and health weblog » Walking Videos For Sale

I am continually surprised at how relaxing AND invigorating a walk on the beach can be when there is three feet of snow outside my window.

Most importantly, the best exercise is the one you will do. If the thought of going outside makes you cringe, then maybe the treadmill is best for you. If you have been avoiding the room with the treadmill, then maybe a walk outside will be better. A minor difference in calorie expenditure or alternate muscle training is NOTHING compared to being willing to do it every day.

There are many times that companies brag about their own advertisements with such phrases as, “As Advertised On TV” or “Advertised In These High Quality Magazines.” Most people just shrug and move on, but what if a vitamin is listed in the PDR? Isn’t that an honor?

Envia would like you to think so, but MLM Watch knows the truth:

• Advertising Hype for Eniva’s VIBE

When used by itself, the name “PDR” usually refers to the book that lists prescription drugs. There are, however, at least 15 other PDRs. Eniva’s listing is in the PDR for Nonprescription Drugs, Dietary Supplements, and Herbs, pictured above, which is not widely used. Listing in this book is not an “honor” or endorsement. The book’s foreword states that “by making this material available, the publisher [Thomson PDR] is not advocating the use of any products described herein.” All product information is supplied by the manufacturer. Thomson does not select what products are listed by choosing those it thinks are best. The only requirement for listing is payment of a fee.

Next time you see a nutritional supplement or weight loss aid advertisement, remember that everything they are saying is trying to convince you to buy their product. If their product was really that good, people would be breaking down their door to get it and they wouldn’t have to convince anyone.

SLB Plus is a regular reader and runner on Runner+. Recently, he wrote a blog entry about the Virtual Partner feature on his Garmin 305.

• Quadrathon: The VP of 3P

He has been training with his Garmin 305 for a while:

My 305, you have got to love this thing, I have had mine nearly a year have piled on over 1000 miles on it and it’s never let me down. It has a feature rich menu of options which I won’t go into in depth as I know a lot of you have one but the VP [Virtual Partner] is one I have only started using recently and at the moment only on my road bike while on the trainer.

The Virtual Partner is a motivational feature that lets you “race” a little guy. I don’t know exactly how the pace of your VP is chosen, but if you run faster than him, you get to “beat” him.

Personally, I find things like this VERY motivating. Running on Runner+ helped keep me motivated because I could see who was ahead of me that day and try to run further than that person. The VP feature on the Garmin 305 is like a race every day.

When I tested the Garmin 305 at CES 2006, I was unimpressed.

The huge and bulky machine dwarfed my Nike Imara Heart Rate Monitor. Back then it cost nearly $400, but now you can find it for as low as $215. You can also purchase a bicycle cadence sensor so it will tell how you are doing if you are exercising on your bike. To add icing on the cake, you can buy a foot pod, so if you are a treadmill runner (like I am), the 305 can keep track of your distance on the treadmill.

SLB Plus talked about his love for his Garmin 305 before:

• Quadrathon: Back in the flow…

The more I hear him talk about his 305, the more I think that I might have been too quick to judge the bulky watch as an overpriced gadget. It might be time to start to seriously consider the Garmin 305 as a useful training device.

Click here to see Garmin’s Website:

• Garmin – Forerunner 305

Joy Bauer is the nutritionist for the Today Show’s Joy Fit Club. Here is a success story:

Kelly Shear lost a total of 121 pounds, leaving her at a size 6. Joy Bauer goes through and explains how Kelly is eating differently now. Kelly has become a member of The Joy Fit Club. The funny thing about this club is that you can only join if you’ve already lost your weight.

Twice a month, TODAY inducts a new member into nutritionist Joy’s Bauer’s Fit Club. These are determined people who have lost and kept off 100 pounds or more through diet and exercise.

It’s not like Joy Bauer necessarily helped these people get slim, but she gets to take credit for their accomplishments. When watching the video, I could tell that Joy had absolutely NOTHING to do with Kelly’s weight loss. The newscater asked, “Joy, what did you learn from Kelly’s experience?” As she was asking this question, this look flew across Joy’s face for a micro-second.

She was obviously not too pleased with how the newscaster worded that phrase. Joy corrected her, saying, “Based on Kelly’s success?” She then spouted the three normal things: food journal, post inspirational pics and photos and don’t beat yourself up.

I guess the thing that bothers me so much is that Joy Bauer offers nothing unless you buy her books. When I scoured her site, there was nothing to tell me what program I should follow or how to get started.

Kelly Shear’s success IS laudable and she should be applauded, but I doubt that Joy Bauer had anything to do with it.

Each week, I will give you step by step instructions on how to get into a swimsuit this summer. If you’re short on time, scroll down to the end and read “The Short Version” to get your weekly tips.

If you haven’t been following along with the program, it’s not too late to join in. Go back and do week 1 and 2’s assignments this week and you’ll only be a week behind.

• Starling Fitness » Get Into That Swimsuit This Summer: Week 1

• Starling Fitness » Get Into That Swimsuit This Summer: Week 2

If you HAVE been following along, your job last week was to wear your swimsuit around the house for an hour each day, totaling seven hours for last week. This week, you only need to wear your swimsuit and sarong for only about three hours. There’s only one catch.

You have to wear your swimsuit while you clean your house.

It’s best to just plan a three hour stretch so you can do all the normal chores that you might be spreading out over the week for this project. The reason I want you to spend a few hours in your swimming suit cleaning house is because it’s an EXCELLENT test of how your suit will handle something active like swimming, snorkeling or boogie boarding.

Notice how your suit feels when you are doing the following activities:

• Bending down to pick up laundry.
• Splashing yourself with water when cleaning the tub.
• Reaching above your head to put away dishes.
• Getting on your knees to clean out from under the couch.
• Sweating as you push the vacuum.

Whatever you normally do while cleaning, do it wearing your swimsuit and sarong. This will show you how well it will handle the beach or pool. Does the sarong keep falling off? If it does, you either need to learn a new way to tie it, a handy way to keep it attached or a new one. Does any intimate part of your body fall out when you are reaching or bending? Then you probably chose a suit that’s too tight and you need to go back to week one’s exercise. Save the tight suit for when you are thinner, but get a suit that fits you NOW.

If you feel a little embarrassed doing the house cleaning in your swimming suit, pretend that you are an island maid in Hawaii. If you were visiting Hawaii and a maid showed up at your door in a swim suit and sarong, you probably wouldn’t be that surprised. Imagine that you are cleaning a Hawaiian bungalow and enjoy your three hours testing out your suit.

The Short Version:

• Wear your swimming suit while you clean your house this week (at least three hours).

• If any intimate part of your body falls out of the suit when you are cleaning, buy a bigger suit.

I was at the local health food restaurant the other day and I saw their sign that read, “Frittata of the Day.” I knew a frittata was some egg dish, but I didn’t really know anything else about it, so I decided to look it up. According to Wikipedia, a frittata is slightly different than an omelette.

A frittata is a type of Italian omelette that frequently features fillings such as meats, cheeses, and vegetables. Like a traditional French omelette, a frittata is prepared in a skillet. However, whereas an omelette is cooked on a stovetop and served folded, a frittata is first partially cooked on a stovetop but then finished under the grill (broiler) and served open-faced.

So all those years when I thought I was making an omelette, yeah, I was making an omelette. A frittata has an extra step in the broiler to brown the top. I love omelettes because they are so easy to make. Here’s my easiest recipe:

Ham and Cheese Omelette:

Ingredients:

• One egg
• 1 ounce of chopped ham (you can buy pre-chopped in the meat section)
• 1 ounce of cheddar cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Non-stick spray

Directions:

• Spray a pan with non-stick spray.
• Break the egg into the pan, add ham, salt and pepper.
• Mix vigorously with a fork.
• Sprinkle cheese on top. Do not mix again after this step.
• Turn the burner on Medium heat, cover and cook for three to five minutes.
• When the omelette looks like the picture, carefully fold it in half and serve.

Calories: approximately 250
WW Points: 5