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

The Rudd Center teamed up with super-model Emme to create a series of videos about Weight Bias.

I’ve found that kids tease about a lot of things. If they don’t tease you because you’re fat, they’ll tease you because you’re tall or smart or have green eyes or because your name rhymes with a funny word. TEASING is the problem, no matter what the teasing is about. It’s the first stage of bullying and THAT is what needs to be stopped.

Honestly, some of the worst offenders for weight bias are people who are overweight themselves (or even worse, used to be overweight). I like to think that I’m above this sort of thing, but even now, I catch myself making judgments about overweight people that I see. I won’t even know them. I haven’t even talked to them, but I’ll think that they are lazy or stupid. Catching it in myself and being aware of this is the first step toward getting past it.

Via: Rudd Sound Bites: Rudd Center Releases Videos on Weight Bias

Mark Bittman writes the Bitten Blog for the New York Times. He has been trying to lose some weight and decided to log what he ate for a couple of weeks.

• What I Ate Last Week – Bitten Blog – NYTimes.com

As I left on a tour for my new book, I had this notion that it would be interesting to log my eating for a day or two. My compulsive tendencies took over, and I wound up writing down everything I ate, and then some. As everyone knows, eating well on the road is tough, what with instability, temptations, and tight schedules.

• What I Ate, Week 2 – Bitten Blog – NYTimes.com

Still, in other years my weight swelled as I became more sedentary, and that doesn’t seem to be a problem now. I do feel as if I’m not eating the variety of food I want to, but I attribute that to a lack of home cooking because of the need to travel.

I’m always surprised when people who EAT for a living are thin. It looks like eating fresh foods in small portions during the other meals is a good way to compensate for the luxurious meals in the evenings.

Via: Littlest, Yellowest, Differentest – Mark Bittman logs what he eats for a week

This postcard from PostSecret is so motivating to me.

It reads:

Classic literature, religious texts, and self-help books aren’t helping me put myself back together, but 2Pac is.

I have found inspiration on YouTube FAR more often than in church. I have found the will to hold on one more day from listening to Weird Al Yankovic more than I’ve ever found it in classical music.

What keeps you from eating until your stomach bursts? What keeps you exercising every day? I think the entire world would be surprised to know what motivates us isn’t always the classic literature, religious texts and self-help books.

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.

Last year, I wrote a weekly plan to get you on track for a healthy and active life. If you followed the plan last week, then here is the link to this week’s plan:

• Starling Fitness » New Year’s Resolutions: Week 5

The Short Version:

• Reduce your daily caloric average by another 100 calories. Write down EVERYTHING you eat including measurements and calories.
• Save enough calories to eat one teaspoon of healthy oil each day.
• Avoid the feeling of deprivation by finding non-food activities to nurture yourself EVERY day.
• Eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
• Save enough calories to eat two servings of dairy products each day.
• Increase your mileage. Walk 1.50 miles five days this week. You are allowed to increase your speed to the point of sweating, but if you are sore the next day you MUST go slow again.
• Give yourself kudos for coming this far.

My friend, Jake, linked to this video on his Facebook page:

It’s a sad state of my coolness when the first time I hear the new song from Beyonce it’s in a “funny” video. I actually LOVED this video. That guy dancing just goes to prove that you can dance like no tomorrow no matter what size you are! Way to go, Dancing Guy!

I had to search the dregs of YouTube to find the original video. If Dancing Guy was inspiring, just get a load of Beyonce doing her thing!

It makes me want to get up and learn the entire dance. What a great workout!

The biggest asset you can do for yourself is to make exercise a habit. One way to do this is to choose a trigger. Choose something that you do EVERY day without fail. Here are a few ideas:

• Waking up.
• Brushing your teeth.
• Eating breakfast.
• Going to lunch.
• Coming home from work.
• Eating dinner.
• Going to bed.

When I worked as a secretary, our office used to be right next to a gym in town. Instead of taking an hour to eat, I could run over to the gym and fit in a workout at lunchtime. Afterward, I just ate my lunch at my desk. Taking my lunch break was the PERFECT trigger for me because I was required by law to take a break, so I did it every day.

If you choose a trigger, then every time you do it, it will remind you to exercise as well. Another good trigger for me used to be waking up. When I was in college, I would run in the morning first thing after waking up. The first two weeks, I slept in my exercise clothes just to remind me to exercise. That worked for a long time and even now, I sometimes feel the urge to exercise when I first wake up. It was a trigger that still works even now.

What about you? Choose a trigger that you can correlate with your exercise and state it here in the comments. Now that you think about it, you might ALREADY have a trigger for your exercise, but you just haven’t noticed it yet. Tell me what you do to remember your exercise every day.

This postcard from PostSecret seems like a beam of hope to me.

It reads:

Now I believe that I am unique, sexy, worthy of love, and beautiful. Without my eating disorder.

Many of these postcards are damaged in the mail. Is there something missing from this postcard? It looks like there is room for another sentence.

The Ferris Wheel image makes me worry that bad times are coming again. If my experience with my binge-eating is any indication, whenever I feel like I’m finally in control again, I live in the constant fear that it will come back, and, of course, it DOES. My eating problems seem to cycle. It is the managing of the bad times and holding out for the good times that has kept me going.

When that Ferris Wheel goes down again, hold on tight, my friend.

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.

I laughed out loud when I saw this tweet from Felicia Day on Twitter:

Felicia Day: It’s the post-production phase of eating fast food that takes the experience all downhill.

For me, fast food can cause “explosive” results, so I immediately assumed the worst. The rest of her followers must have done the same because within a minute, she responded:

Felicia Day: I meant I had a tummy ache but I can see how that could be misinterpreted LOL.

How does eating fast food affect you? To me, it tastes GREAT and gives me a little rush when I eat it. It’s only HOURS later that I suffer the consequences. That’s why it took me years to even make the connection between overindulging in convenience and the lower intestinal pain I experienced. If I keep my intake at a low level, I’m just fine. It usually takes a couple of fast food meals in a row to knock me out.

Felicia Day is the creator (and star) of the online serial, The Guild. You can see the first episode of Season 1 here:

She was also in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and some episodes of a little show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Bowling isn’t the most physically grueling sport around, but it beats watching television for burning calories. Next time you’re trying to think of what to do with your evening, head to the nearest bowling alley for a night of light activity rather than zoning out in a movie theater for a couple of hours. I wouldn’t count an evening bowling as my exercise for the day, but it’s a great way to get up out of your chair and do something a little active.

If you know nothing about bowling, you can find out more here:

• Bowling – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When I was a kid, they used to show commercials. People would be sitting, looking bored. One of them would say, “What should we do?” Suddenly, a bowling ball would appear in their hands and a voice-over would sing, “Let’s go bowling!” They showed these commercials so often when we were kids that whenever anyone says the words, “What should we do,” I immediately want to sing, “Let’s go bowling!” No one ever gets the joke and I can’t find the commercial on YouTube, so it must have been a local thing.

Next time you’re feeling bored, imagine that huge bowling ball appearing magically in your hand and choose something ACTIVE for your activity.

The unstoppable MissBHavens started the new year with a modified South Beach plan. She is cutting out some carbohydrates in her diet and she thought she would try Stevia with her coffee. Unfortunately, the results weren’t even near to palatable for her.

• MissBHavens » Blog Archive » Truvia? FALSIA!

One thing that tripped me up last time was that I have a zero tolerance policy for artificial sweeteners. They’re vile. I’ve tried Equal, Splenda, Sweet n’ Low and even the 50/50 Splenda/sugar baking blend to no avail. They’re hellagross.

Stevia? I had high hopes.

The sh*t is nasty. It makes my coffee taste contaminated.

Honestly, out of all the sweeteners, I like Stevia the best. They all have a sickly sweet taste. They all taste wrong when compared to sugar. In the end, it might be better to just give up coffee altogether, MissBHavens. After my fights with caffeine, I am to the point where I won’t touch the stuff.

Read more about caffeine here:

• Starling Fitness » How To Quit Soda

• Starling Fitness » Avoid Caffeine

Read more about Stevia here:

• Starling Fitness » Stevia: Is It Safe?

• Starling Fitness » Liquid Stevia