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

For the next few weeks every Monday, I’ll share a playlist of songs that I have in my Workout Playlist on my iPhone. I’ll include clips to listen to, where you can buy them and why I have them in my list. Just so you know, I do get a portion of the sales of these songs from Amazon, so if you buy them, you’re helping me out.

World by Five For Fighting: This is a great warmup song and it reminds me that I create the world around me. I love the lyrics of the chorus: What kind of world do you want? Think anything. Let’s start at the start. Build a masterpiece. Be careful what you wish for. History starts now…

Don’t Stop by Annie: Sometimes STARTING is the hardest part of my workout. Having a high energy song like this one that tells me to not stop, is very helpful. Plus the chorus sings, “Let’s go!” If I can keep running through this first song, it’s a lot easier to keep running through the whole workout.

Use It To Lose It by SkinnySongs: This week’s song from Skinny Songs sounded kind of lame to me when I first heard it. It sounded like it was trying too hard to be cool. The chorus, however, is so catchy that I found myself remembering it. “You’ve got to use it, babe, to lose it.” Now, I love the song when it comes up on iPod.

Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall: I love this song, because I want to be like the girl that KT is singing about. Plus, it’s written from the point of view of someone just like me, who wants to be the girl that everyone loves.

Live Like We’re Dying by Kris Allen: This song is on the radio every time I turn it on, so it’s hard to escape, but I still love it. It’s a great concept. I love this lyric, “We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to turn it all around or to throw it all away.” Spend your day wisely and spend a few of those seconds making your health better.

Shake That Bubble by Young and Divine: I want to be that “fly senorita” that all the guys want to see dance. Exercising every day is the best way to get to be that girl, so this song is a great motivator for me.

Hard by Rihanna: This is one of those bragging songs. I’m not really the kind of person who ever feels like she’s the “hottest b**ch in heels right here.” I’d like to be that person, so this song is good for me.

I Wanna Life by Goldfrapp: I am total fan of Alison Goldfrapp, so I bought the new album without previewing even one of the songs. After listening to it nonstop for the last week, this is my favorite song for working out. It makes me think about what I want from my life, plus the beat is great for running.

One Step Beyond by Madness: This is the perfect song for the end of my workout. At the beginning of the song, Captain Sensible is yelling at me, urging me to take “One Step Beyond!” I really kick up my workout and run a little harder when I hear his voice and end my workout strong.

Saved By Zero by The Fixx: I’ve talked before how the word “zero” is motivational to me because it urges me to try to get a little closer to size zero clothes. This a great cool down song after a hard workout.

Listen to the clips for these songs. If you find just one song this week that motivates you to exercise, then buy it and make it your powersong when you’re working out this week. I bet you’ll find that you’re more willing to get your butt to the gym and your workouts are easier.

Take a look at this small video of animals yawning.

If seeing them yawn, especially the hamster, makes you yawn, then you probably should think about adding another half hour of sleep to your schedule. Get to bed a little earlier tonight and skip the TV, reading or whatever you find yourself doing when you should be tucked in snugly.

They say that getting more sleep can help you lose weight. I don’t know if I believe that, but I DO know that I do much better at EVERYTHING when I’ve had a full night’s sleep.

Animated GIF via: Your daily gif blog: Animals Yawning

When I saw this image from the movie, Repo Man, I was surprised at how easily my mind translated the word DRINK to SODA. I had to look at it three times to make sure it said DRINK instead of SODA. Those cans are just props used in a movie, but they seem like so much more to me.

Is soda bad for you?

I honestly don’t know. There are studies that say even diet sodas can cause an insulin response. There are people out there saying that soda is rotting my teeth and making me fat. I even have a friend who says that carbonated beverages (even unsweetened ones) make me fat because they expand my stomach and make me unable to tell when I’m full.

The only facts that I have are how my body responds to soda. When I keep my diet drinks to one or two cans a day, I have an easier time following my program. When I drink a 32 ounce monster of Coke Zero, I get an energy boost from the caffeine that just doesn’t feel the same as two cups of coffee. When I feel deprived, a diet root beer and a small scoop of low calorie vanilla ice cream tastes like a extravagant indulgence.

Is soda bad for you? That’s something you have to decide for yourself. Is it bad for me? I’m still trying to decide.

Animated GIF via: three frames – Repo Man 3

Once a week, I drive to NakedJen’s house to walk with her and her dogs. We go early so she can get to work on time. The benefit of a walk before sunrise is the spectactular view of the moon. This photo I took with my iPhone doesn’t do it justice.

The same neighborhood that you live your life within is different in the early hours of the morning. The sound of the few cars on the road is muffled. The house full of screaming children is strangely quiet, with abandoned scooters and bikes lying motionless on the lawn. I can hear things that go unnoticed during the daytime, like the sound of the wind whipping through the tree branches and furtive birds, announcing daybreak.

A walk before sunrise is far more than just an early morning exercise routine. It’s a touch of the divine.

• ran 1.65 mi on 3/23/2010 at 6:12 AM with a pace of 28'05"/mi http://go.nike.com/05m8k1cj #

Sometimes I forget how long diet soda has been around. Here are some commercials from the sixties and seventies for Diet Pepsi.

I have been drinking diet soda my whole life. It has never given me the “figure that girl watchers watch” or made me “come alive.” Maybe I should concentrate on drinking water instead.

At the end of December, Weight Watchers started including little magazine handouts at every meeting. This year’s New Year’s Resolution that I set was to attend Weight Watchers EVERY week so I could collect all of the handouts.

It’s funny how something as simple as a little paper handout can get my butt into the Weight Watchers door. The desire to “collect all 52” is so strong that I actually have attended meetings in Las Vegas and Del Mar already this year. Even though it was a pain in the butt to find a meeting in a unfamiliar city, I made sure that I attended my meetings.

Ironically, just getting my body into the door helps me every week. They always have something motivating to talk about and even if I HATE the teacher in the other towns, the members have stories that have kept me going.

I know Weight Watchers doesn’t work for everyone and I certainly accept that their program isn’t PERFECT, but attending the meetings every week has kept my motivation level far higher than it was last year at this time. And I can thank those weekly handouts for it all.

From the very start of this video from John Dilworth at Ignite Salt Lake City, I was so inspired!

We live our lives by a code of action. We’ve gotta keep busy doing everything we can to avoid doing nothing. We’ve been taught that doing anything is better than doing nothing.

Here are some quotes from his presentation:

There are good actions and bad actions, but there is another type of action, where we think we’re doing something good, but we’re really doing something bad that is harmful to ourselves and to others.

Inaction is instant. The very second you decide to do nothing, you’re done.

Inaction is inexpensive. If you don’t do crap that you don’t need to do, you save time and you save money.

Inaction is infinitely scalable. You can NOT do an infinite number of things simultaneously.

When you’re deciding what to do, remember that sometimes inaction is a viable option and sometimes it might be better than doing just anything.

How many times have I been so desperate to lose weight that I’ve tried a stupid diet? Umm… How about EVERY time a new stupid diet comes along?! It would have been so much better for me to just NOT try the diet. I didn’t keep the weight off anyway, so I ended up doing one of those actions that I thought was good, but was really doing harm to myself.

My long-time readers might think that this goes against my favorite quote from my grandfather:

Make a decision, even if it’s wrong.
– Jarvis Klem

You can always decide to do nothing. Just make the decision.

The next time you’re tempted to start a fad diet that goes against all that you know about healthy eating, remember the power of inaction. The next time you’re tempted to exercise too hard, risking injury, remember the power of inaction. It would be better to do NOTHING than to do something harmful to yourself just for the sake of doing ANYTHING.

This postcard from PostSecret says it all for me.

It reads:

F*** You, Asthma!!!

I can do ANYTHING! You can’t slow ME down!

There are so many excuses out there to not exercise. Asthma is a severe disease and can cause serious trouble, but your lungs CAN be trained. You have to start out slower and take longer to get to high levels, but with enough practice and work, you can exercise just as hard as anyone else. It’s not as easy as it might be for people without pulmonary problems, but it IS possible.

The same is true for ANY other excuse you can think of. Do you have bum knees? F-You, Bad Knees!!! I can do ANYTHING! You can’t slow ME down!

Do you have a binge eating problem? F-You, Bingeing!!! I can do ANYTHING! You can’t slow ME down! Sure eating healthy after years of bad habits and abuse to a body is difficult, but with enough training and practice, anyone can get past it.

Quit letting excuses get in the way. There is ALWAYS a way to work around any problem. Go over it, dig under it, build a door or just push that damn wall down. It can’t stop you.

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.

• ran 2.06 mi on 3/16/2010 at 6:05 AM with a pace of 28'02"/mi http://go.nike.com/32kddgs #