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

Over two years ago, I wrote an entry about Dance Central:

• Starling Fitness – Dance Central: Dance Your Butt Off!

I really loved to play DDR and really worked my butt off playing it years ago. Dealing with dance pads that kept breaking after only a month or so of play, however, just killed my love for that game. With Kinect, however, there is no dance pad taking a pounding. The camera just watches me dance and gives me a score based on how well I did. For the first time in years, I’m exergaming again and I LOVE IT!

I wrote that entry, played a few more times and then stopped playing and fell into a pit of depression and bingeing.

I’m out of the pit and I thought I would fire up the game to play again. I needed to get 30 minutes of exercise to register on my Apple Watch and walking the dog just wasn’t doing it. I’ve been playing for four days in a row now and I STILL love that game. The funny thing is, if you never bought the games back then, you’re in luck, because they are WAY cheaper to buy now.

Here’s what you need to get started:

• Xbox 360 4GB with Kinect Value Bundle at Amazon.com
• Dance Central at Amazon.com
• Dance Central 2 at Amazon.com
• Dance Central 3 at Amazon.com

There is an Xbox One version of the game that is available for download if you have already moved on to the new console. There is also the Just Dance 2015 game that I’ve never tried. Considering how happy I am with the old 360 version, I’m in no mood to upgrade. I just find it funny that I STILL love that game, despite all that I have went through.

I saw this ad for M&Ms a while ago. It was before I had started OA, so it was QUITE a while ago. When I saw it, I immediately wanted to go out and buy M&Ms.

Somehow that ad had triggered my desire for them and I didn’t know why. I took a screen shot of the ad, which was, ironically, in a health and fitness magazine, and didn’t think about it again until today.

I looked through my folder of ideas to write about Starling Fitness and saw this ad. I was going to write about how advertising triggers cravings, but I now know it goes further than that. This advertisement triggers the Artificial Scarcity craving. We want it because it won’t always be around. We want it because we think it’s scarce.

Do those M&Ms taste any different than normal M&MS? No.

Do I even like regular M&Ms? Not particularly.

Because those M&Ms are in special “Fall” colors, they won’t be around for long. This is a limited time product, so I better act now. They do the same thing at Christmas, Easter and even Independence Day. The same M&Ms, only in red and green, pastels and pink, or the old red, white and blue. They are desirable because we can’t get them all the time.

I talked about this before here:

• Starling Fitness – There’s No Pumpkin In Pumpkin Spice Flavoring

Back then, I said:

The problem is PERCEIVED SCARCITY. We could cook a turkey any time, but we only have them at Thanksgiving. We could buy that Torani Pumpkin Pie Sugar Free Syrup for our coffee at any time, but Starbucks has somehow convinced us that it is only available in the fall. None of these things are actually scarce. The food manufacturers use marketing and self-imposed limits to make them scarce and even create hoarding.

DON’T FALL FOR IT!

M&Ms in Autumn Colors. Don’t Fall for it…

I’m glad to know that I’ll be able to use my Lose It! app directly on my Apple Watch.

• Lose It! for Apple Watch

As you know, I have religiously used Lose It! for years on my iPhone. I talked about it here:

• Starling Fitness – My Higher Power: Lose It!
• Starling Fitness – Lose it! App: Best Weight Loss App I’ve Found

I got my Apple Watch yesterday, so I don’t have a review yet, but as soon as I’ve played with it for a while, I’ll add details here.

Update 04-29-15

The Lose It! app on the Apple Watch is VERY limited. Since I don’t have the calories for everything I eat memorized, I can’t just add my calories for a meal on my watch. I would like it if I could look up food like I can on my phone, but the watch app doesn’t have that capability yet. Until it does, it’s not really helpful to me.

I was looking through my saved images in a folder called “Starling Fitness Ideas,” and I found this one:

It reads:

The Cake Is A Lie Diet: Lose 17 pounds a week by changing your diet with this one simple tip!

Awarded for: “Watch an inspirational video on YouTube or TED.”

I have a vague memory of an app that I played with that gave me awards and kudos for doing good things in my life, but I cannot for the life of me remember where this came from or even why I saved it.

“The Cake Is A Lie” is a meme that came from the game Portal. In that game, the computer voice kept promising me that if I completed the tasks, that there would be cake at the end. About halfway through the game, you come to this creepy hallway and the phrase, “The cake is a lie,” is scrawled over and over on the wall.

At the end of the game, you realize that there is no cake and you have been doing all these things for nothing. The phrase “The Cake Is A Lie” has come to mean that a promised gift is being used to motivate you without any intent of delivering it. For a while there, I couldn’t log onto Facebook without seeing this image it was so popular.

The truth of the matter is, the cake IS a lie. Every time I eat cake, I am trying to recreate that intense feeling of ecstasy that I had the first time I ever ate cake. I am trying to get that same hit of dopamine that I got when I first had cake. The problem is that the more cake I eat, the less of a dopamine hit I get until I need to eat cake all day long EVERY day to just feel normal. The promise of the cake is a lie.

Then again, the promise of the “fit” life is a lie, too. I remember being at 150 pounds and being so close to goal and STILL feeling miserable. I had told myself that when I got skinny, I would be happy. I had told myself that when I lost the weight, I would love myself. That was a lie just as much as the cake was.

Eating the cake was a lie. Not eating the cake was a lie.

THAT is the sense of hopelessness I had when I stepped into my first Overeater’s Anonymous meeting. I hated myself when I was fat. I hated myself when I was thin. I couldn’t stop eating and I didn’t want to eat anymore. I was in a No-Win situation and I had no idea what to do. That’s why I got a sponsor. That’s why I did EVERYTHING she told me to do. That’s why I cleared the wreckage of my past and started fresh. That’s why I was willing to meditate every day and make a “God Box.”

I knew the cake was a lie and I knew that I couldn’t stop eating it.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.

I wrote about Ali Vincent winning the Biggest Loser back in 2008.

• Starling Fitness – Fitness, diet, and health weblog » Ali Vincent Wins Biggest Loser

The weird thing is that I read her book, Believe It, Be It: How Being the Biggest Loser Won Me Back My Life, and I never talked about it here, despite LOVING it. I find it so strange when there is something that has really helped me and I somehow forgot to mention it on this blog. This book is one of those things.

Ali Vincent is still very active and has her own website here:

• Ali Vincent: BIBI Lifestyle

I remembered her and that inspiring book because her quote from it came up on the random Quotations Page:

It reads:

When you have the courage to tell the truth about what you’re really afraid of, fear doesn’t have control over your life.

• Ali Vincent, Believe It, Be It: How Being the Biggest Loser Won Me Back My Life, 2009

I really liked her book when I read it and there are TONS of quotes from that book that are inspiring:

• Ali Vincent Quotes – The Quotations Page

If you are feeling uninspired, give her book a chance and read it.

I saw this quote today and it made me feel so much better.

It reads:

You always pass failure on the way to success.

• Mickey Rooney

I have failed to eat healthy so many times. I have failed at consistent exercise so many times. After reading this quote, it makes me feel better instead of ashamed. If I wasn’t trying, I wouldn’t be failing.

My biggest problem with those past failures is thinking that they are always around the corner. I have gotten very close to a healthy weight before. Now that I am nearing a healthy weight again, I have a fear that I will “lose it.” Fear is just as damaging as any other negative emotion, so the fear of gaining weight back can, ironically, make me gain weight back.

As long as I keep following the program and using the twelve steps as a guideline for everything in my life, I will be safe. So, the opposite of fear is faith, confidence and courage. I need to meditate on that today and find another compulsive eater to help.

The other day, I wrote this entry about old exercise machines:

• Starling Fitness – Old Exercise Machines from the 1979 Argos Catalogue

The whole point of the entry is that exercise equipment hasn’t changed much in the last fifty years. For the last fifty years, our population has only been getting FATTER, so don’t bother buying any of those exercise machines that are available today because they won’t help you.

After I wrote that entry, I promptly spent the next hour researching stretchy fitness bands on Amazon and YouTube. I found the best resistance band exercises video. It’s short, simple and shows you the proper form for ten exercises.

I found an awesome printable poster for exercises for resistance bands from FitnessHealth.co.uk that you can just fold up and put in your traveling case.

I had JUST written an article about how simple exercises like yoga and walking have helped me way more than intense exercises like weight training and running. I had just written an article about not letting the health and fitness industry steal your money and here I was SERIOUSLY considering dropping the thirty bucks to get this resistance band set: BalanceFrom Heavy Duty Premium Resistance Band Kit with Improved Safe Door Anchor, Ankle Strap and Carrying Case at Amazon.com. Despite the fact that I ALREADY own a resistance band set!

I realize now that my disease took over a little bit at that point.

The sad truth of the matter is: my eating disorder loves to fantasize about exercising. Ever since the age of ten, I was told that if I just exercised that I wouldn’t be fat anymore. If I wasn’t so lazy, I wouldn’t be fat.

It was a lie I believed. It’s a lie that I still catch myself believing, even though I know what has helped me and what has hindered me.

After YEARS of research on my own body, here is what I KNOW for a fact:

• Weight training makes me binge
• Running makes me binge
• Skipping meals makes me binge
• Stuffing down my feelings, instead of dealing with them in a healthy manner, makes me binge.

Yet, I’m still tempted to weight train, run, skip meals to “save calories for later,” and just ignore my feelings. I keep catching myself thinking:

• This time, I won’t train so hard
• This time, I will only run a little bit
• This time I will be able to keep my food under control
• This time my feelings aren’t that big of a deal

“This time” isn’t going to be like “last time.” That is probably the biggest lie I say to myself: “This time, I’ll be able to do it.” Just like the alcoholic who tells himself that this time he will just have one drink.

My eating disorder loves to fantasize about exercise just as much as an alcoholic loves to fantasize about being able to drink moderately. It’s a fantasy that I need to discard and accept the fact that exercise will not make me thin. It will just make me binge.

This postcard from PostSecret was interesting.

It reads:

I take off the ring that you gave me when I grow up. I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t want to ruin it or because I know how disappointed you’d be.

I was never able to throw up to rid myself of my binges. I wished that I could, but I could never really do it. It’s just a different way my disease could have harmed me that never came to pass and I’m grateful.

The reason why we binge is because there is something wrong with our brains. The reason why we purge is because there is something wrong with our brains. Science hasn’t entirely figured it out yet, but there is hope. Get yourself to Overeater’s Anonymous and be entirely honest with yourself, your group and your sponsor. You don’t have to take off the ring anymore…

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.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.

Retrospace had a post about Argos Catalogues from Great Britain which was pretty much just about looking at half-naked women, but one page really caught my eye. It was the page from the Health and Fitness section of the catalogue.

There are some fairly typical things, like these weights and springs. The springs have been replaced by plastic stretchy cords in a variety of colors, but this equipment is still available today.

Even these body weight machines are still available today. Companies have slapped the word “Pilates” on the label, but other than that, they’re still the same. I talked about that here:

• Starling Fitness: Pilates Exerciser: Just A Pile Of Strings On A Door Handle

Even the stationary bicycles are still around. They look different, but they are still something that is recommended for losing weight.

The thing that bothers me is that we have been doing this for over fifty YEARS and we are just getting fatter. Don’t waste your money on the new versions of these products, they are just as silly as the old ones. Exercise can make you stronger. Exercise will help your heart, but I have never lost weight from exercising. In fact, it just made me hungrier. Don’t let them steal your money. Take a walk outside for twenty minutes a day and save yourself money and grief.

I love this quote from The Quotations Page:

It reads:

Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.

• Carol Burnett

Every time I was tempted to have gastric bypass surgery, I remembered this. I could have a surgery to make my stomach tiny and if I don’t change my behavior, I will literally KILL myself by bingeing and tearing open my tiny stomach. No one can change my life for me: not a doctor, a pill, an exercise guru or even a magic exercise machine can change me.

My biggest problem is that I didn’t know HOW to change.

That’s where Overeater’s Anonymous and my sponsor helped me. Working through the twelve steps helped me to CHANGE. It gave me a whole new way of living. If you are feeling stuck, get yourself to Overeater’s Anonymous, get a sponsor and do everything they say. They can’t change your life, but they sure can show YOU how to change your life.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.