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

As stated on AOL’s Sports Blog, Joey Chestnut beat the hot dog eating record last week.

• Joey Chestnut Shatters Kobayashi’s Hot Dog Eating Record – Sports Blog – The FanHouse

Why was this on AOL’s Sports Blog? Why is eating too much food too quickly considered a sport? What is the matter with the world where something like this is NEWS?! There are people starving on the other side of the world. There are people starving in the United States. There are people who are overweight and cannot fathom why Joey Chestnut is thinner than they are.

Sometimes it feels like the world has gone crazy.

When you hike outdoors, you may encounter poison oak, which is a plant that will give you an oozing and itchy rash. Wendy Bumgardener at About.com has a tutorial on how to recognize and avoid poison oak

• Is it Poison Oak?

Here is a link to a slideshow of poison oak prepared by Wendy:

• Oak Shaped Leaves – Poison Oak Photos – Is It Poison Oak or Not

Here is a link to all the photos on Flickr tagged with the words poison oak:

• Flickr: Photos tagged with poisonoak

Hiking is great exercise and you should never avoid it because of something like poison oak. With a little preparation and knowledge, you’re sure to be safe from poisonous plants and hike risk-free.

When I watched this video the other day, I began to wonder what I thought was funny about Jim Carrey when he was on In Living Color. Fifty-nine seconds into it, I remembered.

Sure, this sketch pushes things over the top, but so much of our fitness advice has come to us from people who are pumped up on steroids or have gone under the knife. They give credit for their form to their juicer, exercise routine, workout gadget or miracle pill, when really genetics and illegal steroids are responsible.

It’s no wonder that I have ZERO trust anymore.

Around here, these billboards have been popping up everywhere. They don’t really make any sense. There is another one about not succumbing to the creme filling. I snapped a photo of the billboard in order to find out what they are about. The website is a little more clear:

• LiVe Homepage – Learn to Live Healthy

With these horribly designed and obtuse billboards, Intermountain Healthcare (a local health insurance provider) is trying to convince children to get healthy.

Sorry folks, digital captivity isn’t what’s making our kids fat.

They threw up “8 Healthy Habits” that are supposed to help kids get healthy:

• Always eat breakfast and make it healthy.
• Eat more fruits and vegetables.
• Limit or eliminate sweetened drinks.
• Limit screen time.
• Increase physical activity.
• Eat meals together as a family.
• Be positive about food.
• Don’t criticize about weight.

In essence, I don’t really have an argument with what they are suggesting, but their advertising tells a different story than their actual recommendations. When you watch their TV spots on their website, it looks like Intermountain is blaming potato chips, television and video games for obesity, yet they haven’t shown one obese kid in their ads. In fact, these Steve Madden rip-off billboard characters look strangely thin with sunken in eyes and jutting cheekbones. Should painfully thin kids lay off the video games as well?

In the end , it seems that Intermountain Healthcare is sick of paying for health claims that deal with obesity, so it looks like they are trying to stop the problem early. Unfortunately, preventative care isn’t something you can just throw up a few billboards and cure. It’s an entire philosophy, not a bandaid.

The summer between eighth grade and ninth grade was the worst. My grandma was determined to bring my sister and me back home to my mom as thin and svelte girls. I was also pretty determined to get thin. Puberty was hitting hard and I really wanted to finally be the cute girl that all the guys liked.

As grown up as I wanted to feel, I still was a kid and I loved to collect stickers. I remember the conversation I had with Stacey very vividly:

Me: Listen, Stacey. If you buy these scratch n’ sniff stickers, you can just smell them when you want to eat.

Stacey: If I buy candy, I can just eat the candy.

She hadn’t bought into the constant pressure to be thin and was hoarding her allowance to eat candy when we were out of sight of Grandma.

Just seeing those stickers right now can almost bring back the memory of how they smelled. My particular favorites were the pizza and the popcorn, but the pickle and the cinnamon roll helped at times as well. I remember being so hungry that I would start to black out when I stood up. It wasn’t all Grandma’s fault by then. I was starving myself as well.

Whenever I wanted to eat, I would go into my room and smell my scratch n’ sniff stickers. I would look at the pizza sticker. “Hot Stuff,” it said. “Yeah, I’m going to be hot stuff when I go back to school this year,” I would think to myself.

Seeing them now makes me want to eat everything in sight…

Images via:

• Hi-ReS! Feed: Scratch ‘n Sniff

• Bubbledog’s TREND Scratch ‘n Sniff Sticker Collection

Via: Confession: I collected stickers when I was a kid. Put them… (kottke.org)

I had an interesting comment on my entry about Pinkberry:

The FDA has cracked down on Pinkberry? Pinkberry isn’t really frozen yogurt?! I might believe it, but the commenter didn’t put a real name, they just put FDA in the name field. Additionally, the commenter didn’t include a link to the FDA announcements which state EVERY single company they have served injunctions to. So, I did the research.

I searched the FDA website, but they have no mention of Pinkberry at all. The case was the same with the phrase “Red Mango” and “Ice Berry,” two Korean companies that have similar products. Compared with Cortislim, with eight entries, Pinkberry’s nose is clean. The FDA has NOT told Pinkberry to stop calling their product frozen yogurt.

I thought that maybe this is something that the local news programs had reported and I missed because I don’t live in Los Angeles, so I did a search for Pinkberry and FDA. I came up with a lot of results. Here’s one from Somah.com in the comments section:

Again, it’s an anonymous poster saying the exact same thing as the commenter on my site. It even looks like a cut and paste job.

Here’s another search result from Colleen Cuisine was in her comments section of her weblog:

Well, ANOTHER, anonymous post this time stating that the Yogurt Association had been involved. After a thorough search of the National Yogurt Association’s website, there wasn’t one mention of Pinkberry with even a tentative warning. A search for frozen yogurt turned up this comment:

No standard of identity exists for frozen yogurt products, but they too may contain live and active cultures.

In order for manufacturers to carry the seal, refrigerated yogurt products must contain at least 100 million cultures per gram at the time of manufacture, and frozen yogurt products must contain 10 million cultures per gram at the time of manufacture.

The National Yogurt Association has standards, but it doesn’t look like they’ve announced anything against Pinkberry.

Wow, yet another, anonymous post with no proof. Can you really trust the word of someone who won’t stand behind their words or back them up with proof? Can you trust them THREE times?

In fact, the ONLY mention of Pinkberry and FDA that wasn’t the troll was this article from East West Magazine:

• East West Magazine – The Yogurt Heard Round the World

They said:

Compared to its heavier cousin ice cream, Pinkberry’s frozen yogurt can be described as having “less calories and fat, but not healthier,” says Sass, who compared Pinkberry’s nutritional facts with FDA requirements for when a food can put the word “healthy” on its label. The froyo alone, Pinkberry’s as well as frozen yogurt in general, does not have enough vitamins to be labeled as such, she says. But since Pinkberry is not being sold in stores, no food label is actually required and calling it “healthy” is not against FDA regulations.

So, it looks like Pinkberry is trying to follow the standards for the FDA’s requirements for the word “healthy.” East West Magazine doesn’t have the troll on their comments because they require registration to log in.

It looks like someone is out to get Pinkberry. As of this date, the FDA hasn’t said anything to Pinkberry about their frozen yogurt standing. If anyone wants to say something to the contrary, they need to back it up with proof.

Keira Knightly has been fighting the tabloids. They have been writing articles about her body assuming that she has anorexia and she has even sued a few of them. Then she showed up to the premier of Pirate of the Caribbean in this dress and the rumors sparked again. One can understand why. She looks painfully thin in this dress.

A photograph is just one moment in time

The truth of the matter is, a photograph is just one moment in time. There have been times when I weighed less, but my photographs still made me look fat. There have been times when I weighed more and I looked fantastic. This photo of Keira Knightly is just one moment in time. She happened to be thin at the time and the dress revealed that. Was she thin the previous day? Yeah, but no one posted the photos of her schlepping around in a t-shirt and jeans that she probably wore that day because they weren’t controversial enough.

It’s really the dress, not her body that was so interesting

Because the dress was so revealing, the press jumped on it. If she had worn a different dress, she wouldn’t have received so much attention. Anorexia is a very complicated disease and you cannot tell if someone has it just by their body type, just like you can’t tell whether someone has bingeing problems just because they are fat. In fact, it’s possible to be rather skinny and STILL have trouble with bingeing. Just calling someone anorexic because they are thin is just as discriminatory and hateful as calling someone lazy because they are fat.

I can’t believe in the Thrifty Gene hypothesis. It’s the idea that certain people are predisposed to be fat. It’s the idea that I might eat less than a skinny person and still gain weight. Medical science hasn’t found the thrifty gene yet, but they so believe it to be true that they are scrambling to find it.

I’ve learned a lot about nutrition and healthy eating, but in the end, I have that nagging doubt that the theories could change on a dime. It seems like medical science is never finished figuring out about our bodies and tomorrow they could discover that one simple gene change could make all the difference or they could disprove the idea and throw away everything they have been telling us since I was a kid. There’s no better authority to trust than medical science, but they don’t seem very trustworthy when they can change everything based on a theory.

What’s the point of eating healthy if I have no control?

I can’t believe that it’s all in my genes. I can’t, no matter how much science tells me that genetically some people are more likely to be fat. If I believe it, then I feel like there is no point in my eating healthy and exercising. No matter how much I’m bombarded with the idea, I can’t believe it.

Is that sticking my head in the sand? Maybe. In the end, however, it will be healthier for me to deny belief in the thrifty gene theory because it gives me hope. I don’t want all my hope taken away by medical science. I want to prove them wrong. I want to break free of all the labels that called me fat as a child. I can’t believe in their hypothesis, even if they are able to prove it’s true.

Next time you’re tempted by a fast food advertisement, remember, what they show you isn’t always what you get. This website shows you the difference between what the commercial looks like and the actual food.

• Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

Each item was purchased, taken home, and photographed immediately. Nothing was tampered with, run over by a car, or anything of the sort. It is an accurate representation in every case. Shiny, neon-orange, liquefied pump-cheese, and all.

Pictured above is the Arby’s Beef ‘n’ Cheddar. Here are the Nutrition Facts for that sandwich from the Arby’s website:

Is the sandwich on the left worth spending 445 calories and 21g of fat? Maybe, if I was craving it. If I was craving it and I got the sandwich on the right, however, I would feel ripped off. Television commercials, magazine ads and billboards make food look really good, but it might not be what you get when you order. Next time you’re craving something, take a look at this website and ask yourself if you’re craving the commercial food or the reality food.

Via: ExtraLife – Scott Johnson’s Comics, Podcasts, Blog, Artwork, Humor and MORE! » Blog Archive » Food ads vs reality

Testimonials are useless. Scientifically, testimonials are not considered valid proof and drugs are required to go through double-blind testing to be accepted. Supplements, however, are unregulated and don’t need to go through testing. They use testimonials all the time to “prove” that their products work.

But why go to all that trouble? Why find an actual person who lost weight with a product when you can just post an unrelated picture of someone who lost weight with a testimonial? Maree Briggs alleges that Metabo-Speed XXX did just that:

• Woman angry as her image used to sell diet pills – 22 Apr 2007 – Crime News – NZ Herald

Maree Briggs, a mother of two, says the photograph was used without her knowledge in an online testimonial for Metabo-Speed XXX, a dietary supplement touted as “the diet pill of the stars” and supposedly endorsed by Oprah Winfrey and Bette Midler.

While not sure how Lab 88 got hold of the photograph, Maree believes it may have been lifted from the website of an Australian-based company she was involved with in the late 1990s.

“It’s not the money, but the principle,” said Maree. “How dare they put my face to something like that. It’s a cock-and-bull story, it’s a lie and it’s conning people.”

Metabo-Speed XXX has removed the photo from their website, but Diet Blog was able to find a cache of it here:

• Metabo-Speed XXX Success Story 2

Next time you’re looking at those before and after pictures, remember, they might not be true. Don’t waste your money on diet pills or any product that promises you a perfect body without diet and exercise.