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

This postcard from PostSecret reminded me of my worst of days suffering with my compulsive eating.

It reads:

I only eat fast food if I’m near a place to throw it up.

I never was bulimic. I could never make myself throw up my huge binges. For some reason, that made me think that I wasn’t THAT bad. “Sure, I ate over 4000 calories in one sitting, but at least I didn’t throw it up,” I would think to myself. I knew I had a problem because eating that much food made me feel sick, yet I felt like I couldn’t stop.

But at least I wasn’t barfing. I wasn’t ruining my teeth. I wasn’t THAT sick.

I now know that my compulsive eating was just as dangerous and harmful as bulimia. Bingeing and purging is bad. Bingeing all by itself is just as bad. BOTH of them hurt the victims of these diseases.

And don’t fool yourself. It IS a disease. It is just as damaging as a disease. It leaves its victims just as powerless over it. It is a physiologic response to food that makes you need more and more. I’ve talked about this before here:

• Starling Fitness – Refeeding: A Treatment for Obesity?
• Starling Fitness – The Skinny on Obesity

Watch this video if you don’t believe that compulsive overeating is not a disease:

This is the most important quote:

No one can exert willpower over a biochemical drive that goes on every minute of every day of every year.

If you are telling yourself that you’re not THAT sick because at least you don’t make yourself barf after your binges, you are WRONG. Get some help. For me, I found help at Overeater’s Anonymous, but there are mental health professionals who might also be able to nurture you back to health. The most important thing is realizing that you have a problem and getting some help for it.

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’ve had a never ending problem with caffeine that I’ve talked about for over ten years:

• Starling Fitness – Caffeine Withdrawal
• Starling Fitness – How To Quit Soda
• Starling Fitness – Diet Mountain Dew
• Starling Fitness – Carbonation, Soda, Aspartame and Caffeine Withdrawal
• Starling Fitness – Avoid Caffeine
• Starling Fitness – Make Coffee At Home: Save Bucks AND Calories
• Starling Fitness – Is Soda Bad For You?
• Starling Fitness – Caffeine!

I have limited my caffeine intake to a single Coke Zero every day. I’ve always said that coffee is the cheapest way to get a caffeine dose, but a cup of coffee is not consistent. What I get from a pot of coffee at a convenience store is different from my automatic drip coffee maker at home, which is also different than what I would get from the local barista.

Know what IS consistent? Keurig coffee makers.

I get the same amount of caffeine every time from that machine, if it will keep working. We LITERALLY have returned three machines because they keep on breaking.

Now, I learn that Keurig is trying to prevent people from using coffee pods from other companies in their machines.

• Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker To Lock Out Refill Market | Techdirt

“Green Mountain has announced a new anticompetitive plan to maintain its monopoly by redesigning its brewers to lock out competitors’ products. Such lock-out technology cannot be justified based on any purported consumer benefit, and Green Mountain itself has admitted that the lock-out technology is not essential for the new brewers’ function. Like its exclusionary agreements, this lock-out technology is intended to serve anticompetitive and unlawful ends.”

So, when my current machine breaks, (and it WILL very soon, I guarantee it because they all do) the new machine will only work with pods that pay for the extra DRM or that come from Keurig. It’s kind of a crappy thing to do to your customers, so I’m sending the Keurig machine to the thrift store.

As Wil Wheaton says: “Friends don’t let friends use pod coffee makers.”

Update 08-03-14

I DID send the Keurig machine packing. Right after writing this article, I pulled down the automatic drip machine from the top of the cupboards and started using it, leaving the Keurig unplugged, but ready for me if I wanted to go back. The thing that I liked best about the Keurig was the variety of flavored coffees. I had no idea that I could get so many varieties for my automatic drip machine, but Folgers has been VERY busy.

• Folgers Flavors Hazelnut Ground Coffee at Amazon.com
• Folgers French Vanilla Coffee at Amazon.com
• Folgers Flavors Cinnamon Swirl Ground Coffee at Amazon.com
• Folgers Flavors Chocolate Silk Ground Coffee at Amazon.com
• Folgers 1/2 Caff Ground Coffee at Amazon.com: They even have coffee that’s half decaf for those crazy times when I decide to go off caffeine.

They also have a wide variety of roasts (i.e. French, Country, Breakfast, House) for every taste. EVERYTHING that I loved about the Keurig has been easily replaced with my old automatic drip coffeemaker and each cup costs me a few cents instead of a dollar. I haven’t missed the Keurig for the last few months, so I gave it away and didn’t look back.

Why are food companies putting non-food in their foods? It’s a simple question and one that has the customers of Subway up in arms.

Subway has agreed to stop using this particular chemical in their bread, but that doesn’t mean much. This is a common chemical used to “condition dough” or “bleach flour.” Unfortunately, it’s also used as a “plastics blowing agent.”

• Azodicarbonamide – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The principal use of azodicarbonamide is in the production of foamed plastics as a blowing agent. The thermal decomposition of azodicarbonamide results in the evolution of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and ammonia gases, which are trapped in the polymer as bubbles to form a foamed article.

A long time ago, my dad told me that they put plastic in bread to make it light and fluffy. I dismissed it as another one of his paranoid rants, especially since he kept eating bread. Now, as I am looking at the ingredients for the bread sitting on our kitchen counter, I see “dough conditioner.”

According to Wikipedia, the USDA has deemed Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate as safe:

• Sodium stearoyl lactylate – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But then again, the USDA thinks Azodicarbonamide is safe as well.

SSL is currently manufactured by the esterification of stearic acid with lactic acid and partially neutralized with either food-grade soda ash (sodium carbonate) or caustic soda (concentrated sodium hydroxide). Commercial grade SSL is a mixture of sodium salts of stearoyl lactylic acids and minor proportions of other sodium salts of related acids.

I’m beginning to think that there is no food that hasn’t been tainted by big business and the hand of greed. I wasn’t eating bread because I thought the gluten was causing trouble, but considering all the other chemicals that have been used to bleach flour, perhaps it’s just the food industry that I’m allergic to.

Via:

• WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR — Look, it’s bad enough that our diets are all out…

• Please Stop Putting Non-Food Into Our Food, Okay? –

Molecular Image via: File:Azodicarbonamide 3D ball.png – Wikimedia Commons

In this month’s issue of Allure magazine, there was an advertisement for a product called Vysera-CLS. It looked like something that I should avoid, but I catch myself fascinated by these things.

I have been writing for Starling Fitness for so long that I KNOW that diet pills don’t work. There isn’t one product that I’ve tried that has worked. Half the time, I can just look at the ingredients and tell that it’s just the same thing, so why do I even care about this Vysera stuff? Isn’t just going to be the same old stuff?

Despite all that, I wanted to know. What are the ingredients?

According to Consumer Health Answers, here are the ingredients. Click on the image to see them full-sized:

Somehow, reading the ingredients made me not care about it anymore. It’s just that same combination of theobroma and chromium picolinate that diet pills have been using since the 90s. It’s especially not worth 99 bucks a month!

The reviews on the website were even more telling:

Have almost finished a month’s supply. Haven’t lost an ounce. Don’t waste your money or time. Don’t believe the hype. Suckerd again.

The most useless product ever. Complete waste of money!

I don’t know why I am still attracted to diet pill ads. You’d think after over ten years of research, I’d realize that there is NO pill that will do what I need to do. It’s not even about the food. It’s about the reasons I want to eat the food. No diet pill can give me the peace of mind that I need to keep from bingeing. I don’t know why I need to keep learning that lesson over and over.

It’s National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I has been this week every year for the last ten years I have been writing this blog.

I have struggled with binge eating since I was about nine years old. I have been struggling with binge eating since I started this blog over ten years ago. You’d think that I’d be over it now. You’d think I’d have a handle on it.

I think eating disorders cause permanent changes to our brain chemistry. Just like a cucumber that has turned into a pickle, you can never go back to being a cucumber ever again. Oh, and the longer you sit stewing in the brine of eating disorders, the harder it is to escape.

Eating disorders feel like a disease to me. A disease that none of us can be blamed for. It’s a change in brain chemistry and there should be no shame, but I have felt an incredible amount of shame about it. In fact, this PostSecret card reminded me of so many promises that I have made to myself.

I have abstained from binge-eating for the last couple of months and I feel a lot better, but the specter of it will haunt me for the rest of my life. The biggest, scariest part of this disease for me is that if my health insurance company would find out about it, my premiums would go through the roof and I wouldn’t be able to afford insurance. So, I have never gone in for professional treatment.

There ARE options out there from twelve-step programs like Overeater’s Anonymous, so if you are feeling lost, please turn to someone for help, whether it be professional or a group program.

Eating disorders are just suicide in slow motion.

Don’t give up without a fight.

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.

This music video by Boggie has been making the rounds of the health Tumblrs as an example of ways in which the images that we see are actually artificial creations.

While watching this video, I was struck with a strange sense of wonder. What if there was some way for us to be transformed, not just in an artificial image, but wholly? In fact, the ending shot showing the drastically different visions became an almost Before and After image.

Are there photoshopped pictures in every magazine was look at? YES. Is there a way to transform ourselves into healthier and stronger people? YES AGAIN. There are artificial images all around us, but that doesn’t negate the fact that we can change ourselves.

Via: Fierce Owl Full of Love — wheres-margo: Singer uses her music video to…

I saw this image of Victoria’s Secret model Karolina Kurkova on Funeral For My Fat and I’m ashamed to say that the first thing I noticed was the cellulite on her legs.

If a Victoria’s Secret model has cellulite, then it is NORMAL for women to have cellulite. The idea that we’re NOT supposed to have it was created by all those companies who are making anti-cellulite creams and drugs and rubs and wraps.

Don’t buy ANYTHING that promises to remove cellulite. It’s a NORMAL aspect of women’s bodies and does not need to be eradicated. It’s like saying that you have unsightly hair on your head. Love your little leg lumps and let’s hope that someday everyone will be able to look at that picture and realize that it’s Karolina Kurkova looking PERFECT!

It sounded like the headlines from Weekly World News:

• DailyMail – ‘I have plastic sewn to my TONGUE so it hurts too much to eat solids’, reveals extreme beauty queen desperate to stay thin

And the pictures were gruesome.

I nearly dismissed it as untrue until I saw the BBC symbol on the pictures. They are from an episode of Extreme Beauty Queens on BBC.

• BBC Three – Extreme Beauty Queens: Secrets of South America

You can see the video here:

At the 2:36 minute mark, she talks about the work she has had done to her body, nose and teeth, but the mesh comes at the 3:11 mark. She said:

Yes, I’ve had a mesh put on my tongue.

The plastic patch is sewn onto the tongue, making it too painful to eat real food. My stomach turns just looking at the video.

The worst part is that it wouldn’t work for me. I would cut the thing off myself or keep eating despite the pain. In fact, during the worst of my gluten days, I kept eating bread and pasta until my intestines bled. I would have never lost weight with a torture device like this. I would have just melted down milkshakes or blended up Big Macs.

Devices like that mesh plastic approach the problem the wrong way. Just like having your jaw wired shut or your stomach torn apart and sewn smaller, that plastic mesh sewn on the tongue is a torture device, plain and simple. It’s almost as if we feel that it’s a proper punishment for gluttony. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. I don’t know the right way, but that is certainly wrong.

I was looking through my old screenshots and I found this from a magazine:

It is a review for S2H Replay, a wristband device that I actually bought because of this ad. I wore it for a while, hated it and stuffed it into a box. I actually saw it the other day when I was cleaning out a box and tossed it aside in disgust. I never earned even one “reward,” and that stupid little bracelet didn’t seem very accurate.

I was curious if S2H is still around, but when I went to their website, this is what I found:

So, if you did like them, it didn’t matter because they were deleting all your information. It seems that they were closing up shop so they could offer their services to corporations.

• S2H Challenge: The Wellness Program for your company

After only a month with my Fitbit, I absolutely adore it and would be devastated if they closed up shop. Where did S2H go wrong and Fitbit go right?

• GOOD website: The Fitbit syncs seamlessly with my iPhone and my computer making everything easy to read.
• No false promises: Fitbit never promised to give me rewards for completing my daily steps, so I don’t feel ripped off when all I earn is a 20% off a product I don’t want.
• Fashion sense: I can change my band on my Fitbit to match my outfit. I know that shouldn’t be a big deal, but for me, it was.
• Compatibility: My Fitbit works with Lose It! and My Fitness Pal, so any activity I do, automatically syncs over to my food program. This was the deciding factor for me when I chose the Fitbit.

Honestly, I liked the little smiley face and frowny face on the S2H. Considering how little the LEDs on the Fitbit tell me, I liked them better. In the end, S2H was SO close. A little band around my wrist that keeps track of activity for me is a brilliant idea and they were doing it way before any of the other companies.

This video shows just how food becomes so addictive.

Researchers are working every day to create foods that will taste so good that we physically CAN’T stop eating it. It’s not just marketing, it’s the science of the taste and texture of food.

They quote the author of the book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. I was unaware of this book before I saw this video, so I have a bunch of reading in front of me.

If you want to avoid food addiction, MAKE YOUR OWN FOOD. Cook your food from whole ingredients: meat, veggies, fruit, and grains. You will crave their food for a while, but keep eating your own food. You will eventually feel much better.