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

Here is a most excellent article from the Diet Blog about water and the idea that we need to drink eight glasses a day:

• Diet Blog: The Mythical Daily Water Requirement

But where did the 8 glasses per day gospel originate?

Dr. Frederick Stare suggested this theory in a book “Nutrition for Good Health” published in 1974 (“theory” being the operative word). The theory caught on despite its arbitrary origins and it has been speculated that bottled water companies are largely responsible for perpetuating the 8-a-day mantra.

So, how much SHOULD you drink? We all love rules, don’t we? Click on over to Diet Blog’s entry and find out!

Photo Credit: Deep Blue by Ak_Saechao from Flickr

Is it possible to eat noodles AND lose weight. According to some, you can with shirataki noodles:

• About.com: What are Shirataki Noodles?

Although shirataki noodles have been around in Asia for quite some time, they’re becoming increasingly popular outside of Asia with people who are trying to lose weight or who are cutting back on carbohydrates.

Shirataki noodles are made from the tubers of an Asian plant (Amorphophallus konjac) called a konjac plant. The tubers are dried and ground to make a flour which is then used to make noodles.

The noodles have a gelatinous consistency and have no real flavor.

Shirataki noodles contain almost no calories, carbohydrates, fat, sugar, protein, or gluten. Although shirataki noodles contain carbohydrates, very little of it is digested in the small intestine.

In addition to having almost no calories or usable carbohydrates, shirataki noodles contain a type of soluble fiber called glucomannan.

I have seen these noodles at the grocery store in the refrigerated section by the tofu. Next time I go shopping, I’m going to pick some up and see if they taste good with some lean meat. If I create a new recipe, I’ll share it with you!

This ad ran in 1975 and it says a lot about the economy of that time:

How to eat well in spite of it all.

Tonight’s dinner doesn’t have to look like today’s economy. Not with Kraft Dinners and a few touches of your own. Like adding some snipped parsley to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner and serving it with sausage and tomato wedges. Just one of the ways Kraft Dinners can help you eat well in spite of it all.

Kraft Dinners make ends meet.

Back in 1975, Kraft didn’t try to tell me that their Macaroni and Cheese was a healthy part of my daily diet. They hadn’t thought to convince the USDA that I should eat five to eleven servings of grains every day and that their dinner was a healthy way to achieve that goal.

No, they were far less devious back then. They just said it was an inexpensive way to feed your family. If the political pundits are correct, we are heading into a recession worse than they saw in the Seventies. Will the healthy advertising change when it hits us hard?

When Mike and I were first married, we were pretty poor. We ate Mac and Cheese (generic, because it was 25 cents a package), Ramen (10 cents a package) and spaghetti. I don’t know about Mike, but that year I went from 140 pounds to 178 pounds. I gained almost forty pounds in a year eating inexpensive food.

If I had spent my money on the fresh vegetables and meat instead, I would have spent just as much on each meal AND maintained my weight (if not lost). I know it looks like fresh meat and vegetables cost more than Kraft and Ramen, but you need to eat far less to feel full.

If you are feeling the financial pinch, don’t fall into the Mac and Cheese trap. Those simple carbohydrates make you feel MORE hungry than the same amount of meat for your money.

Via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Vintage ad for Kraft mac & cheese resigns itself to 1975’s crappy economy

Diversify. I suspect they teach it in marketing school or economics school or some school for weasel business owners. If you put your fingers into every facet of the weight loss industry, they you will make even more money. Squeeze every penny out of your loyal customers.

That is what was going through my head when I saw these boxes sitting at my local grocery store.

I’m sure Curves has helped a lot of women add exercise to their daily routine. I’m sure that they are a good company with many loyal followers. I’m not so sure that I trust them to make healthy food for me, especially when it’s a sugar-sweetened, super-processed cereal.

Here is a five part series from Horizon (produced by the BBC) that analyzes the Atkin’s Diet. Does it work? If it does, why? Is it dangerous to your health?

This show spends too much time showing fat people eating huge bites of meat (do any of us want to watch other people eating?) and too much time playing choir music when Atkins is shown on the screen, but it does a pretty good job of looking at the research that has been done about the diet.

Click through for parts 2-5: (more…)

Bill and Gene, the writers of Unshelved, reviewed Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.

• Unshelved: Good Calories Bad Calories

Everything you know about nutrition is wrong. The government has been lying to you. The American Medical Association and the American Heart Association have been spouting baseless fictions. Science reporter Gary Taubes spent five years poring through a century of nutritional research, public policy, media coverage and scientific debate. The conclusions are inescapable. Saturated Fat is good for you – you can’t eat too much. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease and hypertension are all caused by carbohydrates. Cholesterol doesn’t hurt you, and fiber doesn’t help.

This is a pretty good synopsis of the book, but I love Bill and Gene’s decision based on the facts.

Here is a video with Gary Taubes himself discussing the research that he found during his studies. It’s a LONG video (1 hour 12 minutes), but it is totally worth it.

Here is an interesting entry from the Diet Blog:

• Diet Blog: 5 Amazing Things You Can Learn from a Toddler

Here is a simplified list of what you can learn from a toddler.

1. They are in motion all day long.
2. They stop eating when they are full.
3. They love to see themselves naked.
4. They are very flexible!
5. They get their sleep.

I haven’t had enough experience with toddlers to know if any of this is true. Do toddlers really love to see themselves naked? Do they get enough sleep of their own volition or is it forced upon them by their parents? I’m always wary of simple little five item lists like this. I could just as easily think of five things to avoid:

1. They hate vegetables.
2. They can’t focus on one task for longer than five minutes.
3. They are very picky eaters.
4. They are obsessed with sugar and candy.
5. They complain when they have to go to bed.

When it comes to taking eating cues from toddlers, what do you think?

Ever since Nike+ came out, I wished that Nike had less to do with it and Apple had more to do with it. The bulky flash website that was so slow to download had Nike’s fingerprints all over it and I wished for something solely run by Apple.

Then Apple came out with the iPhone and my iPod Nano felt like a superfluous accessory that I only used when I went running. I can’t use my Nike+ with my iPhone, so I have kept my Nano just to log my runs. I have been wishing for the Nike+ to work with my iPhone.

If I had been wishing that Apple would create their own system, I would have had my wish granted. Apple has filed SIX patents on a “Lifestyle Companion”.

Not only will it communicate with a sensor on your shoe, but it also communicates with exercise machines so that if I run five miles on a treadmill, it doesn’t have to approximate with the sensor, it can get the information directly from the treadmill. It also can track your eating and nutrition.

You can find out the details here:

• iPhone. Your Lifestyle Companion » Unwired View

Suddenly, all my hatred for Nike is allowed to run free. Their XL workout gear that will only fit those who are underweight, their slow and cumbersome website, and their overpriced sensor replacements for the Nike+ can all take a walk off a cliff. It might be years before these patents become a product for me, but I’m willing to wait. When Apple does things, they do them right.

Via: The Joy of Tech comic… laughter is the best tech support.

Weight Watchers sells a bracelet for counting points for about twenty bucks. It’s not too pretty, but it features a movable charm that allows you to keep track of how many points you’ve eaten. The only problem with the bracelet is that anyone who has attended Weight Watchers would recognize those cheap pearls and black beads from a mile away. It practically screams, “I’m on Weight Watchers!!”

Sutherland Studios, however, has step-by-step instructions on how to make a similar bracelet.

• Sutherland Studios – Free Row Counter Bracelet Instructions

They suggest that you could use the bracelet to keep track of rows of knitting or crochet, but this would be genius for discretely keeping track of your Weight Watcher points. Since you are making it yourself, you can put the number of beads for YOUR points limit. The second string, with additional charms, could keep track of your veggies, dairy, oils and water. I imagine five green beads for veggies, six green beads for water, two white beads for dairy and two clear beads for oils.

Because you make it yourself, choosing your own beads, no one would be able to tell that it was for keeping track of Weight Watcher points. You could just privately move over the stretchy bead when you eat your meal unnoticed.

If you make a bracelet such as this, post a message in the comments linking to yours and show off your talents!

Via: Craftzine.com blog: Row Counter Bracelet

I was reading the retro advertisement blog, Found in Mom’s Basement, and I saw this ad for Spam from 1975. I was six years old in 1975. I loved Spam. Looking at the picture of Spam and eggs reminded me of how much I loved Spam.

Now, I don’t really consider Spam food. Just like styrofoam or crayons, sure you can chew and swallow it, but it’s now categorized in the “Not Food” category. When did that happen?

Nutrition facts. I’m pretty sure I classified Spam as “Not Food” when I could actually see how much fat and how little meat there was in that can. Logically, that makes sense, right? It must have been when I saw the nutrition facts.

The truth is, the nutrition facts for Spam look pretty bad. According to NutritionData, Spam has almost twice the calories and fat than regular ham.

When we were kids, Spam was considered the coolest food. Just look at the ad showing it used in so many different situations. Although my parents never barbequed it or put it on pizza, I’ve eaten spam in casseroles, with eggs and on sandwiches. We always had a can of it in the cupboard, just in case.

All of this has me thinking. If Spam was a perfectly cromulent food in 1975, what food of today is going to be the Spam of tomorrow? Flax seed cereal? Cabbage soup? Whole foods in general? Whatever the food fad of today, there is certainly going to be a backlash for it later.

Our definition of food is constantly changing and it’s hard to keep up. Poor Spam just got caught in the crossfire between marketing and nutrition.