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

Damaging food so that you can’t eat it is one way of avoiding overindulgence. It’s true and I’ve done it.

I usually put my napkin on the food and press it in so that I won’t want to eat it. It’s as if the napkin has “contaminated” the food. I’ve also poured water on my leftovers so that I wouldn’t pick at them while I waited for the waiter to take it away. I’ve heard that pouring salt over food is supposed to work, but I crave salt so much that I don’t think it would be much of a deterrent for me.

What if I didn’t need to damage food in order to be “safe”? What if I was able to leave a half-eaten entree on the table untouched? Would I be cured then? Is that my next test? I won’t take the food home in a container. I won’t damage the food so I can’t pick at it. I won’t share the food with someone else. I’ll just let it sit there, untouched. I think that’s my next step in this evolution.

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 read so many websites and books about Raw Foods because I’m looking for some proof. They make claims that cooking food depletes the enzymes in food that is necessary for humans. It sounded like quackery to me, especially since none of them quoted any medical studies.

Thanks to one of my readers, Barry, the reason it sounds like quackery is because it is:

• Quackwatch – “Enzyme Deficiency”

Dr. Stephen Barrett has written an article about a specific product, Nu-zymes, but it also addresses the idea of raw food and enzymes. Here are the best quotes:

“Enzymes in food cannot remedy a lack of cellular enzymes. All plant and animal products contain enzymes. They are responsible for both growth and post-harvest deterioration (wilting, discoloration, rancidity, etc.). They have nothing to do with the digestive process after food is consumed.”

“Raw food contains no enzymes needed for digestion. All the enzymes needed for human digestion are made in the body.”

That finishes it for me. I won’t be jumping into a diet of strictly raw foods. Sure, the food at the raw food bar tasted really good, but it’s not any more healthy than the same food boiled or microwaved.

This beautiful shrimp cocktail is an update to the 1970’s version that is so popular at the casinos in Las Vegas.

• Regular shrimp cocktail is so 1970s – Slashfood

Even with the decadent marinara-vodka sauce, this treat couldn’t be more than 3 or 4 WW Points. Sometimes we eat the same things over and over in an effort to be healthy. Life doesn’t have to be boring and this low calorie shrimp cocktail is an indulgence that can add to your diet without guilt.

It’s Girl Scout Cookie Time. We got our boxes outside the grocery store, but you might have ordered a bunch when they only looked like harmless boxes on a piece of paper. Our ability to resist is easier when food is two-dimensional. If you haven’t purchased any Girl Scout Cookies and you want them, I think you should. Learning to live with tempting food in the house is another step toward a healthy life.

How To Indulge In Girl Scout Cookies Without Overdoing It:

• Open The Boxes Immediately: No matter how many boxes you have bought, open them all up right now.

• Divide Them Up: Calculate how many cookies you can eat for 100-150 calories and divide the boxes up. Put these individual servings into Ziploc baggies.

• Treat Yourself: Take one serving of cookies and put them into your treat cupboard.

• Freeze The Rest: Put the rest back into the individual boxes so you can remember the exact calorie and fat content. Put the boxes in the freezer.

• Limit Access: Only allow one serving of cookies to be unfrozen at a time.

If you follow this process, you’ll be able to enjoy Girl Scout Cookie Time without over-indulging. You can do this, so prove it to yourself!

For a decadent treat that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into a gourmet deli, try this:

• Food porn: prosciutto and melon – Slashfood

You can keep this indulgence well within your diet by keeping the portions small:

• Proscuitto (a deli meat that is aged) 1.8 oz (4 slices): 100 Calories, 6 g Fat, 0 g Fiber (2.5 WW Points)

• Cantaloupe 4.7 oz (1/2 cup): 46 Calories, 0.3 g Fat, 1.2 g Fiber (0.7 WW Points)

• Total: 146 Calories, 6.3 g Fat, 1.2 g Fiber (3.2 WW Points)

All calorie counts provided by:

• CalorieKing – Diet and weight loss. Calorie Counter and more.

The Veteran’s Administration is tackling obesity by offering a program called M.O.V.E! Here is a link to the handouts that they will provide the veterans on the program.

• Managing Overweight\Obesity for Veterans Everywhere!

It’s a down-to-earth program of move more, eat less that explains the calories in versus calories out dilemna. Since these handouts are available to everyone online, you can benefit from this program, even if you’re not a veteran.

Via: Happy News – New VA program targets obesity, diabetes – by Associated Press

This entry on Diet Blog about free weight loss programs versus ones that make you pay a weekly fee really got me thinking.

• Diet Blog – Free Versus Expensive Diets

I keep telling you that you can eat healthy and exercise for free, yet I go to Weight Watchers and advocate their meetings. Am I a hypocrite? Am I confused? What am I really trying to tell you?

You CAN do it for free

The truth of the matter is, you CAN lose weight for free. You don’t need expensive dietary supplements, gym memberships or fancy exercise gadgets. All you need is to eat less calories than you burn, and there are a myriad of ways that you can do this within the confines of a healthy diet. You don’t need to pay anyone anything to lose weight.

I wasn’t able to do it for free

I tried for years and years to lose weight before I decided to just love my body the way it was. I had tried every diet and sometimes I lost weight, but mostly I just lost five pounds and then gained back ten after the diet-induced bingeing. When I decided to stop dieting forever and to just love my body the way it was, I gained a few pounds and decided that I was okay with it.

After a few months of accepting myself the way I was, I decided that I wanted to exercise to help keep my heart healthy. That step alone took me from 235 to 190 pounds. Exercise was my first step toward a healthy lifestyle, but after a muscle strain, I started gaining the weight that I had lost back. That’s when I had a realization.

Exercise alone won’t do it. Dieting alone won’t do it. I needed to do both and I REALLY needed help in the eating department because all diets had sent me into binge-mode. When I found out that a close friend and my sister had great success with Weight Watchers, I decided to join. What I learned there changed the way I dealt with food.

Conquering bingeing took more than just learning what is healthy. It has taken a daily focus on keeping myself satisfied both physically and emotionally. It’s such a vast subject that I don’t think I would have ever been able to get past bingeing on my own. That’s why I’m so dedicated to Weight Watchers.

So, should you pay for it?

That’s a question that only you can answer. There are people who have paid their Weight Watcher dues every week without success. There are others, like me, who have completely changed their lives. It all depends on you. Are you ready to do it on your own? Do you need extra support? Give yourself an hour or two and a stack of paper and write it out. That has always been the most helpful way for me to look at things.

Cheryl Koch has a quick list to help you stay within your calorie range to lose weight.

• Yahoo! Health Expert Blogs Eat Right, Stay Fit – Calorie Control for the New You

It really helps to have a refresher like this on the little things that we can do to get and stay healthy with our eating. Here are her suggestions:

• Control your portions

• Use common, everyday reference points to help you recognize a healthy portion size

• Write down everything you eat

• Increase the “hidden” exercise in your daily routines

• Fill up on healthy selections

• Don’t eat right from the package

• Pay attention to labels

All of these ideas have helped me over the years to keep my eating in control. Try adding one of these habits a week to your lifestyle and you will notice results.

Weight Loss That Lasts was published last year and I saw it on the shelves in bookstores, at Amazon and at Weight Watchers. I picked it up because I always like a little extra boost of inspiration. How did this book do? Did it inspire me to live healthier?

What’s Good About This Book:

This book talks about ten myths that hold people back:

• You can’t lose weight and keep it off.
• A few extra pounds don’t matter.
• Willpower is the key to successful weight loss.
• You can lose weight with exercise alone.
• Calories don’t matter – avoid fats or carbs to lose weight successfully.
• You can’t lose weight if you have the wrong metabolism or genes.
• You can boost your metabolism by what, how, and when you eat.
• It doesn’t matter how you take the weight off; you can think about keeping it off later.
• There is only one right approach to losing weight.
• Your weight is your problem and you need to solve it on your own.

Some of these “myths” are a bit of stretch, but I would seriously recommend this book to the fat acceptance people who insist that “Diets Don’t Work” and say that there is no way for them to get thinner than they are. This book has the scientific backup with over 14 pages of sources to the medical studies cited in the book. Unlike some books that spout ideas without proof, this book gives you the actual studies to which it is referring when it states a fact.

What’s Not So Good About This Book:

I think this book overdoes it on the scare tactics. The author is very careful to only state that obesity correlates with disease instead of causing it, but after that, goes on a long tirade about the devastating effects of each disease. It made the book feel a little like a propaganda piece to me. Dr. Rippe is very careful to tell the truth, but then keeps beating you over the head with it until you just want to say, “Okay, shut up about the diseases already!”

Should I Buy This Book?

If you have ever thought that you can’t lose weight because you come from a fat family, you should buy this book. If you have every blamed your inability to follow through on a diet with lack of willpower, you should buy this book. Sure, you’re going to get hit over the head with scare tactics about disease, but that might inspiration enough to get yourself to a healthy weight.

I bought Stop Stuffing Yourself when I felt helpless about my bingeing. I had stagnated at 180 pounds for over two years and I knew that I couldn’t lose any more weight and still binge. I knew I needed to get past the bingeing, but I had no idea how to do it, so I got this book.

What’s Good About This Book:

Like all Weight Watchers books, they sprinkle many case studies from people who have lost weight. In some books, they even show the before and after pictures. This book has profiles such as these, but no pictures. I always love to see other people who have succeeded because it gives me hope. Even though I know that those people might have gained all that weight back (or might not even exist), I get inspired by those “true to life” stories and advice. It’s the same reason I like Weight Watchers Magazine every month.

What’s Not So Good About This Book:

Chapter 2: Discovering Your Eating Style really turned me off to the whole book. It was a large chapter of quizzes to determine your eating style. I find quizzes like that to be a simplistic condensation of the real issues behind overeating. I started out answering the questions, but by the second page, I stopped to see how long this quiz was going to be. When I realized that it was a full chapter of questions, I stopped right there.

This book has a lot of good advice about not eating when you’re bored or angry, but it wasn’t what I needed to conquer my bingeing.

Should I Buy This Book?

If you have a serious problem with bingeing, this book will not help you get to the bottom of it. If you tend to eat when you’re bored or lonely, then this book might help you, but only if you can get past the neverending quiz in Chapter 2.