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

Before I started writing for Starling Fitness, I wrote about a lot of health and fitness items on my personal weblog, Pick Me!. This entry has ruffled a lot of feathers and I am still receiving comments on it, even though it’s almost a year old.

• Pick Me! – Weight Watchers Core Food List

Check out the angry and supportive comments from all the people on this entry. I orginally wrote this entry because I kept getting emails asking for the Weight Watcher’s Core Food List. It seemed crazy to me because the list (or the Points program) isn’t what helped me lose the weight. The classes and my excellent leader helped me far more than the nutritional information that Weight Watchers gave me.

Christian Finn has a no nonsense answer to questions about The Abs Diet.

• Christian Finn’s Facts About Fitness: What do you think of the Abs Diet?

The funny thing about finding an eating plan that works is that I don’t search around for diet plans anymore. The same is true for exercise. Now that I have so many options for exercise that I actually miss them when I don’t have time for them all. I don’t go looking for new exercise videos or games or machines.

This fabulous article goes into depth about the reasons why you may be on a plateau.

• About.com – 10 Reasons You’re not Losing Weight – by Paige Waehner

Here are the basics, but for every item, there is a complete explanation and options to rectify the problem.

1. You’re not exercising enough
2. You’re not getting enough sleep
3. You’re too stressed out
4. You’re eating too much
5. You’re not consistent with your exercise and healthy eating
6. You blow it on the weekends
7. You haven’t given yourself enough time to see results
8. You have a medical condition
9. You’ve hit a plateau
10. You don’t need to lose weight

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only skeptical food addict on the planet. Every weekday, I receive the Hungry Girl email in my inbox gushing about all the new fake food out there. It’s nice to know that there are others out there who are wary of the food industry and their Franken-Foods.

• Diet Blog – Whole Grain White Bread: Huh?

This post talks about the new Whole Grain White Bread which is supposed to be made of a new specifically-bred grain. It’s not genetically modified, just bred… um… bread.

After July’s issue, which had me inwardly screaming in anger at the diet pill article, this month’s O Magazine is much, much better. There is a brilliant article about eating “real” food instead of “fake” food. Dr. Phil has an interesting entry about losing weight and there is this article about those last 10 pounds.

• The Last 10 Pounds

I was pleased to notice that for most of the women, Bob Greene recommended that they didn’t need to lose those last 10 pounds. He suggested that they continue exercising to tone up and be healthy, but losing the weight was not a goal they should pursue. It’s a rare health guru that will tell his followers that they are beautiful the way they are and that they shouldn’t lose any more weight.

I talked before about NutritionData’s Nutrition Facts & Calorie Counter. They are a helpful resource when you need to know the nutrition facts for food. Now, they have another tool that makes it even easier to look things up.

• Firefox Search Plugin for NutritionData

It is a small little plugin that allows you to type a food in the search bar on your Firefox browser. It doesn’t take up extra space, it’s just another option on that search bar (you can choose it instead of Google). It works like a dream and I haven’t had any weirdness since installing it. It was so easy to install, that I thought I did something wrong and installed it again, so don’t worry if it takes less than a second to download.

If you don’t use Firefox as your browser, you’re missing out. Try it for free.

When I first started trying to lose weight on my own, I was trying to follow the food pyramid and keep my calories under 1200 a day. I would look online for caloric information and it was hard to find anything. Now, there are so many companies trying to compete for the nutrition facts top listing on Google, that it’s hard to wade through the slime. Fortunately, the site that is on the top of Google’s list seems to be the best for accurate information.

• NutritionData’s Nutrition Facts Calorie Counter

I like that you can change the size of the serving. It’s not perfect, but I’m not stuck with knowing the nutrition facts for a cup of peanut butter and having to calculate the amount for a two tablespoon serving (or vice versa). Additionally, the nutrition facts are displayed in the goverment sanctioned nutrition facts format. It makes it so easy for me to read because I know exactly where the fat, calories and fiber will be listed each time.

There is so much good stuff to read on this site. Each food is rated on the Caloric Ratio Pyramid, which provides a visual evaluation of the food. I have no idea where the “perfect food” would reside on that pyramid, but it shows the percentages of fat, carbohydrates and protein in a very visually pleasing format.

Next time you are unsure of the nutritional information of certain foods, give NutritionData a try. I’ve found it to be very helpful.

I talked about my devotion to The Cult of the Convenience Store on my weblog, Pick Me! July 11th was always considered a religious holiday for the cult. In honor of it, I send you to this:

• Hungry Girl – 7-11 Girl’s Bite Out

I find myself at 7-11 (and other convenience stores) quite often, so finding something healthy that feels like a treat is a difficulty for me. This guide is pretty good at warning you about the pitfalls of convenience store devotion.

This entry from About.com gives you the science and the formulas to calculate how many calories you should eat in order to maintain weight and then tells you how many to cut out in order to lose weight.

• About.com – How Many Calories Should I Eat – How to Calculate Caloric Intake – Count Calories to Lose Weight – Losing Weight by Cutting Calories

The new food pyramid will calculate those calories for you. Of course, it is only an estimate based on your age, sex and activity level with a huge caveat, “This calorie level is only an estimate of your needs. Monitor your body weight to see if you need to adjust your calorie intake.”

• MyPyramid.gov – United States Department of Agriculture – Home

Nutritionists tell us that weight loss is just a science. It’s physics:
Calories In < Calories Out= Weight Loss
Calories In > Calories Out= Weight Gain
I would like to believe it’s as simple as that, but I’ve found that weight loss has more to do with what’s in my head than what’s in my lunch box.

It took me a long time to get past my anger at the Atkins Diet for betraying me. Protein took the brunt of that resentment. After years of healthy eating, I’ve found that protein provides me with the benefit of satiety. It’s the reason some people lost weight on the Atkins Diet.

It doesn’t take much. Only about 4-8 grams of protein are enough to make me feel full. That’s one tablespoon of peanut butter. That’s 12 pistachios. That’s less than one ounce of beef. Protein has a lot of calories packed into a compact package. It’s the reason a lot of people had trouble losing weight on the Atkins Diet.

I make sure that I have a miniscule amount of protein with my breakfast, lunch, and snacks (dinner always takes care of itself). There are tons of ways to add a little bit of protein into your diet. I try to limit my protein intake to approximately 50 calories for a snack and 100 calories for a meal. That makes for tiny servings, but I don’t need a lot to get that feeling of fullness.

Protein that has helped me feel full:

• Peanut Butter

• Tuna fish

• Nuts and Seeds (My favorites are almonds, pistachios, pine nuts and pumpkin seeds)

• Beef

• Chicken

• Eggs

• Refried Beans

Protein that I haven’t had good luck with:

• Dairy Products: I know they have protein in them, but I’m hungry a couple hours after eating them, unlike other protein sources. I don’t understand it, but I’ve noticed the effect.

• Egg Whites (like Egg Beaters, etc.): I know they have 10 grams of protein for those 47 calories, but I feel hungry very quickly after a serving of Egg Beaters. I don’t have the same effect with whole eggs.

• Protein Fortified Cereals: I like the taste of Kashi cereal and Quaker Oatmeal Squares. I love the high fiber content, but the protein that they add to their cereal doesn’t get me as full. Their cereals say they have anywhere between 3-9 grams of protein, but I haven’t noticed any additional fullness.

• Protein Shakes or Powders: I’m hungry within an hour of drinking these, especially if the shake is really sugary. I know a lot of people swear by this stuff, but they just don’t last for me.

• Protein Bars: I might as well eat a candy bar. I get the same rebound sugar effect from these as a chocolate bar.

Be careful! It’s easy to overdo it on the protein. Make sure you measure consistently because I noticed that my portion sizes were creeping up, but I was still counting them as 100 calories. Make sure you weigh, count out or measure these items because they are so calorie-dense that a small miscalculation could result in large number of unexpected calories. If you accidentally eat a whole bag of carrots, the extra calories are negligible, but a whole bag of almonds can blow your allotment for the day.