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

I find inspiration in the strangest of places. Mike pointed me in the direction of this article about photography. It’s written by Ken Rockwell, an award winning photographer. He writes about how the camera you have doesn’t matter. He gives an example of his most famous photograph (shown above), which was taken with a broken camera. He says, “The important part of that image is that I stayed around after my friends all blew off for dinner.”

• Ken Rockwell – Your Camera Does Not Matter

What does all this have to do with fitness?

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I don’t know how it happens, but even the blogs I read for fun end up to be eating lessons for me. I regularly read a blog written by Ward Jenkins, an animator who works for Primal Screen. He has worked on Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and probably a hundred other things, but I can’t find a complete resume for him. I started reading Ward-O-Matic because of his wonderful review, The Polar Express: A Virtual Train Wreck. It explained to me why the animation on that movie gave me the heebie-jeebies.

This entry, “More or less,” is about animation and developing the ability to work in that medium:

• The Ward-O-Matic – More or less? – by Ward Jenkins

He says:

“A new animator wants to put more drawings in, a seasoned animator wants to take more drawings out.”

When I read that, I felt the same thing about eating healthy.

“A new dieter wants to put more food into their diet, but a seasoned healthy eater wants to take more food out.”

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If you have lost weight by removing foods from your life, you’re probably feeling pretty desperate right now. You haven’t had this binge food for a long time and the more you think about it, the less control you feel like you have over it. Your house is clean of the food and has been for a while, but the thought of a life without that food doesn’t sound like it’s worth living. If this sounds familiar, you’re in luck. I’m going to tell you how to add former binge foods back into your life.

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The first question that needs to be answered when tackling this is, “Why?” Why do you want to cut a certain food out of your life? What’s the point? The best way to prevent the feeling of deprivation is not depriving yourself.

Weight loss isn’t enough. If you want to lose weight, I promise you that you can do it without removing that food from your life. It is possible to eat healthy with rare treats in order to stave off deprivation. If you think you have to cut foods out of your life in order to lose weight or prevent binges, you need to read this entry on Vulnerability Foods.

Getting fit is not enough. Unless you are an Olympic athlete, a rare treat of your favorite foods is not going to influence your performance. No matter how many personal trainers say, “Food is fuel,” it doesn’t make it the whole truth. If food were solely fuel, there would be no creme brulee. Food is about pleasure just as much as it’s about providing nutrition.

What if the food doesn’t give you pleasure, however? What if when I asked you, “Why do you want to cut a certain food out of your life?” you answered, “Because thirty minutes after eating, I always find myself in the bathroom defecating what feels like a diamond encrusted howler monkey.” Then that sounds like a valid reason to stop eating it. If you answered, “Whenever I eat that food, I get a mind-splitting headache,” that’s another good reason. It could even be something as simple as, “I just feel kinda yucky after I eat it.” If your reason has a clear manifestation, then this section is for you.

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Everything online about Weight Watchers sounds like a commercial. Let me tell you the truth about it without all that sugar coating.

Why I Stay With Weight Watchers Even Though I Have The Points Program Memorized By Heart:

It’s not about the Points. If I could follow the program by myself, then calorie counting would have worked for me. Points is actually more complicated than keeping track of calories, yet it’s the first program where I was able to keep the weight off.

It’s not about the Core Food List. There is no magic food list that would have worked for me. I tried limiting my intake of food before. I did lose weight, but I gained it right back when I “fell off the wagon.”

It’s not even about the Tools For Living. They are very powerful and helpful parts of the system, but the first time I read them, they were useless to me. It wasn’t until I sat through several classes describing their use that I was able to use them.

The meetings and the accountability are the one thing that have kept me on track week after week. I suggest finding a leader that you love. Go to the same class every week. Get to know the people at the class. Be honest when you say how you’re doing. Participate in the class. You can’t replace the accountability that you will receive when you attend the same class at the same time with the same leader EVERY week.

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I was driving to work and feeling guilty for not waking up early enough to ride my bike. I was stopped at the corner of 2100 South and 700 East when I saw her. She was about my height and looked like she weighed as much as I did when I started exercising. She ran for about ten steps and then walked. Then she ran again for about ten more steps and then walked. She was breathing heavily and my mind flew back to when I first started running.

The light changed. She turned the corner, running ten steps and then falling back into a walk. I drove through the intersection, filled with the memories of running. I remembered looking ahead of me and thinking, “I’ll run to that tree.” I would push as far as I could. Sometimes I would make it to the tree, sometimes it was just too much for me and I had to walk before I reached it. I felt so horrible because I couldn’t just run the entire time.

I couldn’t run every minute of every day, so I spent more time reading about running than actually running. Most of the articles in Runner’s World made no sense to me. They talked about splits and other runner’s jargon. Sometimes I found helpful things, other times I just turned the pages and looked at the pictures of the pretty runners. “That’s what I’ll look like when I run,” I thought to myself.

I remember reading a beginner’s guide to running book that said to run slow. It said to run even slower than that. I tried that on a run. It was one of the few times where I was able to run most of the way. I was working just as hard, but I felt so much better about myself because I was able to run more than I ever had before.

The first time I was able to run without walking was during my first 5K race. My goal was to keep running for the entire race. That was my only goal. I had no time goal. I had no other expectations except to run the entire race. I was able to do it and I felt such a joy at the end. It didn’t matter that a couple of people in the Walker division beat me. All that mattered was that I ran the whole way.

Now, I can run throughout my entire workout. When I’m tired, I run slower. When I’m energized, I run faster. I just feel good that I don’t have to walk. I don’t have to say to myself, “I’ll run as far as that bright yellow fire hydrant.” I can just run.

I felt like screaming, “Run slower,” out my car window at the girl running on 2100 South. I wanted to take her under my wing and tell her that she can do this. She can run every day and someday she will be able to run the entire route. I wanted to tell her to slow down and if she thinks that she is running slow, to run even slower than that. I wanted to tell her the key, but I just drove on past. There’s a whole big world out there waiting for her. I hope she is persistent enough to see it.

This is a little script that you can use with Microsoft Excel (Windows only). It will remind you when to weigh yourself and log the data. Using that data, you can create charts to graph your success.

• Lifehacker – Script: Log your weight over time with Excel

I have been using Excel to keep track of my weight every week ever since I started Weight Watchers. I have my weight line going up to my goal at the top of the chart. Psychologically, that works better for me. I don’t have a nifty little script to tell me when to log my weight, but I update it every month or so (my actual information is kept in my Weight Watchers card).

Here is a link to my Weight Log and Chart Spreadsheet. Enter the date for your first day in the yellow box and the rest of the dates should update automatically. I’ve tried to make this with a pretty broad range (100-300 pounds). This chart has enough data points for a year. If you want a new one, copy the tab and add the new date in the yellow box. I don’t know how this would work with the script, but this spreadsheet has worked really well for me.

Via: Fitness News – Log your weight over time with Excel

Update 09-02-14

I know this entry is REALLY old and MusicMatch doesn’t exist anymore, but you can use iTunes, record things on your phone or use Audacity to record your meditation MP3.

If you did the exercise on my Visualize a Different You, then you have written down positive thoughts about how you want to be in the future and how you want to visualize yourself right now. Braidwood said it like this:

“You know what I’ve been thinking about? Advertising! It is a science and it WORKS, it changes people’s minds. So, why not advertise what you want for yourself?! Create a jingle, create some enticing pictures and a slogan, and expose yourself to them often. You will be unable to resist… :)”

That’s what this entry today will show you how to do…

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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.

Steve Pavlina has a great entry about mentoring. When you are trying to change your life drastically, it helps to have someone who has been there before to answer your questions personally. I’m not talking about websites like mine; I’m talking about a real live person who you can talk to face to face (or cry on their shoulder, as the case may be).

• Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog – Mentoring

He doesn’t have too many ideas on how to find a mentor and it’s even harder when you’re looking for someone who has lost a lot of weight. Most of us don’t want to announce to the world our past. Those before pictures don’t even feel like they are part of us anymore because we had to change so much to get where we are today.

Here are some ideas on how to find a mentor:

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