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

I ADORE this motivational poster I found on MotiveWeight!

It reads:

Time to photoshop my life. Touch up the edges, adjust the tones, blur out the background, focus on me, and crop people out.

I really wish meditation worked like this for me, especially the “crop people out” concept. My mind is so fleeting that I have never really been able to train it to calm itself when I am meditating.

Lately, I’ve tried directed meditation. I’ve written my vision for what I want in my life and each day, in my neatest handwriting, I re-write it. I spend about ten minutes consciously focusing on what I WANT from my life. It’s one of the few times in the day when I don’t think about what I DON’T want in my life.

It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to being able to crop people out of my life, if only because there is no room for them when I’m focusing so intently on what I DO want.

If traditional meditation doesn’t seem to work for you, you might want to try my technique:

• Write a page explaining in detail what you want.
• Make sure you cover all the aspects of your life: health, family, career and emotional well-being.
• Write a few sentences for each of those things.
• Make sure they are POSITIVE. Don’t write what you don’t want. Write what you DO want.
• Each day, spend ten minutes or so re-writing that vision in your neatest handwriting, saying the sentences to yourself as you write them.

This technique has worked better for me than trying to quiet my “monkey mind.” I just distract the monkey with shiny toys and concepts. If you have given up on meditation, try my technique and see if it works for you as well.

When I saw this motivational poster on Funeral For My Fat the other day, I didn’t like it at first.

I read the first few words:

I will beat her. I will train harder. I will eat cleaner.

It sounded so competitive to me. There have been times when I have not liked how someone treated me and I hoped to be thinner and stronger than her, but this seemed FAR more than I had ever felt before. But, I kept on reading:

I know her weaknesses. I know her strengths. I’ve lost to her before, but not this time. She is going down.

She is going down?! I can’t think of anyone who I feel like that about.

I have the advantage because I know her well. She is the Old Me.

OH! The OLD ME! Oh, yeah, I hate that bitch! That bitch made me fat. Yeah, she IS going down…

I saw this motivational poster on Loving My Body Through All the Good and Bad the other day and it really made me think.

It reads:

It only takes one person to change your life: YOU.

When I first read it, I thought of all the people who have helped me in my journey. My WW leader, some of the members in my WW group, Mike and everyone else who has given me good advice about doing healthy things.

Sure, I was the one who DID the work to change my life, but these people helped as well.

I’ve struggled with this concept before and talked about it on my personal blog:

• Pick Me! – Pack Up Your Sorrows

It was back in 2003 and I still haven’t worked past this idea. Back then, I said:

Sometimes I would rather live in the “I Am An Island” world instead of the “No Man Is An Island” world. Simon and Garfunkel had it right.

There have been people who have carried me and soothed me over the years. I am grateful to those people and yet at the same time, I feel as if my accomplishments are my own. I did the work. I stayed away from the food. I ran the miles.

Is it true? Is there only one person who can change my life? I still don’t know and after TEN years of thinking about this concept, I don’t feel as if I am any closer to the truth.

I haven’t tried this idea from MotiveWeight.

It reads:

Instead of telling yourself you CAN do it, tell yourself you ARE doing it.

I’ve gotten a lot of steam from “I think I can.” There were so many times when I was riding my bike, trying to get it up that huge hill near my house, and I just kept saying, “I think I can,” over and over. Sometimes I would go all Obama and say, “Yes I can,” over and over instead.

But I’ve never tried saying, “I am doing it.” It just feels wrong in my head. With “Yes I can,” I can say each word with each pump on the pedal, but “I am doing it,” is five syllables and just doesn’t feel as good to say. “Yes I am,” is the right cadence, but it doesn’t make any sense out of context like that.

I think I’ll stick with “Yes I can.” It has gotten me up many a hill and through many a sprint.

I was reading Found in Mom’s Basement and found this old advertisement from Post Cereal.

It reads:

“Any protein cereal helps keep you the right size… as long as it’s Post Grape-Nuts”

Thirty per cent more protein in every spoonful – more than any other cereal. That flavor really shapes up, too – so different, nut-like. Yes, for protein, energy and flavor… make your cereal Post Grape-Nuts!

All Post cereals happen to be just a little bit better.

My heart just aches for the “fat” woman on the left. Let’s just call her Miss Blue Coat. That look on her face gives me pause. It makes me think that the folks at Post didn’t quite realize what was going on.

She appears to be contemplating the situation. Her “friend” is such an attention whore that she doesn’t even notice the perilous situation she is in. I’d love to see the rest of this movie, complete with the revenge scene where Little Miss Size 10 is horrified when she loses her rich boyfriend to the new svelte figure of Miss Blue Coat.

I feel as if the copy on this advertisement should read: “When I get skinny, you’ll pay…” So I fixed it.

I’d pay to see that movie…

Yesterday, I was SICK. Explosive diarrhea, vomiting, constant nausea, joint pain and exhaustion. I was so bad, we cancelled our plans with friends today because even if I felt better, I might be contagious and they have a new baby.

This morning, I felt weak, but a little better. The “explosions” were gone. I was able to keep down my morning cup of coffee. My boy wanted to do our exercise together (he rides the exercise bike and I run on the treadmill). I agreed to join him just so we could be consistent. I thought I’d take it easy and just walk on the treadmill if I started to feel sick again. I remembered the thought, “You can’t get much done if you only workout on days you feel good.“

I started out walking, but then habit kicked in. When the warmup was over, I punched it up to running speed (for me, it’s only 4.0 mph right now, but it’s really hard for me). I did my normal interval and then went back to walking speed. I did my entire interval workout that was planned for today.

Don’t get me wrong. It was hard. Each run felt much harder than they did yesterday, but I was wearing my heart rate monitor and it said I was working at the same level as I did yesterday. It just FELT harder, but I didn’t let it get in my way.

When I was done, I sat on the floor to do my after-run stretches. When I did Roll Like A Ball, I saw it. Each time I rolled up, I saw the motivational card that my WW teacher had given me a couple of weeks ago. I had put it up by the exercise bike because when I’m hurt, I exercise there instead of the treadmill. Roll up, I saw it. Roll back, and I thought about it.

I AM stronger than any excuse!

Before, I would have used yesterday’s illness as an excuse to skip my workout. This time, I did my workout anyway. Now, part of the credit has to go to my kid, who held me accountable to our daily routine. I KNOW that’s the reason I got my butt off the chair and headed upstairs to the family gym. Knowing that I can’t do this all on my own and that I have someone to hold me accountable actually helped me today.

Just in case your WW teacher didn’t give you a little motivational card, here are some from around the web to inspire you.

Here are a couple I found on Healthier, Fitter, Stronger by Christy Marhin.

It reads:

Make yourself stronger than your excuses

It reads:

Excuses are for people who don’t want it bad enough

This one from Vuible is pretty good:

It reads:

Be stronger than your excuses

Here’s a pretty good one from StyleCraze:

It reads:

Be Stronger Than Your Excuses

CutAndJacked.com has one for weight training men:

It reads:

Stronger than excuses

The next time you consider skipping your workout, just TRY it. Get on the treadmill and walk slowly. If you are feeling too ill to do a workout, your body will tell you. You will probably learn that you are stronger than you thought!

I needed a good motivational picture of a girl running with the words “Don’t Give Up” on it for my wall in front of my treadmill. I made one for myself, so here it is for you as well.

If you click on it, you can get the full-sized version. I found the picture on Flickr here:

• Running Girl from aarmono on Flickr

I looked FOREVER for a good “Don’t Give Up” picture for my wall, but they are either too wordy…

Or just the words all by themselves…

Or too much Jesus…

This one was REALLY close, but when I’m running on the treadmill, I’m not really inspired by kick boxers.

Or not exactly what I was looking for…

I don’t know exactly what stacking stones has to do with perseverance. I kind of think that things that make me want to give up actually have a USEFUL purpose and stacking stones isn’t really a useful activity, so it really didn’t help me.

I just wanted something SIMPLE that said “Don’t Give Up,” so I had to make one myself. I hope you like it.

Update 06-11-13: I found another one on MotiveWeight:

I love this quote I found on Week in Review. – tk(o).

It reads:

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

-Socrates

Now, I don’t know if Socrates actually said that or if it’s a misquote, but I truly need to remember this. Whenever I am feeling like I am fighting myself, I need to remember to BUILD. If I ADD good foods, there will be no room in my tummy for bad ones. If I ADD good habits, I won’t have time to waste doing things that harm me. If I ADD an exercise routine, then I won’t be a lazy lump sitting around.

I don’t need to stop eating bad food, break bad habits or stop being a lazy lump, I need to BUILD a better me.

I saw this awesome quote on Funeral for My Fat they other day and it made me feel so good.

It reads:

“Whenever you feel sad just remember that there are billions of cells in your body and all they care about is you.”

This quote is attributed to Will Ferrell, but it doesn’t look like he came up with it. All my internet searching was fruitless and it’s one of those random anonymous sayings that has been plastered all over Twitter, retweeted, reblogged and rehashed until we can’t tell who said it first.

Quotation sanctity aside, it’s a great quote and imagining each of those cells within me hoping that I do the right thing each and every day is really inspiring.

I found another good little story in that book I found at a estate sale last month:

Habits influence the character, as air currents influence an airplane, and whether the habits speed us on the way of our wishes or retard our progress, their effect is not the less important because they sometimes are imperceptible.

It’s a little wordy. I prefer:

Habits affect you just like air currents affect an airplane.

They can speed you up or slow you down, even though they’re nearly invisible.

It’s true. The difference between a “naturally” skinny person and an overweight person are tiny, almost imperceptible habits that are in place. Fidgeting when nervous or thinking is one such habit. Or perhaps chewing gum instead of mindlessly eating. Maybe it’s going for a run when things get really bad as opposed to going to bed. They are things that are almost invisible, yet they make the difference between a thin body and a fat one.

What small habit can you add today that would make you thinner? Here are a few to choose from:

• Get out of your chair every hour and walk around.
• Exercise first thing in the morning
• Set your fork down between bites
• Choose fruit or veggies at snack time
• Eat protein with every meal
• Get 7-8 hours of sleep every night
• Plan your meals
• Sip water between each bite of food
• Always have a healthy snack on hand
• Plan your exercise every day
• Eat all your meals without distractions
• Carry walking shoes with you so you can take a walk whenever
• Stand up instead of sitting down
• Chew gum when you’re upset
• Always be on the lookout for fun physical activities
• Read healthy cookbooks for new food ideas
• Moving around when playing video games, watching TV or reading

What is ONE small habit that you could incorporate into your life? Choose one and work on it for a month. Then next month add another one. Keep doing that until you have a host of wonderful habits that speed you up instead of bad habits that slow you down.