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

I have wondered for a long time what use it is to be at my goal weight? I remember those rare times when I was thin. I wasn’t any happier back then than I am now. Why should I work so hard to be thin? Gretchen Rubin writes on her weblog, The Happiness Project, that people do feel happier when they feel more attractive:

• The Happiness Project: Does feeling more attractive make you happier?

People are willing to admit that their happiness depends on having friends, feeling close to their family, being satisfied with their work, etc…

But I think there are other elements to happiness as well—elements that we might not want to admit.

And one of those things is feeling attractive.

There have been times when I have felt attractive and they had nothing to do with how much I weighed. Learning to take care of myself and enjoy my appearance no matter what I weigh is an important step toward my goal. There were times when I was thin and beautiful, but I felt fat and bloated. It has nothing to do with how I actually look and has more to do with how I feel.

What can I do to make myself feel better about my appearance?

What will happen if I get to goal weight and I haven’t been able to like my appearance yet?

What if I loved the way I look right now? Would that stall my weight loss? Do I have to lose weight from a point of disgust or can I love the way I look AND lose weight?

How can I feel attractive right now? Is there something I can do with my hair, nails, face or clothing that will improve my opinion of myself?

It seems that I only get fired up when I feel unattractive. The problem with being “fired up,” though, is that I lose weight in such an unhealthy manner that I end up bingeing later. There has to be a better way.

I find that I am reluctant to be in front of the camera. It’s because I weigh more now than I did last year at this time and I don’t like how I look. I don’t know how hiding behind a camera can change that fact, but somehow I have to be able to get past this.

Have you been hiding from cameras? Why?

What would you have to look like to feel good about being in front of the camera? Does hiding from the camera (or mirrors) change the way you look?

Does it change the way you feel about yourself?

Is it possible to love yourself no matter what you look like?

How would you go about accepting yourself as you are now AND working to make yourself better?

Are those contradictory terms?

I am going to get in front of the camera again, despite my weight gain. Avoiding the camera and mirrors is just my way of trying to forget that I gained weight. If I avoid the truth, I’ll never be able to be healthy.

I was recently invited to a weight loss challenge and I had to decline. Now, the competitive nature within me is feeling left out of the competition.

What can I do to feed my competitive nature that is positive?

I have been competing in the Nike+ challenges and that seems to help, but even when I won the trophy for the Level 1 group, I heard myself discount it, “That was just Level 1. I used to run at Level 3 before.” Even though it has been a hard journey back from not being able to run at all, I discounted my trophy. I’m beginning to think that this competitive side of me isn’t very nice.

Is competition inherently bad when I’m trying to create a healthy lifestyle?

Should I ever compare myself to another person’s abilities, body or nature?

Isn’t there some way to feed the competitive part of me that won’t damage the rest of me?

It was my competitive nature that injured me in the first place. Doing so much mileage that quickly just so I could pass up someone on my Nike+ challenges ended up hurting me.

How can compete without hurting myself?

Do any of you have any ideas because I feel like I’m in a situation where no matter what I do, I’m going to feel crappy.

I am currently in Austin, Texas. The restaurants here are a tribute to the Texas BBQ, so there is lots of meat to choose from, but I’m a little short on my veggie rations. Help me!

How can I eat healthy in Texas?

What are the healthiest items on the Southern Cooking menu?

Are collard greens healthy? They taste too good to be fat free. Are they cooked with lard or something to make them taste so good?

Should I be avoiding restaurants altogether and packing my own food?

If you have any experience with Southern Cooking, please leave comments here so I can make sure I’m really choosing healthy options.

Even though I’m all about “loving yourself thin,” I have a low tolerance for hippie baloney. This article has a gratitude exercise that might help some to foster a more positive outlook, but it really wasn’t very helpful to me.

• You’ll Flip for These Mental Gymnastics

I’m not much of a gratitude person. I don’t really feel good knowing that the universe was perfectly aligned to create human life on this planet and I have a harder time feeling grateful that we are here. When I want to binge, I’m usually feeling pretty down, so it’s hard to come up with a list of things to be grateful about and when I read one I’ve written in the past, it sounds pretty stupid to me. It’s hard for me to remember how grateful I felt that I came into being on this planet when I wish I could just numb myself away.

What has worked better for me is the Happy Memories exercise. When I’m feeling happy and in the mood to reminisce, I write down various happy memories into a notebook. I write down a small description of the happy memory and then later, I write a whole page about it including all the five senses that I can. The thing is, I write the happy memories when I’m feeling happy, not when I’m feeling down.

When I feel down and I’m trying not to binge, I have been going back to my Happy Memories notebook. After reading a few of them, I remember how sweet life can be. Somehow, reliving the happy memories heals me a little bit and I can skip the binge.

I don’t know why that gratitude thing doesn’t work for me. It seems to work for Oprah and all the people who worship her, but it just kind of makes me angry when I’m in the bingeing mood. The statements of gratitude seem idealistic to me, even when they are my own words. The happy memories, however, were truly happy for me and my awful state of mind can’t deny their relevance.

Try both exercises and see what works for you. Fill your toolbox with as many techniques as you can!

Via: Curb overeating habits with gratitude – That’s Fit

I got this exercise from Martha Beck’s book Four Day Win and changed it up a little for myself.

• Make sure you’re feeling in a pretty good mood. Are you hungry? If so, make sure you go eat something a little decadent. It doesn’t have to be a large portion, but right now, go eat something that you have been denying yourself.

• Make a quick list of your happiest memories. Just get a clean notebook and on the first page write all the happy times in your life. One memory per line, list them out. Keep writing until you can’t think of any more. If you have less than five, you’re probably not in a good enough mood to do this exercise, so try again a different time. Shoot for a list of fifty or so memories.

• Each day, when you’re feeling most comfortable and happiest, go back to the notebook. Take one page per memory and write out the full memory in as much detail as you can. Use all five senses to write your memories. What did the air smell like? How did his lips taste? What color was the sky? How did it feel against your skin? What music was playing at that moment? Sight and smell are the most powerful memory joggers, so make sure you at least cover those two senses.

• After a month or so, you will have a book full of happy memories that you can use as a resource when you’re feeling like bingeing. When you can feel a binge coming on, give yourself a few minutes and read through some of your favorite happy memories.

This exercise has been really powerful for me and I have only been doing it for a couple of weeks.

One caveat: I’m a writer, so writing is the way I relate to the world, but there are MANY ways to do this exercise. You can use pictures from the past and create a scrapbook. You can draw your favorite memories and use the pictures to reminisce. You can take film clips that remind you of your favorite memories and make a video of your favorite times of your own life. You can even just go through a box of old belongings and mementos that you have saved over the years.

We humans are so diverse in our abilities, however you can do this Happy Memories exercise is wonderful as long as it works for you.

How many things have promised us that we’ll be thin, only to fail on the promise?

• Bulimia
• Meal Replacement Shakes
• Smoking
• Diet Pills
• Diets

What else would you add to the list? This secret from PostSecret hit home with me because I always felt ripped off that I had the bingeing but couldn’t purge. Somehow I felt if I could just purge, I wouldn’t be fat. The truth of the matter is, not even bulimia can keep up with some bingeing. I can eat more in a few minutes than I can work off on the treadmill all day. I don’t even think barfing and laxatives could keep up.

Learning how to nurture myself without food has been the best step toward healthy eating in a long time.

If you have been tempted by any of those things that promise to make you thin, just let them go. Have the courage to take an inner journey and find out what you need to do to take radically good care of yourself. Loving yourself isn’t a quick fix weight loss solution, but I truly think it’s the only one that works.

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.

There were times in my life that I only felt motivated to diet if I felt bad about myself. Something would click in my mind and I would start being disgusted with myself. It seemed like the only way that I ever would be willing to go on a diet was when I was so unhappy with the way that I looked that I was calling myself names at all times. I called this “motivation.”

The reason why I had a hard time following diets is because I was starving myself. Sure, it’s hard to follow a diet when you’re starving yourself. When I took a much more relaxed and loving attitude with myself, I was able to eat healthy without the name-calling.

How do you motivate yourself to eat healthy and exercise?

What do you do to keep yourself on track?

Is being on track difficult?

If it is, do you think it’s because of the program or do you blame yourself?

There were so many times when I would demean myself and call myself lazy for not following a diet plan that was INSANE. It was the diet plan, not me that was the problem.

Whenever you limit your food, you are taking away some of your ability to nurture yourself. Unless you are the kind of person who feels nurtured when you are starved, you probably get some satisfaction and warm fuzzy feeling from eating. We are hard-wired to feel good when we eat, so if you are limiting your food, how are you going to nurture yourself? That’s what this week’s question is all about:

How can I nurture myself without food?

What are the non-food activities that I can give myself?

What are the non-food rewards that I can give myself?

When I usually eat, how can I replace my usual treat with a non-food treat?

Make yourself a huge list of fun things you like to do that have nothing to do with food. You might surprise yourself at how varied it is. Did you used to like to draw but haven’t let yourself draw in a long time? Then reward yourself three times a day with some drawing time instead of food. If you are limiting your food intake, your body is going to start feeling neglected. Give yourself some nurturing without food and that feeling of deprivation will be abated.

If you have ever had trouble with binge-eating, you need to buy this book today. Seriously, stop reading this review and buy The Four Day Win by Martha Beck. I have been dealing with my bingeing for years and this book has the best thing for me ever since I realized I had a problem.

Unlike most diet books, she starts at the beginning. Most diet books jump right into what you should eat and how you should exercise. They spend most of their pages on recipes and exercise descriptions. Not so with The Four Day Win. She spends most of the book helping you heal your brain and body from all the dieting damage you have been doing over the years.

Damage? Yeah, the psychological damage of starving yourself every time you go on a diet. THAT damage.

Remember Margaret Cho’s F**K It Diet? Martha Beck has taken it to the next level to help you heal that child within yourself who has been starved over and over.

Remember how I told you that you shouldn’t get rid of all your favorite food in the house like EVERY other fitness expert tells you that you should do? Martha tells you why that it is so important to keep lots of your favorite foods in the house.

Remember how I told you that you could eat anything you want? Martha gives you even more ways to heal yourself so that when you eat, you are able to keep yourself healthy.

This book is EVERYTHING that I knew instinctively about my own bingeing, plus a bunch of ways to make myself able to eat healthy. If you have ever had trouble with bingeing, buy this book right now.