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

Richard Simmons is like Mr. Rogers to me. I truly believe that he loves me. He wants me to be thin and healthy. He really cares about me personally. I think it’s because I watched his television show so much as a child. He is permanently embedded in my mind as a loving and nuturing figure in my life. I’ve bonded to him like a baby bird. I could watch this video over and over again. He makes me that happy.

I’ve talked about Richard Simmons before here:

• Starling Fitness » Richard Simmons

Here is a link to his official website:

• RichardSimmons.com

More cool Richard Simmons videos after the break:

(more…)

Every year, we make them, but do we really hold ourselves to them? This year try something different. Post your New Year’s Resolutions here. Next year, we’ll post our accomplishments!

What do you want to weigh next year?

How fit will you be next year?

How healthy will your diet be?

What habits will you start to have a healthier life?

What emotional support will you enlist in your life to help you live a healthier life?

What will you be like next year?

It might seem a little early for New Year’s Resolutions, but focusing on what you want will help this Christmas be healthier for you. Take a few minutes today and envision what you want to be like next year.

A lot of us are trying to eat healthy while we are out Christmas shopping. That can leave us confused and hungry at the mall food court.

What do you eat when you are out shopping?

How do you compensate for it?

Do you pack your own food with you, or risk things at the food court?

What are the healthiest options?

You don’t have to sacrifice health at “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” It’s possible to eat healthy on the go. I want to hear how you have done it.

This video is Not Safe For Work (NSFW). Okay, there was NOTHING in this video that offended me, but these days, it seems like any Internet surfing offends employers…

This video shows women posing with household appliances in sexually suggestive positions and double entrendres flashed to their side. No one would have even noticed this video if it wasn’t for one thing:

The women are amply endowed.

Some people are calling it sexist crap, others are feeling empowered that plus-sized women could be shown in such a sexually positive light. The true irony of this song is the chorus keeps repeating over and over, “She’s so skinny.”

What do I think?

All I can think is, “Man, where can I find those clothes because I want to look that sexy!!”

How do you feel about it? It seems to have touched a nerve with people…

Via: Big Fat Blog: Lighten Up, Skinny

Months ago, I looked through YouTube to find inspirational weight loss stories. I didn’t find much. Now, YouTube’s tubes are full of weight loss videos promoting weight loss surgery, hypnosis and other weight loss gadgets and pills. Instead of finding personal stories about people trying to lose weight, I am buried in commercials and propaganda.

How do you evaluate weight loss commercials?

What do you use to filter out the crap? How can you tell if something is real?

Are you tempted by options like weight loss surgery, hypnosis, gadgets or pills?

What do you tell yourself when you see weight loss propaganda?

I’ve gotten so fed up with the weight loss industry that I’m to the point where I don’t believe ANYTHING. I have found gadgets that have actually helped me exercise more often, but I still don’t believe in them. That sort of backlash can’t be healthy either. I don’t know what’s right for me…

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

I have been enjoying running and walking outside this season. It made me think about what other things I could be doing to enjoy the nice Autumn weather.

What exercises do you enjoy during Fall?

Are there things during this season that you don’t do the rest of the year?

Are there certain exercises that are just better when the weather turns a little colder?

Which exercises are harder this season?

What did you used to do as a kid during Autumn? Are you still doing them now? Why or why not?

What do you think is perfect exercise weather?

What do you think about not-so-perfect exercise weather?

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

Remember those? I bet you had some weight loss or healthy living resolutions back in January. What did you do with them? Did you write them down? Did you leave a comment on a forum, a message board, or maybe even here at Starling Fitness? Were they just a passing thought?

Whatever they were, either find what you wrote down or try to remember what went through your head.

How are you doing?

Have you met any of your New Year’s Resolutions? If you did, which ones?

If you haven’t met your New Year’s Resolutions, how close are you? Did you backslide or are you pretty near your goal?

You’re lucky. You still have two months until that clock strikes midnight again. You have two months to get to that goal and really feel good about yourself. Don’t waste another second and get working on last year’s New Year’s Resolutions NOW!

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

I always have two voices in my head. One that comments on my weight and how I need to be leaner and stronger. The other one that says that I never want to get an eating disorder like my friends in high school did. Somehow, the second voice never realizes that bingeing WITHOUT purging is still an eating disorder. All she remembers are her thin friends vomiting in the toilet.

This article by Ariel M. Stallings also deals with two voices in the author’s head. One voice wants to avoid doing anything that strengthens the patriarchy and another noticed that her frame was holding a little too much bulk. It’s a great read.

• AlterNet: Is Dieting Anti-Feminist? by Ariel M. Stallings

She also dealt with friends with eating disorders in her teen years:

“I felt like it was my job to be the one who held down the fort of healthy eating, setting a good example for women who were crushed under the thumb of eating disorders and weight issues.

“In my mind, the only way to fight eating disorders and the all-too-common feminine weight neurosis was not to think about food or weight at all … I ate HEALTHY food, but the thought “maybe I should eat less” always felt like it was just around the corner from some sort of Karen Carpenter nightmare, where I suddenly became a neurotic starving skeleton with amenorrhea. But still, I desperately wanted to loose the extra poundage, at least so I’d feel as healthy as I was supposedly being.”

In the end, she lost the weight and realized that it’s possible to be a feminist AND eat healthy.

“Women and food are big issues in this culture. I’ve tried to tip-toe through the minefield as carefully as possible, and I’ve had some great help from my mother and the women around me who’ve done everything to help me love my body … and it’s been my goal to deal with the process of losing weight in a positive, self-affirming, self-loving way. No deprivation or punishment but a pro-active approach toward my own health. It’s been good.”

What voices are talking in your head? What are they saying about weight loss, feminism and eating disorders? If you listen to your own thoughts and take the time to write them down, you just may make your road to eating healthy a little easier.

Via: Big Fat Blog: Dieting and Feminism

I’ve given my ideas on how to keep a workout on the treadmill challenging. What are your ideas?

What do you do on the treadmill to keep things challenging?

Do you try different things or do you do the same workout every day?

If you see a different idea, do you try it or does it get lost in the shuffle of those “I should do that”s? Why?

What would it be like to do something completely different for your workout?

If you could do something completely different, what would you do?

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

There are some songs that make my body want to move even when I’m lying like a lump on the couch. They are songs that I put on my iPod so I’ll have an easy run every time.

Do you listen to music while you workout?

What songs are your favorite for exercise right now?

What songs were your favorite workout songs in the past?

What do you use to get you motivated to exercise besides music?

I remember I used to have an Oingo Boingo tape called Only a Lad that I listened to so often that the tape eventually broke. It was the music that I danced to over and over. I must have lost a 100 pounds to that tape (the same 10 pounds 10 times, probably). Even now, hearing Danny Elfman’s voice makes me want to exercise. What does that for you?

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.