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

This was my first step toward living a healthier life. When I decided that I loved myself just the way I was, even though I weighed 235 pounds, I started treating my body with more respect. Now that I’m at a healthier weight, I realize that loving myself was the first step on that journey.

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.

What motivates you to eat healthy?

What motivates you to exercise regularly?

Give me a list of five to ten things that make you want to pass by the unhealthy food and get on that treadmill every day.

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.

Braidwood has an excellent entry about loving her new-found body. She has been eating intuitively, which has given her a voluptuousness that she didn’t notice before:

• Braidwood’s (B)log: Like butta’, mmmm… maybe a little more like jello

She is enjoying her body right now. This is exactly the sort of Inner Workout that I am advocating. Assessing yourself and loving yourself just as you are.

“I think my current pride in my girth is the closest I’ve come to understanding some men’s pride in their package. It’s like a female version of machismo.”

Bookmark Braidwood’s entry and next time you’re feeling down on yourself, read it.

On another note, today is Braidwood’s birthday, so go there and wish her a happy one!

For the last couple of days, I’ve been talking about a book I found called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. How does flow relate to exercise? You’re in luck, it’s one of the best things about exercise.

Physical activity is one of the easiest ways to get into flow. Sports have so many of the requirements of flow. Exercise is a task that we have a chance of completing. It requires concentration and most sports have clear goals. Physical activity also provide immediate feedback (whether you’re falling down, performing the move correctly or concentrating on your form).

What if you’ve never experienced flow while exercising?

Guess what, it can still happen to you. The most important thing is to have clear goals. For example, if you choose to run, your goals could be to complete a certain mileage in a set amount of time. You can keep increasing the mileage to keep the activity challenging.

If you chose inline skating for your physical activity, it’s pretty clear if your goals have been met. Are you still on your feet? Good job! If you’re not, your goal should be to fall down less next time you exercise. The same goes with roller skating, riding a bike, riding a skateboard, skiing or snowboarding. Once you’re able to stay on your feet (or board), then you can work on speed and agility. There are so many goals to achieve with these sports.

Weight training is another activity that is VERY measureable. Every workout in which you are able to raise the weight you’re lifting, even if it’s by only 2.5 pounds, that’s an achievement. I have to admit that I have really enjoyed watching the plates stack up on the bench press bar.

No matter which activity you choose, if you set clear goals for yourself, you’ll be that much more likely to get into flow. Keep upping the difficulty and you will have an exercise that you can enjoy. Instead of going to the gym thinking of drudgery, you will be excited to see if you can beat your previous best.

My most pleasureable experience with flow is when I’m writing. It feels like the words come out of my fingers instead of out of my head. It almost feels like writing is a physical activity like roller skating or riding a bike. Sometimes I feel like I am not even part of the writing process and it all has to do with my body. I usually lose track of time when I’m writing and Mike will come into the room asking if I’m ever going to go to bed. I look at the clock on my screen and hours have gone by.

Writing can be difficult sometimes, so I like to read a lot to get better skills. I also do a lot of writing that never sees the light of day just to practice. Just when I think I’ve got this writing thing down, I learn something new that tells me that I have just begun on this writing journey.

Writing feels so good that I wish I could do it all day long. Some days, I’m actually able to write all day long, but others, I’m barely able to write a sentence. I tend to go in spurts, but when I get going, it feels so good that I don’t want to stop. I’m happiest when I’m writing.

The last time I ate food for just pleasure instead of hunger was about a week or so ago. I had a hard time when I came back from SXSW. I had met so many amazing people there that SLC felt lonely. I felt so isolated here and I longed to talk to all those interesting people I met a week earlier. I had a hard time keeping my eating under control the first week back from SXSW.

Eating for pleasure feels good. I’m not going to lie about that. It DOES make me feel better to binge on high calorie food. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have trouble with eating. Comparing bingeing to being in flow, however, is something completely different. I would trade a thousand binges in order to get into flow every day. It wouldn’t have to be with writing, either. I could be in flow with crocheting or taking pictures or even with exercise.

Bingeing just doesn’t compare to those times when the words are flowing out of my fingers at such a fast pace that I don’t even realize that I am typing them.

Flow is an emotional state of “optimal experience”, a state of concentration so focused that it amounts to absolute absortion in an activity.

When are the times when you have experienced “flow”?

What were you doing and what did it feel like?

When was the last time you ate food for pleasure instead of hunger?

How did that feel compared to being in “flow”?

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.

What does flow have to do with healthy eating? What does flow have to do with exercise?

While reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, I realized that the more food I eat, the more time I need to spend exercising to burn off the calories and the LESS time I have to get into flow with writing, crochet or any other activity that I enjoy. I remembered so many saints who became ascetics. They were so concerned with God, nature, art or beauty that they neglected to eat. Some of them became painfully thin because they became so involved with their fields of study.

I’m not advocating “painfully thin,” but I realized with crystal clarity that I would much rather be in flow writing or crocheting than spending two hours a day exercising. If I could just eat less food, I would be able to stay at a healthy weight without having to spend so much time exercising.

I had been “starving” when I picked up the book to read. I was reading in an effort not to overeat that evening, but when I realized that I could have more time in my life for the things that I REALLY wanted if I just ate less, my hunger evaporated. I literally felt it leave me when I made that realization.

But how can flow deal with exercise? Tune in on Tuesday to find out.

I’ve been reading an excellent book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. It’s not a diet book. It’s a book about those times in your life when you are really in the groove. It might be when you’re reading a book and you look up and find out that it has been two hours since you last looked at the clock, but it feels like it was only fifteen minutes. Or maybe those times when you are doing something really complicated and you lose yourself completely in the experience. Those times are called flow.

There are two ways to feel good in life: pleasure and flow. Pleasure is usually short-lived and entirely external, such as watching television, having sex or eating. Flow can happen with almost any activity, but requires some skill and difficulty.

I’ve experienced flow when reading, while writing, while taking pictures (and manipulating them on Photoshop), when I crochet, while playing Dance Dance Revolution and even when running. If you sat down right now and made a list, I’m sure you have had several instances of flow with various activities.

I even remember being in flow when I worked at K-Mart. There were busy times, such as during the Christmas season or right before Mother’s Day, when working at K-Mart required all my concentration. Getting those customers out the door happy was something that I was able to excel at and during those times when the lines were long, I actually enjoyed working at K-Mart.

The author of the book says that flow is the main element of true happiness and the more time we can spend in that state of mind, the happier we will be.

What does this have to do with eating healthy? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Margaret Cho has floored me again. A radio DJ asked her, “What if you woke up tomorrow, and you were beautiful? I mean really beautiful. You were 19, blonde, weighed 110 pounds, 5’11” and beautiful. What would you do?” This is her response:

• Margaret Cho’s Weblog – Beautiful

These are my favorite quotations from her answer:

“Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn’t mean it does not exist.”

“I have to believe that I am beautiful because if I don’t I will die. How I lived when I was convinced I was ugly: I starved myself, and fucking fucked as many people as possible.”

“I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. And the great divide between the beautiful and the ugly will cease to be. Because we are all what we choose.”

Bookmark this epistle from Margaret and every time you start to compare yourself to the model on the cover of SELF magazine, go back and read it.

When was the last time you enjoyed exercise?

What about it did you enjoy?

The last time I REALLY enjoyed exercise was when I came home from my trip to SXSW. On the trip, I had been working out at the hotel gym, which is different than my weight bench and treadmill at home. I also had to share the equipment with other people, which I hate. I didn’t have to deal with any gross, sweaty people, but I’m kind of spoiled now. I don’t want to have to wait for equipment. I want to go from exercise to exercise quickly without having to ask the 98 pound girl for the 8 pound weights. I just want to go through my workout without seeing or talking to anyone. I didn’t realize I had gotten so set in my ways until I had to “play nice” at the hotel gym.

When I got home from my trip, I looked forward to working out at home. The next morning, I walked downstairs to my claustrophobic basement and enjoyed every minute of my weight training workout. I even upped my weights because I was in that good of a mood. I just moved from one exercise to another seamlessly. The weight training portion of the workout only took about 30 minutes and I was disappointed when it was over. I even considered doing another circuit, but I worried about overworking my muscles, so I kept it simple.

After the weight training, I went upstairs and rode the bike on my bike trainer. I have my bike placed right in front of the television in the living room, so I can watch whatever I want. I put in a DVD and pedaled away without even feeling it. I kept checking my heart rate monitor to make sure I was still in the high zone. I was easily above that mark and I just kept riding for longer than I needed to.

I think I liked this workout so much because I was able to just get in and get it done very easily without having to encounter any other people. I didn’t have to check in at a desk. I didn’t have to wait for the 8 pound weights. I didn’t have to try to learn new machinery. I didn’t have to spray down the bike after I was done. All I had to do was wake up, get dressed and work out.

I don’t remember working out at home being so easy before. I used to have a full weight system, treadmill, exercise bike and stair stepper at home when we lived in the huge house in the suburbs and I don’t ever remember enjoying a workout at home as much as I did the other day. I don’t know what’s different. Maybe it was the years of working out at the gym and dealing with other peoples’ sweat that has made me so grateful to just stay home. Maybe exercise is just more of a habit for me. I don’t know, but I’m sure glad that it feels this good.