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

When was the last time you enjoyed exercise?

What about it did you enjoy?

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.

Many, many thanks to Eh… not so much for directing me to this article.

• Stumptous.com – We hate her

It was such a positive approach to my worries about Skinny Bitches. This article nailed my feelings about getting closer and closer to my goal.

“If you have been into training for a long time, perhaps you know what I am talking about. You feel apologetic around other women, as if you’re letting them down or buying into the beauty myth. Maybe you feel the need to justify yourself, or hide under baggy clothes. Maybe people ask you if you have an eating disorder just because you prefer fruit and cottage cheese to greasy hamburgers for lunch.”

I haven’t gotten past this issue yet, but I’m one step closer to it thanks to this article.

What do you think is your strongest asset when you are successful at taking care of yourself?

My strongest asset is my obsessive desire to measure EVERYTHING. When I am on a roll, I insist on tracking every bit of food that goes into my mouth and every minute I spend exercising. I have years and years worth of data about what I’ve eaten and how I’ve exercised.

What’s scary is what ISN’T documented. I can tell when I am close to a binge when I don’t feel like writing down what I have eaten. Even if I know that I haven’t overindulged, I can tell that I’m at risk when I don’t want to pull out my Palm and track my food. That has also been a blessing for me because when I notice that I don’t want to write down what I’ve eaten, I can analyze myself and see what is REALLY going on.

The only problem with this asset is that sometimes I waste too much time documenting everything. Sometimes I don’t need to measure as much as I do. I don’t need to write down every calorie I have eaten to stay healthy. I don’t need to document every workout to get stronger. All I need to do is eat healthy and exercise. Writing it down has become magical to me. If I don’t write it down, somehow the magic doesn’t work anymore.

I keep thinking that I SHOULD be able to live a healthy life without documenting every bite of food that goes into my mouth. The SHOULD word is something that causes me a lot of trouble. I assume that everyone else doesn’t need to monitor their food. The truth of the matter is, it doesn’t matter what everyone else needs to do. I need to write everything down, or I will overeat. I don’t need to test that theory. I’ve tested it enough already.

I am introducing a new feature. Every Monday morning, I will post the Question of the Week. These questions are meant to be Inner Workouts. They are questions that can help you get to the bottom of the reason you don’t take the best care of yourself. Most of these questions will concentrate on overeating and bingeing because that is the problem that I have. It has been my nemesis, and I still need weekly Inner Workouts about this issue.

I recommend that you get a blank piece of paper (or pull up your word processor) and just keep writing about these questions until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I plan on posting the questions in the morning and posting my write-up on the question in the afternoon.

You are welcome to post your answers to this question in the comments. The more stories we have about each issue, the more we’ll all learn in this process.

What do you think is your strongest asset when you are successful at taking care of yourself?

This year, Mardi Gras has gotten a lot of attention because of Hurricane Katrina’s impact on New Orleans. Mardi Gras is a wild celebration with the idea of eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow starts Lent.

For those of the Catholic Faith, Lent starts today. For some, Lent involves much stricter (and maybe even healthier) living. Lent is the practice of giving up a food or activity that represents a sin that is particularly difficult for you to conquer. There is also an element of fasting in the tradition of Lent, whether it be meat (for the entire forty days or just on Fridays) or, for the truly devote, fasting entirely for one day a week.

Forty days is long enough to develop a new habit. You don’t need to be Catholic to give up something for Lent. Use this time to re-devote yourself to your personal health and fitness. Choose something to give up, or, even better, choose something positive to add to your life everyday. You can use this religious time for your own means and have a healthy habit in a month and a half.

For more information about Lent, see Belief.net:

Lent–Christian season of repentance and reflection before Easter–Beliefnet.com

Steve Pavilina has finally written something coherent since he started his polyphasic sleep experiment. For the last three or four months, all of Steve’s entries have been long and rambling, but this one is succinct and to the point.

• Feeble Excuses

He talks about the excuses people use to delay personal growth, such as:

• I don’t have enough time.

• I don’t know how.

• I don’t have the money.

I’ve heard all of these excuses used as reasons not to start a healthy lifestyle. His post tells you what those excuses REALLY mean and how to get past them.

I’ve talked a lot about fat acceptance lately, but even more harmful to my motivation to stay fit is Thin Hatred, Fit Prejudice or what I call Skinny Bitches. You know what I’m talking about. Skinny Bitches have a bowl of candy on their desk to make everyone else fat. Skinny Bitches go to the gym and barely break a sweat in the aerobics class. Skinny Bitches need to be the girl in the center of attention.

All these thoughts are damaging to me. I have an “Us Vs. Them” mentality that is standing in my way. If I want to be thin and healthy, how am I going to do it if I think that all thin women are Skinny Bitches? Will that make me a Skinny Bitch?

Fit Prejudice shows up in a ton of places in my life. I look at pictures of thin celebrities and think, “That Skinny Bitch needs to eat a sandwich.” I have heard Salma Hayek talk about the years she was tormented because she was too skinny as a child and teen. It was just as damaging to her as the torments I endured as a child because I was fat. In fact, every time I think, “Feed that girl a sandwich!” I am adding to someone’s pain.

I need to work on being loving and accepting of thin people without prejudice or discrimination. That girl with the candy on her desk is lonely. She puts the dish there because it attracts people. That girl at the gym has been working out every day her entire life to get to the point where she doesn’t break a sweat. She’s worried that she’ll gain weight if they don’t make a class vigorous enough for her. That girl who needs to be in the center of attention is just like me except she uses her appearance to get there instead of her wit.

We are all the same inside and the sooner I learn that, the easier it will be for me to get to my final weight goal. When I get there, I’ll just be Laura, not some Skinny Bitch.

I find it strange that the one commercial that I’ve heard the rest of the world talking about with the Superbowl was missing from the iFilm collection of commercials. Did Budlight not think it was worth sponsoring, or was this an oversight on iFilm’s part. Here I was watching a Mastercard Marathon when I could have been watching this wonderful commercial from Dove.

This girl is the most haunting of them all for me (although the girl who wants to be blonde is a close second). So much of advertising seems to tell us that there is something wrong with us and that their product will fix our flaws. It has taken me a long time to finally realize that the only things wrong with me are in my head.

Via: Treatment Online – Dove Super Bowl Ad Sets a Brave New Tone

When I reach my goal weight, what will my life be like? I’m so close to my goal right now. I only have 28 pounds to go after losing a total of 76 pounds. It’s hard to imagine that those extra 28 pounds will have as profound an effect on me.

It’s that kind of thinking that can derail me.

I have made so much progress and my life is so much better that I think that I can’t possibly have an even better life when I finally get to my goal weight. I’m totally wrong and I know it.

The benefits of weight loss are exponential. Losing 76 pounds to get where I am today feels amazing. It feels like I have more freedom. I feel as if I have been released from those looks and those opinions that people have about fat people.

I KNOW that getting to goal will be even better, and here’s why:

• I finally conquered it! After years of trying and failing, I will have finally made it! I have been fighting this battle ever since I was nine years old and watching Richard Simmons on the television every day. Finally getting to a healthy BMI has been my goal since before BMI was called BMI. When I finally get there, I will have reached a point I have never hit before. I will have NAILED it! I can’t wait to achieve that accomplishment.

• I will feel like I belong. Even though I’m healthier now, I still feel uncomfortable at the gym. I don’t want people to look at me. I just want to get in and get the job done. I know I deserve to be there because I get in and workout as hard as I can while I’m there. I just don’t feel like I belong there. It’s not the people at the gym, it’s strictly my mindset.

• If I thought being able to fit into Lucky Jeans was great, just think how great those size fours will feel. I have never really felt worthy of good clothing. Once I know that I’m at my goal weight and I’m staying there no matter what, I will be able to enjoy the best clothing. I won’t have to shop at thrift stores anymore because I’m finished losing weight and I will be at this size for longer than the clothes will last.

• Intangible Benefits: I don’t know what they are, but I’m sure that I will be surprised with benefits that I can’t even imagine right now. That’s wonderful. I’ll take those surprises and run with them, whatever they are.

I realized today that thinking that my life couldn’t be much better at goal than it is right now is just an excuse. It’s one of those thought patterns that tries to convince me to keep things at the status quo because I’m scared of the future.

Believe it or not, getting to goal is scary for some people. I refuse to live in fear and I’m going to look forward to the benefits of being at a healthy weight.

If you have been telling yourself that even when you get to goal, you’re still going to be dealing with the same problems, take an hour for yourself. Write out all your fears and all your hopes of what life would be like when you get to goal. Refuse to believe the fears. Just release them in your mind and imagine them floating down the river, far far away from you. You have no need for fear in your life. Enjoy the prospect of your life being better when you get to goal and you’re that much closer to getting there.

The imagery of this small video is so vivid to me. Each of these Beauty Kits look like commercials for little girls. The look of excited anticipation of the little girl makes me think she got such a cool toy.

Next time you start comparing your body to the women on the magazine covers, remember the Beauty Kit and ask yourself if it is really worth it.

To View The Video: Go to Pleix Films, scroll down to the bottom and click on the Beauty Kit picture. You will need Quicktime to view them. It’s worth the download time.

Update 02-09-07: Now that plastic surgery has been performed on a 12 year old girl, this film just shows how prophetic it was…

• Starling Fitness » Does a Twelve-Year-Old Girl Need Liposuction?