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

Steve Pavlina has a great entry about mentoring. When you are trying to change your life drastically, it helps to have someone who has been there before to answer your questions personally. I’m not talking about websites like mine; I’m talking about a real live person who you can talk to face to face (or cry on their shoulder, as the case may be).

• Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog – Mentoring

He doesn’t have too many ideas on how to find a mentor and it’s even harder when you’re looking for someone who has lost a lot of weight. Most of us don’t want to announce to the world our past. Those before pictures don’t even feel like they are part of us anymore because we had to change so much to get where we are today.

Here are some ideas on how to find a mentor:

(more…)

I used to take surveys in my free time. I volunteered to answer questions about products and commercials and movie trailers. This article is about a survey of 4000 women and 1000 men. When I read the findings, (83% said they suffered from deep “self-loathing”, 91% felt depressed and 79% said they felt “utter despair”) I wonder how the survey was worded. How can I judge whether this was an accurate survey without seeing what questions they asked?

The Mail Online – Overweight feel life is ‘worthless’

I remember taking a survey about socks. Never once was I give the option, “I don’t care about my socks. I just make sure they match my clothing. I don’t care if they are long or short or are based on the holidays. I don’t freakin’ care!” That was how I felt at the end of the survey, but there was absolutely no way to tell them that because the test was designed poorly. They ended up finding out that I wear short white socks for exercise and black crew socks to match my shoes. They didn’t even ask me how often I wear socks, which is never in the summer and mostly under boots in the winter.

I wonder how this survey, which tells me that overweight people feel like “life is not worth living,” was written. I wonder what the motivation behind a survey like that would be. Are they trying to tell me that I am worthless unless I conform to their standards? They didn’t even define overweight. As I have said many times, overweight is a far cry from obese, but it seems like everyone is using it interchangeably.

Don’t pay any mind to news articles like this one. They are not scientific. They are not even repeatable. They have no bearing on your life. The first step toward getting a healthy body is getting a healthy mind. You deserve love and cherishing. Make sure you love and cherish yourself enough to protect yourself from these surveys. Don’t let them play with your head.

Via: Food is Worse than Crack – Survey of Overweight Women

This postcard showed up on PostSecret last week. I often talk about the first step toward a healthy life (Margaret Cho’s F**K It Diet, The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life, etc.), but I rarely talk about the first step toward failure. The first step that derails your mind and sends you on the road to desperation.

I call that first step, Bulimia, Diet Drugs and Stomach Stapling. It’s the mindset that says, “This isn’t working. I can’t do this on my own. I’m willing to do ANYTHING to get skinny, even if it hurts me.” I never even remember thinking the phrase, “I can’t do this on my own,” but that is the premise behind every step toward these weight loss methods. It’s a very harmful thought and it is promoted by companies everywhere trying to sell you something.

When I used to read up on the most recent medical procedures, the new diet drugs that are in the testing phases and was tempted to empty my stomach after a binge, something far more sinister was at work than just “keeping informed.” I was telling myself over and over again that I couldn’t do this on my own and that it didn’t matter if I was healthy as long as I was thin.

I AM NOT A CLOTHING SIZE!!! I am a smart, witty and enchanting person! I want to stay on this planet as long as I can, so I’m going to take precious care of my body so it doesn’t betray me early in life. I am going to exercise and provide it with healthy food. I’m going to protect it from chemicals. I’m going to protect it from scapel-happy surgeons, wanting to make a buck off the insecurities of humans. I’m going to protect it from binges and purges. I can do this!

And so can you.

Visualization is a powerful tool to prepare your mind for weight loss. For me, visualization works best with writing. If I sit down and write what I will look like, what I will be able to do and how I will feel when I reach my ideal weight, it works for me.

I’ve learned, over the years, that what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for everyone, so here is a list of ways that you can use to get your head wrapped around the idea of what it will be like when you’re thin:

(more…)

This post is about how negative thinking can affect your exercise routine. If you have been struggling with exercise, it might be your head, not your body.

• You Are What You Think – Beat Negative Patterns of Thinking

The best advice from this post:

Carry around a pocketful of paper clips. Every time you have a negative thought about yourself, hook the paper clips together in a chain. Often clients become motivated to change because they are surprised at the length of the chain at the end of the day.

This is a good way to gauge how much you beat yourself up. You cannot get to goal and stay there by constantly berating yourself. You have to learn to love yourself enough to do what you need to do to be at your ideal weight.

This entry was orginally posted on Pick Me! 06-28-05:

I was at the Utah College of Massage Therapy, waiting for them to call out my name. I rode my bike here and I was a little winded from the ride up the hills and happy for some water and a seat to rest on. It felt good to write and listen to their relaxing music.

I just heard some one say the words, “chug-a-lug” to someone else. It was the brown-haired girl manning the computer. That was the name that the kids in elementary school made fun of me with. It hurt a little to hear it. I looked up and identified the girl who said it. She hadn’t been talking to me. She hadn’t even noticed the glare I threw her. Of course, she had no idea that I had been tortured with that name for years.

(more…)

Just in case you didn’t notice, we added a new category called Inner Workouts. The Motivation category is for those times when you feel like quitting, but the Inner Workouts category is for changing your mind.

Half the battle of weight loss is in your head. Little things that you say to yourself can undermine you far more than any dessert or sabatoging cohort. Beating yourself up for slips, berating your body, and weighing yourself every day are all habits that can undermine any diet or exercise routine.

This week is Inner Workouts Week. All of our posts will pertain to getting your head in the right spot to get to your ideal weight.

This weight loss book and hypnosis CD is another selection that I got from the library. The first couple of times I listened to the CD, I fell asleep about 10 minutes into it. I had no idea what instructions it was giving me and I always woke up a couple of seconds before it ended when the instructor said that I was fully awake and refreshed now. I actually worried that it might be telling me to kill people or something, so I consciously sat through it without following the directions to relax in order to make sure it wasn’t malignant.

• Mission possible a therapist’s guide to weight loss with hypnosis – by Herb Hamilton

I haven’t tried following the diet program that the book describes. It cuts out groups of food, which is something that I’ve never succeeded at. I have a good diet plan with Weight Watchers, so I’m not looking for a way of eating. I was hoping for something positive to go into my head when I’m on my lunch hour.

Falling asleep is what you’re supposed to do when you listen to this CD, so it does a good job of causing a sense of relaxation. He spends a lot of the time just getting the subject to relax. The actual message of the hypnosis CD starts sixteen minutes into the session, so if you are hyperactive, like me, you might find his calm voice a little unnerving at first. Just let yourself listen. Worst case scenario, you’ll get an extra nap out of it. If you are looking for some positive ear candy before you go to bed or while you’re on your lunch break, this is a good book/CD for you.

The risk of me finding weight loss inspiration on the cheap is that I’ll find something that you might not be able to find. Sure, it’s available at Amazon.com, but the likeliness that you’ll find it at your local library like I did is slim.

• Meditations for Weight Loss – by Allen Holmquist

This CD is pretty good to listen to. I wouldn’t recommend the track for preventing overeating when you’re in the mood to overeat. I haven’t tried it when I was in that mood, but after listening to it, I don’t think I could sit through it when I’m in that mood. That doesn’t mean it’s not a really good track to listen to, though.

I always feel a little hokey listening to meditation and hypnosis CDs. I cringe when I imagine my coworkers finding out what I’m listening to. The truth of the matter, however, is that they are really helpful. We are bombarded all day long on the television and radio urging us to eat. It’s time we started putting some positive messages in our head.

This CD has been around since 1997, so there is a chance that your library may have it available. What is more likely is that your library has another weight loss based meditation CD available. Try it out, even if you feel like a hippie. You might enjoy it more than you thought you would.

Sunny Thoughts is a daily podcast that is so constructive. It doesn’t have anything to do with weight loss, but it is a nice resource for a daily positive affirmation. This is one of my favorites right now:

• Sunny Thoughts – I Thrive Because I Love Myself

Sunny Hill’s voice is a perfect start for your day. Just listen to one of his affirmations every day and you will feel happier. The best thing is that he keeps the affirmations short and sweet, so you won’t fill your iPod up.