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

I absolutely LOVE this Nike commercial!

The voice of the woman says:

I don’t need to fill a stadium, or cause one to erupt with joy. I don’t need to hear 60,000 people chant my name. I’ll never have a fan club, get a signing bonus, or even sign an autograph, but can you honestly tell me, I’m not an athlete?

Next time you’re feeling like skipping your workout, come back here and watch this commercial again. It will get you on the treadmill, exercise bike, or out of the house to exercise, even if you were feeling unmotivated a mere one minute and one second earlier.

I’ve decided that the key to happiness is low expectations.

Laura Moncur, Merriton, 06-04-08

When I wrote that chapter in Merriton, I had no idea I might also be talking about my own weight loss journey.

I have found that when I keep my expectations LOW, I last longer and stay happier. When so many self-help gurus tell me that I need to stay positive and aim for the sky, it seems very counter intuitive to me to keep my expectations low.

Let’s take my weekly experience at the scale, for example. When my expectations are low, I MEAN LOW. Expecting to lose more than 0.5 lb. a week is too high. If I plan on losing 0.5 lb. or less, I end up ecstatic when I lose 0.6 pounds.

On the other hand, if I have been shooting for the sky and I find that I’ve only lost 0.6 lb., I tend to get discouraged. I feel like “this isn’t working.” Sometimes, I even end up bingeing because I didn’t reach my goal. Even if my goal was as “low” as 1.0 lb. a week.

For some reason, the opposite of what all the gurus say is true for me. Instead of aiming for the sky, I do MUCH better when I aim for the ground. I’m pleasantly surprised when I actually hit something.

The snow has already blanketed the Wasatch Mountains, leaving hiking to be a cold and potentially dangerous pursuit here in Utah. Fortunately, Tom Mangan was nice enough to share his hike through the Sunol Wilderness in California.

• New hike video: Sunol Wilderness

A beautiful video showing the perpetual spring in California. THIS is why we exercise. So we can enjoy sites like this in real life. When you are pounding away on the treadmill this winter or biking your butt off at a spinning class, remember that THIS is why you’re doing it. Enjoy the mountains and the trails in the summer and train for them in the winter.

If you are one of the many people who have bought a Starling Fitness Yearly Journal, then you know that the quote of the month is about improving yourself. You can see the quote here:

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, 1952

If you have been planning to just let go of your eating and fitness routine because the holidays are coming, now is THE TIME to rededicate yourself to being healthy. You don’t need to wait a single moment before you can start improving yourself. You don’t need to wait until January first. You can do it RIGHT NOW.

Just think about it. If you lose one pound a week from now until January first, you will have lost TWELVE POUNDS! Most people GAIN fifteen pounds over the holidays, so you’ll be almost 30 pounds thinner than you would have been if you just gave up.

If you have been thinking about giving up because the holidays are coming, turn right around and dedicate yourself to living healthy again. Go to Weight Watchers. Buy a food journal. Start a new class at the gym. Whatever you have to do to get motivated, get up and do it NOW. You need not wait a single moment!

If you would like to order your own Starling Fitness Yearly Journal, you can do so here:

• Starling Fitness » Order Your Starling Fitness Yearly Journal

If you order it now, you can choose the month you want it to start and it will last you a year from that date. You won’t have to throw away any unused days from the first of the year. You can start fresh now.

If you are one of the many people who have bought a Starling Fitness Yearly Journal, then you know that the quote of the month is about health. You can see the quote here:

As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.

Adelle Davis , 1904-1974

Adelle Davis was a nutritionist who proposed that vitamins and minerals are essential to health. before then, science was unsure about macronutrients of food. There had been some inkling to these connections, such as citrus fruits prevented scurvy, but narrowing the search down to Vitamin C was a new science. Adelle Davis brought these concepts to the general public with her books. Her most famous book, Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit, was originally published in 1954 and changed the way we look at food.

Next time you eat something because you think it’s good for you, send a tiny burst of good karma out to Adelle Davis who brought that idea down to its most basic level.

If you would like to order your own Starling Fitness Yearly Journal, you can do so here:

• Starling Fitness » Order Your Starling Fitness Yearly Journal

If you order it now, you can choose the month you want it to start and it will last you a year from that date. You won’t have to throw away any unused days from the first of the year. You can start fresh now.

I found this photo on Flickr a long time ago. I checked it as a favorite and then promptly forgot about writing about it. You can see the full image here:

• Modesty Ain’t A Virtue by Antarix from Flickr

I love this pile of race medals hanging on a doorknob. They are tarnished with age, but they are an easy way to measure how much has been accomplished.

How do you measure your accomplishments?

Unlike race medals, I find it hard to measure my accomplishments in the marathons of my life. If I weigh less today than I did last week, is that an accomplishment? If I go on a binge this week and gain that weight back, does that invalidate my success of last week? How do I measure my achievements?

The Scale

The scale is a pretty undeniable measure of where I am at any particular moment. It doesn’t lie to me as often as I’d like to imagine that it does. Sure there are fluctuations, but over the course of dedicated weeks, I almost ALWAYS see results. When I haven’t seen results on the scale, I have been able to track what I’ve been doing wrong, even though they seem pretty hidden to me.

• Starling Fitness » The Hidden Plateau – Part 1

• Starling Fitness » The Hidden Plateau – Part 2

Clothing

When my clothing is tighter, it’s pretty obvious that I haven’t achieved my goals, but when it gets loose and baggy, it’s an incredible motivator.

Daily Achievements

Setting goals every day and week help me notice when I’m doing well. Sometimes it takes weeks for the scale to tip or for my clothing to get looser, but if I track my daily achievements, I can feel a sense of accomplishment regularly. Here are the forms that I use to track my daily and weekly goals:

• Starling Fitness » Weight Watchers Form

• Starling Fitness » Bribe Yourself

External Validation

This can come in the form of compliments from people. It can also be as subtle as a look from a stranger. I recommend writing down every inkling you have of a compliment in a journal so you can go back and remember them when you are feeling down or when things feel hopeless.

External validation can also come in a more structured form. That is part of the reason that Weight Watchers (and other weight loss programs) are so successful. There are little goals to strive for and when you achieve them, you get a little reward. When I was attending Weight Watchers, they gave out these award star magnets.

The Dark Side

The dark side to these measurements of achievement is failure. If you slip back to a higher weight, those stars from Weight Watchers are a reminder of how heavy you have become. If your clothes start to get tighter, they are a constant disturbance that are hard to ignore. Even those running medals can feel like a stain if you can no longer run as fast or as well as you did in the past.

Don’t let these symbols of your past achievements haunt you. Instead let them remind you that you did it before and you can do it again. Cling to the knowledge that you can achieve this and all it takes are simple and steady actions every day.

If you are one of the many people who have bought a Starling Fitness Yearly Journal, then you know that the quote of the month is about getting stronger. You can see the quote here:

It is amazing how much crisper the general experience of life becomes when your body is given a chance to develop a little strength.

Frank Duff, A Coder in Courierland, 03-20-05

Frank Duff used to be a computer coder, but he traded it all in to be a bicycle courier. He wrote about his adventures here:

• A Coder in Courierland || kuro5hin.org

I found that quote over three years ago and the story still is inspiring today. Next time you think you can’t bike to work, read Frank’s story and you’ll know that you can do it.

If you would like to order your own Starling Fitness Yearly Journal, you can do so here:

• Starling Fitness » Order Your Starling Fitness Yearly Journal

If you order it now, you can choose the month you want it to start and it will last you a year from that date. You won’t have to throw away any unused days from the first of the year. You can start fresh now.

Keeping motivated is a constant struggle for me. Saturday night I sat in my comfy chair desperately trying to think what I could do to motivate myself to eat healthy and exercise. I felt so out of control that I couldn’t think of anything that would convince me to take care of my body.

Toys? I have all the cool toys I could ever want. Movies? My Tivo and NetFlix bring movies that I will love to my doorstep whenever I want them. Books? I have a stack of books that I want to read and haven’t given myself the time. Time? I have the same problem with taking time for myself as I do for eating healthy. Money? I have all the money I need in that little debit card in my purse.

Then I remembered something from my teen years that hit me. When I worked at K-Mart, putting myself through college, they paid me every week in CASH. I don’t know if they still do that, but back in the 80’s, that was their policy. I would take half of that cash and hoard it away for tuition and books. I LOVED the growing stack of bills hiding in my desk.

Sure, I have a bank account that accrues interest (however minuscule), but that is for serious things like paying the IRS and saving for a home. The idea of that envelope of hoarded money was appealing to me, so I set up a bribery scheme based on that idea.

I created a new form and you can download it here:

• Weekly Goals Journal Sheet from Starling Fitness: Excel spreadsheet for use with MS Office or Open Office.

I can set goals for my diet, physical activity, work, home, family and joy. I have set dollar amounts that I can collect and hoard in my little envelope every week. Of course, you can give yourself stickers, bribe yourself with time, movies, books, whatever works for you. It took me a long time to find something that was inspiring for me. Sit down and find out what will work for you and then set some goals for yourself.

If you are one of the many people who have bought a Starling Fitness Yearly Journal, then you know that the quote of the month is about unrealistic standards. You can see the quote here:

You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are.

Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content, #352, 05-04-05

Questionable Content is a soap opera webcomic and I read it EVERY weekday. You can see the episode with that quote here:

• Questionable Content#352, 05-04-05 She Reads Too Much Cosmo

I don’t know how Jeph understands the minds of women so well, but more power to him. I’m still learning how to be happy with myself as I am, but it’s nice to know that I’m not alone.

If you would like to order your own Starling Fitness Yearly Journal, you can do so here:

• Starling Fitness » Order Your Starling Fitness Yearly Journal

If you order it now, you can choose the month you want it to start and it will last you a year from that date. You won’t have to throw away any unused days from the first of the year. You can start fresh now.

Whenever I hear from people about how they have tried to lose weight, they first mention all the ways they have tried to lose weight. “I tried Atkins, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Overeater’s Anonymous…” Next time you think that losing weight is impossible because you’ve tried “everything,” watch this video.

It is possible for you to eat healthy, get to your goal weight and be strong again. Just because you have failed before, doesn’t mean you won’t get there this time. You can do this!