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

“Half of me want to lose the weight, but the other half wants to eat whatever I want whenever I want it.”

Have you ever felt like that? It feels like there are two people within you raging a war against each other. When I feel like this, I feel powerless against either one of them and I thought I just had to wait to see who was the strongest. Ever since January 2002, the half that wants to be at a healthy weight has won out, but there were some scary battles there for a while.

I’ve just recently found out that I don’t need to sit around and wait to see who wins the battle. I can affect things for the better and give the half of me that wants to be at a healthy weight a huge club to beat on my other half.

When half of me wants to be healthy and half of me wants to eat, I’ve found that something strange is going on in my life. I have started “weighing” things. Weighing health against cream cheese brownies. Or maybe I’m weighing the feeling of fitting into Seven Jeans against the “freedom” to eat whatever I see. When I am thinking like this, I need to tip the scales back to the health side and it usually takes a couple of things to do it.

• Kill the Deprivation: If I’m feeling deprived of cream cheese brownies, I need to find a way to work them into my diet. It usually only takes one or two servings spaced out over a couple days to kill the feeling of deprivation. If you find that you have been weighing your health against any food, it’s time to find a way to work it into your diet.

• Conquer the Boredom: I also find that I get into ruts. I find foods that are low in calories that taste good and fulfill my health needs and I eat them every day… for months. The last time this happened to me it was fresh, cut veggies. I was having all my vegetables in the form of fresh and raw vegetables. When I started adding cooked broccoli and vegetable soup to my diet instead of the raw veggies, I found that it was easier to enjoy my food. I’m sure you have found the perfect snacks to keep you satisfied, but if you eat them every day for months, you WILL get bored of them and this eating healthy thing will start feeling yucky.

• Feed My Head: Sometimes I forget why I eat healthy. It helps to go back and look at my old pictures to remember how hard it was to be fat. It also helps to read the newest health and fitness information. If I feed my head with images of healthy people and ideas for exercise, eating and health, it’s a lot easier to keep on track.

It takes all three of these things to tip the scales back for me. I’ve found that if I just do one or two of them, it’s not enough to tip the scales where they need to be. I need to bombard myself with all three techniques to get back on track. Give it a try and see if it’s a big enough club to beat into submission the half of you that wants to eat everything.

Historians have believed that Beethoven, Van Gogh, and even Mozart were insane. At times, they stifled their out of control emotions with drugs or alcohol, but most of the time, they only had their art to express their insanity.

For a lot of us, we use food to stuff down our out of control emotions. We aren’t even insane, yet we binge so that we don’t have to feel whatever we are feeling. I know that if I’m worried, stressed or feel threatened or unprotected, my urge is to binge on whatever food is around. It doesn’t have to be yummy, it just has to be there.

Lately, though, I’ve been thinking that I owe it to myself to deal with my emotions. If I sit down and write about my feelings, I usually end up with something that is worth posting on one of my websites. It’s better for me if I avoid stifling my emotions with my drug of choice: food.

What would our world be like if Beethoven, Mozart or Van Gogh had stifled their emotions with food? If they had been able to hide from their turbulent minds, would we have the timeless works of art that we have now? Probably not.

You owe it to yourself to deal with your emotions and stop using food to hide them. You owe it to humanity. Just think, there may be great works of art waiting to come out of you if you would only stop hiding behind this wall of fat.

This is the time of year where people make New Year’s Resolutions. Based on the traffic levels, it looks like a lot of people have resolved to lose weight this year. It’s a common resolution. How can we make it last longer than January 2^nd, though?

I’d like to say I knew the answers, but I really don’t. I don’t do too much with New Year’s Resolutions. Last year, I posted my resolutions for everyone to see on Pick Me! I didn’t make two of the three, but knowing that they were there, holding me accountable, made me work on them a lot more over the year than if I had just thought about them casually at midnight.

I joined Weight Watchers on January 17, 2002, but my joining had nothing to do with a resolution. I was sick of being overweight. I was finally to the point where I loved my body and I wanted to take good care of it so it would last a long time. I wanted to be able to climb stairs without huffing and puffing. I wanted to finish a 5K race in better than 40 minutes. I wanted to spend a day without severe stomach pain. I was so ready for Weight Watchers when it came into my life. It had nothing to do with resolutions and everything to do with quality of life.

So, what can I tell you about New Year’s Resolutions? Not much…

• Make Them Measureable: Rather than resolving to lose weight, choose a goal that is easier to measure. Do you want to be at your goal weight by next year? Then write it out in easy to read sentences, “I will weigh 130 pounds next January.” Resolving to “lose weight” can be achieved by losing one pound, but I doubt that was your intention when you chose that goal.

• Make Them Realistic: Don’t commit to it unless you KNOW you can do it. Making unrealistic resolutions is just creating an excuse to hate yourself. If you know you would have to starve yourself all year long just to make it to your goal, then it’s not a good goal for you. You need something that is doable and fits in with your life.

• Tell the Freakin’ World: If you tell your sister and your mom and your dad and your girlfriend and that vindictive woman at your work about your resolutions, you’re more likely to succeed. Just knowing that the witch at the front desk is going to ask you about your progress can be enough sometimes.

Tonight, when you hear the countdown to 2006, remember your resolutions and make a wish. Let’s make them last all year long this year!

I find it inspirational to watch movies about athletes or runners while I’m running on the treadmill. Mark, at Passion for Running, has made a list of movies that he thinks are good running movies.

• A Passion for Running » running movies links

If see other people running and working as hard or even harder than you are helps keep you motivated, here is a list of movies to help you with your workout.

Years ago, I had a subscription to a magazine called Mode. It went belly up and I ended up being sent Woman’s Day for the remainder of my subscription. Mode was a magazine for full-figured women and I loved it. Instead, they sent me a magazine full of fattening recipes and not a single full-figured woman on its pages. I’m still angry and it has been years since that replacement subscription finished up.

When I Googled the words Lane Bryant to check the spelling for yesterday’s entry, I found this magazine featured on their website:

• Figure Magazine – The New Shape of Fashion

It’s supposed to be available in their stores or you can get a subscription here. After looking at the their website, I really don’t know what to think. They haven’t provided enough content for me to see whether I would enjoy it or not. I am put off by the advertisement for the fad diet, “Your Hidden Food Allergies Are Making You Fat” under the Figure Finds section.

I think I’ll drop by Lane Bryant and buy a copy. I really miss Mode Magazine. It was one of the influences that persuaded me to decide to love myself as I am and to quit dieting. The minute I made that decision, my life took a turn for the better. I made healthier choices in my life and I eventually decided to eat well and exercise in order to be healthy instead of conforming to some preset notion about feminine beauty.

This photo is stunning. John Galliano’s spring show included this fabulously beautiful model among his waifs. He also included older models, a dwarf and other extremes of the human form. The reviewer stated that the show “evoked a carnival sideshow.” I don’t know if that is what John Galliano was shooting for, but I don’t care.

For once, he showed that fat and beautiful are not mutually exclusive descriptions. This woman is drop dead gorgeous and I want to own that dress, even though I have no where to wear it. Even if he was trying to promote a freak show atmosphere, I don’t care. Fat AND beautiful women were no longer invisible for this one show. They say that the show attendees laughed when the models walked out on the runway. I’d rather be visible and laughed at than invisible and ignored.

• Washington Post – Citizen Models

I’m not a slave to the fashion world. Before reading this article, I had never heard the name John Galliano. The only reason I know who Karl Lagerfeld is because he lost a lot of weight. I think I’ve ignored the fashion world because they never made clothes for me when I was fat. Now that I’m thin, they can keep their clothes. I’d keep shopping at Lane Bryant if I could because they were there for me when I really needed them.

For once, a designer has acknowledged that fat women can be spectacular, sexy and gorgeous. Thanks, John Galliano.

Via: Big Fat Blog: The Reaction to a Runway Model

They didn’t talk about this at all on the show, but I didn’t miss it. Two weeks ago, Seth didn’t lose anything. Last week, Seth lost two pounds. This week, he dropped a whopping 12 pounds. After keeping his focus for three straight weeks, he finally got a payoff on the scale. They didn’t mention this on the show, but this is how normal people lose weight, except with more reasonable numbers.

Next time I find myself on a plateau, I’m going to keep going. I’ll keep following my program and hold on. A loss is just around the corner, and I’ll prove that scale wrong, just like Seth did.

What I really want to know is what Dr. Jeff is doing to lose double digits every week for six straight weeks. He has lost a total of 100 pounds since he started the show. I’m so proud that he was willing to do whatever Jillian told him to do. If we all were so dedicated, weight loss would be easy. When he got on the scale this week, they showed him kissing his bracelets that he always wears. They haven’t mentioned the meaning of those bracelets, but I imagined each of his daughters and his lovely wife. He has been separated from them for so long and he hasn’t partaken of any of the temptations because he promised his wife he wouldn’t.

Next time I’m tempted to binge, I’m going to think about Dr. Jeff. He has stayed away from money gambles and the chance to have the power to choose the teams. If he can avoid all those temptations, then so can I.

I don’t know if any of you noticed, but the prize for this week’s challenge was the NeXfit exercise bike. It connects to a PC computer and allows you to control games by riding the bike. They have one that connects to Xbox and Playstation 2 also, but the one they gave away was the PC version. Everyone was fighting for immunity, but I would have been fighting for the cool bike.

Previous Entries About NeXfit:

• Starling Fitness » neXfit Bike – Does it exist?

• Starling Fitness » neXfit Bike – Update

UPDATE 11-11-05: I received a comment from a reader:

“Saw they gave away one of these on the Biggest Loser the other night. Thought I would check and see what the company was up to. Bad news – there websites (US and Canada) are no longer up. When you call the number listed above – the now have at least say you have reached Nexfit – but no answer.” – James

The link worked on 11-09-05, when I posted this article, but James is right. They aren’t working right now. Maybe The Biggest Loser pushed their server over the limit, or maybe they don’t exist anymore. That makes me sad. I really love peripherals that endorse exercise with gaming.

Sometimes it all seems too much. Eating healthy, finding the right exercise program and keeping cravings under control can just seem overwhelming. When I looked at all the weight I had to lose, there were times when I felt like I was defeated before I even started.

“Getting Started” used to mean finding a diet, buying the correct food for the diet, preparing a food journal to keep track of the correct food on the diet, finding the correct exercise program, buying whatever items I needed to exercise with, setting up a journal to record the exercise that I did with the correct items, and the list never ended. I usually enjoyed “Getting Started” a lot more than actually following whatever fad diet I had latched my hopes on.

Following the diet meant being perfect. Every fad diet promises great results only if you are willing to follow the regime with exactitude. The second that I fell into old habits, I would feel like I had “Blown It.” “Blown It” has its own rules of behaviors that involved eating whatever I felt I had been denied when I was “Getting Started.”

It took years for me to realize that I didn’t have to do it all perfectly all the time. “Getting Started” doesn’t mean to me what it did before. I no longer need to purchase strange food or expensive exercise equipment. “Getting Started” means putting one foot in front of another every day. I don’t need to be perfect in order to be healthy and lose weight. I don’t need to ever endure another “Blown It” binge episode. All I need to do is get myself out of bed every morning and stay committed to making good choices.

I really wanted to hate this show. I felt that it was an excuse to torture fat people. It seemed like an advertising tool for Diet Rite, 24 Hour Fitness and Prevention Magazine. It made me feel like boycotting my gym. I was pretty honest about my feelings when I first started reviewing this show.

The week Jillian poured the salt on Matt’s cheesecake, I sat up and took notice. I have been awed by the dedication that each of the participants have had. I gained even more respect for them the week Seth said,

“When you put in over 20 hours of exercise in a week, it’s hard for you to not look at [the small loss on] the scale and go, ‘Wow!’ But personally I feel that the scale isn’t a reflection of how I feel, and I feel healthier and I don’t need the scale to tell me that.”

This week, I was floored. (Spoiler Alert)

(more…)

For me, Halloween is the most important holiday of the year. My Halloween party is more important than Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas combined. It’s hard for me to stop bingeing when I place so much emphasis on one holiday, but after years of practice, I’m able to do it.

• Bring something healthy: Our party is potluck, so I have no control over what food is going to show up at my door. I can only control what I bring, so I make sure that there is a vegetable tray so I can nosh on veggies when I’m nervous.

• Let yourself try the food: I also found that I would feel deprived if I didn’t eat anything that was brought to the party. Last year, I tried a very small taste of almost everything that was brought (except the purple glop that looked like it had a million eyeballs floating in it). I estimated the tastes at about 25 calories a bite. That way I was able to satisfy my curiosity without ruining my eating plan.

• Remember that you’ll get another chance: The biggest mistakes I have made is when I have told myself that I’ll never get another chance to eat that food again. Someone would bring something delicious to the party and I would eat large quantities of it just because I thought I would never see it again. I can prevent this by telling myself to ask them to make it for me (or bring it to the party next year). For some, I suppose that asking for the recipe would be enough to prevent the binge.

• Plan ahead: Decide what you’re going to do if you feel tempted to eat. Two years ago I decided to scan the room and talk to anyone who looked like they were lonely or neglected. Sometimes I talked to them for awhile, other times I introduced them to other people. Either way, I was able to head off bingeing before I even got close to the buffet table.

• Avoid Alcohol: I don’t know about everyone else, but when I get a little tipsy, I throw my diet out the window. Plus, alcohol has a lot of calories. Double-plus, you might have to be sober to drive home guests. Better to just avoid it altogether.

My Halloween party is the only big event I plan all year long. I want it to be fun, but I have finally learned that having fun doesn’t mean gorging myself on food. Sure, food is part of the joy of my party, but if I plan ahead, I can have fun, food and a healthy evening that I don’t have to regret at the scale.