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

After Mike’s bike was stolen, something changed in me. I have only ridden my bike to work once since that incident. That doesn’t mean I haven’t exercised, I just haven’t felt like riding my bike to work lately. I don’t know what’s going on there, but I’m sure I’ll feel better about it. Probably about the time that the snow flies and riding to work is cold and wet instead of hot and sweaty. Wet from sweat or wet from snow. Doesn’t matter either way.

I’ve been going to the gym some mornings. Mostly, I’ve been walking around the industrial park on my lunch hour. I spend the entire hour walking at a quick pace past businesses that whizzed by when I was on my bike and are completely invisible when I am in my car.

On the corner, there is a company with the word textile in its name. I had no idea what they did there, but now, I think they must wash linens. The smell of laundry detergent and fabric softener surround the building like a fragrant cloud. As a child, my mom did laundry on the same day that she cleaned house. Just the smell of a dryer running makes me think everything around me is clean and fresh and new.

Lynn Wilson has finally cut the shrubs in front of their building. It would be safe for me to ride my bike past them now. It’s not an issue when I’m walking, however. Some days, they smell like chimichangas. I think the strength of the scent of fried food is a function of my hunger and not a function of what they are creating in that huge, industrial building.

They dug a big hole in front of one of the buildings. The sidewalk is obliterated and I am forced to walk on the street. Sometimes I read when I’m walking, so I’m scared that I will fall into the big hole. The construction workers look at me apologetically. Just because they demolished my sidewalk doesn’t mean that I blame them, but they still say sorry to me with their eyes.

I guess it doesn’t matter whether I ride my bike to work, walk around at lunch or go to the gym in the dark. As long as I am moving my body and keeping active, I still get stronger. I’m so grateful that I have so many options available to me.

I don’t know what to think about the Freshman Fifteen. I’m seeing lots of articles about how to avoid them, but I’m wondering how helpful they are.

When I started college, I had already been trained to obsess about my weight. Not only had I been starved every summer by my grandparents, I was the friend of a cheerleader. I learned about worshipping the porcelain goddess and no matter how many times Seventeen magazine told me it wasn’t healthy, I wished that I could have an eating disorder that would make me thin.

I dieted throughout my Freshman year. I started running programs; running programs with too much running and not enough walking. I ate only salads at the cafeteria; salads with lots of ranch dressing and those yummy rolls that came with them, sopping up every drop of dressing. I still have the food journals from that time period. Once I went four days without eating anything but water with lemon juice and Diet Coke. On the fifth day, I ate an entire box of Twinkies. They weren’t even fresh Twinkies. They were the stale ones that you buy at the day-old bread store.

Did I gain weight Freshman year? Yes. Did I gain fifteen pounds? No. Did I learn any healthy habits during that year? Not a chance. What would I tell a Freshman about the Freshman Fifteen? I don’t have a clue. If I could go back in time and give myself some advice, what would it be? That’s a question I can answer:

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A doctor is under scrutiny because he called a patient obese. Here are the details:

• MSNBC.com – Doctor in trouble for calling patient obese

• Big Fat Blog – Doctor Recommends Weight Loss; Woman Files Complaint

This article doesn’t mention what kind of practice Dr. Terry Bennett runs. If I were in to see him for my yearly checkup, then I could understand if he warned me that my weight might be an issue. If I were seeing him because of allergies or any number of other non-related health concerns, then I would be angry. If I go in to a doctor because I have a sinus infection, I don’t need a lecture on my weight, I need an antibiotic.

I have endured the condescending tone of a doctor before. I am still angry with that man to this day. My Irritable Bowel Syndrome wasn’t caused by my fat. Now that I’m thin, I know this. It wasn’t even my diet. Now that I eat a perfectly healthy diet, I still have stomach issues. Some doctors need a reality check and it sounds like Dr. Terry Bennett is finally getting his.

Via: Mary’s fitness blog – now I’ve seen it all

Would you flail me alive if I told you that I notice the 300 pound young woman who waits for the bus every morning? I pass her with my car. I pass her on my bike. She waits for the bus with her headphones blaring. Anyone who rides the bus regularly soon learns to arm themselves with headphones. Otherwise the mentally unstable riders who see you everyday assume that you’re their friend. Her headphones announce, “Stay away. I’m not your friend.” I noticed her look at me when I passed her in my Beetle once. I smiled at her, hoping to coax a smile out of her, but she turned away.

I’m only guessing at her weight. She towers over me in height, clocking in at almost six feet tall. If I was as fat as she is, I would weigh about 300 pounds, but I’m only 5’2″, so she must weigh more. My eye is drawn to her every day. She waits for the Westbound 30 and I whiz past her on my bike, trying to avoid her gaze despite being drawn to look at her.

Most of the time, I feel like I was only a few pounds away from her fate when I joined Weight Watchers. I feel a kinship to her. I feel the desire to print up my before pictures and show them to her. I want to pull her aside and secretly tell her that I have found the path to a healthier life. If she wants to follow it, I’ll show her the way. I want to give her my bike and tell her to ride it every day, even though it’s far too small for her long legs.

I know that’s the worst thing I could possibly do. I still sting from the casual mention from the grocery store clerk looking at my selection of food. She said, “Have you see that Body For Life book?” She pointed at the book at the checkout. “I can’t believe those before and after pictures. Those people lost all that weight in just 12 weeks.” She might have just been making small talk, but it still stung.

The best thing for me to do is just leave that girl alone. All she is doing is waiting for her bus every day. Her headphones make it perfectly clear what she thinks of me, “Stay away. I’m not your friend.”

I went in for my yearly exam last week. They always take my blood pressure and weigh me. I stood on the scale. She adjusted the balance and wrote down the number, 165. I felt like saying, “Um, it was 164 and that was with my shoes on,” but I thought that it was a moot point. It’s not like they are tracking my weight.

The first thing that my doctor said to me was, “I see you’re keeping the weight off. What are you doing? Exercise?” She didn’t have my file, but she did have the sheet of paper where the nurse had written my weight. It said, “165 down from 170.” I thought to myself, “Five pounds in one year. How pathetic.” I mumbled to the doctor, “I have been doing Weight Watchers. I’m not at my goal yet, so I kind of feel like a failure…” She shook her head, “Most people who lose the weight gain it back the next year. I see it all the time. You’re doing a really good job.” I shrugged, “Yeah, I guess. I’ve kept that initial fifty pounds off for almost three years now…”

I guess they ARE tracking my weight.

I started eating healthy because of this stomach problem. The doctor said I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). He handed me a clean colonoscopy and a clean MRI, and basically told me that the reason I had IBS was because I was fat and ate too much fast food. I covertly flipped him off, my left hand covering the right hand’s finger, and I never saw him again.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t believe him. I decided to get my body in shape and get my eating under control. I decided to do Body For Life. I looked at all those before and after pictures in his book and I was convinced it was the right thing for me to do. I prepared my food and workout journal and started. I worked out and ate perfectly the first day. The second day, I couldn’t move without hurting and I quit.

Two months later, I started Weight Watchers. It was a plan I could follow and after three and a half years, I can safely say that I follow the plan perfectly 80% of the time. My stomach pain has diminished greatly, but there are still times when I experience intense abdominal cramping. I am close to my goal weight and I eat healthy, yet I still am in pain. Sometimes it’s just as bad as when I weighed 235 pounds.

I feel like I should feel justified. I feel like I should go back to that idiot doctor and make him eat his words. Instead, I am STILL blaming myself. During my last attack, I started considering that it might be psychosomatic. After all I have learned about IBS, I still blame myself.

Doctors are not perfect and they have prejudices against overweight people just as so many other people do. If you feel like your symptoms have been glossed over because of your weight, go see another doctor. More importantly, losing weight will help guarantee that you will get healthier, if only because you’ll be able to bypass the prejudice and get better health care.

The author of the Food Museum Blog calls herself Foodie. In the following entry, she considers what it would be like to wear a fat suit, such as the kind they use to make movie stars look fat.

• food museum blog: Fat Suits Featured

The movie industry really burns me up when it comes to portraying fat people. Even the kid who played Fat Albert in the live action movie wore a fat suit. You can’t convince me that there wasn’t one black kid who was fat AND could act better than that guy. I know Gwyneth Paltrow is an Oscar winning actress, but I think there were too many furniture breaking jokes in Shallow Hal. I am intimately familiar with the morbidly obese and I have never seen a chair break under them. It’s like the movie industry takes the cheap shot every time.

I don’t wish for a day in a fat suit. I know what it feels like. I know how I would look if I were fat again. I would recognize the looks on the faces of the people who feel like they are superior to me just because they are thin. I can vividly remember being discounted again and again because of my weight. I know what it feels like to be working my butt off and still be viewed as lazy. I don’t want a fat suit.

When I was fat, the first thing that got me on the road to living healthy was loving my body so much that I wanted to keep it around for awhile. Don’t let the movie industry tell you that you are only valuable if you are thin and svelte.

I just got home from the softball game. Tonight I made my first run ever. I made it to home plate, not just once, but twice. The second time, I hit a double. That was sheer luck because the opposing team had the same color t-shirts as our team. The pitcher threw the ball to our first base coach instead of his guy on first base. I don’t care. I’ll take all the luck and run with it.

We won the game. It’s also the first time we’ve won since I started playing with them. I had no idea how good it felt. I drove past Franklin Covey Field on the way home and I thought, “Why would anyone watch baseball when they can play?” I didn’t think about the scorching heat. I didn’t think about all those lost games. I was seriously high from winning. It felt as good as running a 5K, but I didn’t have to work as hard.

Apparently, the winning team gets to keep the game ball. Our team gives the ball to one of the players. I had no knowledge of this honor. When our coach threw the ball to me, I said, “I have a ball at home.” He smiled and laughed, “It’s the game ball, Laura. When we win, we get to keep the ball and we give them to one of the players.” I nearly cried. Seriously. I had to suck it in and remember Tom Hanks saying, “There’s no crying in baseball!”

Mike says that we could get a cool box to display the ball in. For now, it’s in a creme brulee ramekin. Better use for it anyway.

The other morning was the first time I have ridden my bike to work using the highest gear the whole ride. My bike only has three speeds and until today, I never thought I would need anything more than that. I’ve had this bike for a year, but I’ve only started riding it regularly in the last month or so. Now, after a month of riding at least three times a week, I’m finally strong enough to use the fancy gears on those fancy bikes.

I used to think that the bike gears were there to help me get up big hills. They would make it easier to pedal. Of course, I had always been so out of shape that even on the lowest gear, I couldn’t get up the hills of Salt Lake City. I always had to get off my bike and walk it up. Last week, when I rode to UCMT, I took that hill on the lowest gear and didn’t have to get off my bike until I reached the bike rack.

I’m beginning to think that all those complicated gears are there to make pedaling harder. They are there to keep the tension high and the bike fast. I was pedaling as fast as I could with the bike in third gear, but I was still was going slower than those professional bike people on the road that morning (you know, the ones with the tiny butts, sponsors on their bike clothing and skinny tires on their bikes). I know my cruiser is heavier than their racing bikes, but I don’t think it’s that so much as the fact that they can put their bikes in 26^th gear and they are strong enough to move the pedals.

Will I have to turn in the cruiser for the mountain bike for my morning commute? My mountain bike has been hiding in the shed untouched for over a year. Will I get strong enough to need those fancy higher gears before the snow flies this winter? I’ll have to see.

This entry was orginally posted on Pick Me! 06-30-05:

This week’s Illustration Friday is “Heroes.” The most recent heroic act I’ve experienced in my life happened when I was playing softball a couple of weeks ago. I joined the company softball team because they are in constant need of girls. I told them that I hadn’t played since grade school. They didn’t care. As long as I was female, owned a mitt and was willing to show up at the park every Thursday, they were happy.

A couple of weeks ago, they were really shorthanded and pulled me out of right field to put me in the catcher’s position. The team captain was pitching and I was throwing the worst balls back to him. I was terrified of the batters taking my head off; I was lousy at catching the ball when it looked like it was coming straight for my face. I felt embarrassed and apologized for every errant ball.

The team captain pulled me aside after it was our turn to bat, “Don’t worry about throwing the ball to me. Just do your best and I’ll get it.” It was at that moment that I became a team member. I’ve never felt so good about playing with a team before.

It seems like the heroes of the world are the people who say or do little things. They are so important to the people who received them, but the heroes think nothing of it and go about their day as normal. At some time or another almost everyone is a hero and we don’t even know it.

After so much derision and scorn I experienced for being a fat kid in grade school, having the guy in charge say something nice was like water on parched lips. All of us are just dry sponges wishing that a nice word would come our way. I’m a permanent member of the team now because he didn’t mind me throwing a few stray balls or having to run after the ball when it slipped away from me.

I’ve never seen a super hero. I’ve never met anyone who has saved a life. I’ve only seen the every day heroes that say the exactly right words to save the day. I’ve only met the every day heroes that show up when all is lost and say two simple sentences.