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

“You play softball?”

“I played it in grade school.”

They are quiet, so I nervously continue, “You know, where they line us all up and you get to bat once every thirty kids or so.”

I edited out the rest of the story. You know, the part where the kids made fun of me because I was fat or because I didn’t hit the ball or because I couldn’t catch it when it came right for me. I can still remember their childish voices, “Couldn’t you see it?! It was coming right at you!”

“Well, we could sure use you. You got a mitt?”

“No, but I can get one.”

(more…)

This postcard showed up on PostSecret. I still live with this kind of shame, so it screamed to me.

My donuts of choice were Hostess Raspberry-Filled Powdered Donuts. They don’t come in dozens, but if you’re lucky, you can get the “two free” donut box and get eight. I could eat all eight without feeling sick unless you count the shame. Thinking about it now, I still feel ashamed even though I haven’t eaten a whole box for years.

I found a two-pack of those donuts at the convenience store last month. I ate one and shared the other with Mike. The terrible irony is that they don’t taste all that good. They were sweet, but more importantly, they were always easily accessible. Whenever I had a bad day, I could stop at the gas station, pick up a 32 ounce Diet Coke and a box.

Those donuts helped me through a lot of stress and I wore them on my body for a long time. It wasn’t until I learned to deal with my stress without turning to the donuts that they finally left my hips, stomach, back, arms, legs and face. Man, that was a hard journey and seeing that postcard made me realize that I’m still ashamed that I had to travel that far.

I guess I’ve never posted these pictures because I’m so embarrassed by them. The longer it goes since I had these taken, the less that person seems like me. I can barely see myself in her eyes.

I remember that day vividly. You know before pictures always suck. They are some random picture that someone clicked that convinced the person to get healthy. Their makeup and hair are a mess or at least faded. I decided that I was going to take the best before picture I could. I straightened my hair, did my makeup perfectly, bought new exercise clothes and even did my nails before I had Mike click these.

Looking at them now, I can’t believe that I thought I looked good. No amount of new clothes, makeup or hair product can make up for being thin and healthy.

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I’ve been riding my bike to work ever since the weather got sunny. It doubles the time for my daily commute, but it has made the time spent far more pleasureable. Instead of a chore, my commute has become a enjoyable journey. I even look forward to the ride home.

Of course my legs have been aching a bit from the activity. After all that running while I was training for the 5K, I would have thought that I was in great shape for a daily bike commute. The muscles that are asking for attention are ones that were barely used when I was running.

Soon, my legs will become accustomed to their daily use. That’s how muscles work. They adapt and become acclimated to the tasks that we give them regularly. They even grow more efficient and burn less fuel to do the same work. By then, it will be winter and I will be shocked at how much running inside on the treadmill hurts.

I was thinking about quitting Weight Watchers. It made perfect sense to me. I have been losing weight on my own. I don’t need to pay Weight Watchers to lose weight. I tried to explain it to Mike, but he floored me with his answer: “You’re not paying to lose weight. You’re paying for support.”

He’s right. All those people who are angry at Weight Watchers because they paid all that money and didn’t lose the weight need to remember that they weren’t paying for results; they were paying for support. You still have to do the work.

You’re not paying for an eating plan, either. No matter how much Weight Watchers tries to protect their patent on their Flex Points System, it’s not what you are paying for. Those books and the Points Slider are worthless if you don’t use them. If you are willing to follow a program, you can find a healthy plan that’s online and free.

Going to Weight Watchers is a weekly renewal of your commitment to yourself. It’s a reiteration of your goals and desires. It’s a chance to connect with others that feel the same way you do. You could do this for free also, but you would have to set up the time and find a place to meet. You’re paying for the support and the weekly fee is cheaper than the cover charge to most bars.

As you can imagine, my butt was on the scale the next morning at my Weight Watchers meeting.

I’ve been looking at a blank page trying to think of something to draw that represents this week’s topic for Illustration Friday, “Nourishment.” I guess I’ll just have to paint with words.

Sometimes I eat when I’m not hungry. I eat because it’s the prescribed meal time. I eat because I’m scared of getting too hungry. I eat because I’m sad or happy or some other emotion that is wholly disconnected from hunger. It makes me think that the food that I’m eating is feeding something other than my body. How can I feed it without abusing my body?

Sure, I keep an eye on nutrition to deflect the damage, but almost every bit of food that passes my lips is feeding something other than my body. What is it? Is there something else I can give it instead of food?

I don’t want to believe it is a demon inside of me. It doesn’t feel like a demon that needs to be fought or a dragon that needs to be slain. I think it’s something closer to a wounded animal that always eats everything you give it because it knows that tomorrow there may be no food.

I was starved every summer by my grandmother. Could it be that this thing inside of me screaming to be fed is my inner child? She was told she was fat so many times that she believed it. Fat people eat all the time, don’t they? Fat people eat whatever they want whenever they want, right?

Well, no… When I was fat, I was always on a diet. I was either on a diet or a post-diet binge. I never just ate whatever I felt like. I ate according to “The Rules” or I ate against “The Rules.” Worse still, “The Rules” changed for each diet, but they were always basically the same. Even now, I’m eating according to “The Rules.” I’ve just figured out how to keep that little girl inside me full.

So, what’s the answer? How do I eat for nourishment instead of eating for this damaged child? What else could I give her that would heal her? What does she need?

I’m beginning to think that health magazines are all screwed up. It seems like all the advice from the health and fitness magazines is all off center. The only thing I can blame it on is myopia. It’s like the health and fitness magazines have no idea what living in the United States is like. Our media has no concept of the nation. They only know NYC and L.A.

That’s why I am so happy to be writing for Starling Fitness. It is written by people who live in Utah, not NYC or L.A. We understand that it’s hard to “walk to the grocery store” or “take the stairs.” So many Mid-Westerners work in one floor buildings. We live in the suburbs where it’s a five mile trek to walk to anything. The health magazines think that they have skinny all figured out, but really all they have figured out is how to be skinny in New York.

This might come as a shock to you, but most of the United States ISN’T New York City.

That’s why health and fitness magazines keep spouting the same crap over and over. That’s all they can do. They can’t just hop in their car and drive up to the mountains for a strenuous hike. They can’t run for miles on country roads with only the sound of their breathing and the birds singing. They are selling health, but it’s such a narrow and urban view of it that it seems myopic.

Of course, Starling Fitness is just as myopic. We write about how to stay healthy and fit in Utah. It’s the only thing that we can do—write about our own experiences.

I enjoyed a creme brulee last night. Mike made it for me and it was delicious. It was only four Points, so you can imagine how small it was, but frankly, my mind only wants one creme brulee. It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s two ounces or eight.

I get surprised sometimes at the delicious simplicity of a small dessert. I don’t need a four layer chocolate cake. If you put one in front of me, I’ll eat it, but if you put a small single layer chocolate cake that is just as rich, I’ll eat it too. I won’t feel deprived that it’s not bigger. I’ll be happy to have dessert.

After years of denying myself dessert, I look forward to it now. I will purposely eat very lightly at dinnertime just so that I can “afford” dessert. There were so many times as a child when I was told that I would not be allowed to eat dessert unless I finished my dinner. Now, I break those rules all the time.

One of the things about Weight Watchers that drew me to them is that I could eat whatever I wanted as long as it fit within my Points range. I can’t imagine a life without creme brulee and I refuse to deny myself its custardy goodness.

It has been almost two weeks since I ran the Salt Lake 5K. I think it has taken me so long to post my results because I’m embarrassed by them. Just like last year, there was a huge pile up at the end of the race with nowhere to move. This is really dangerous when you finish a run because all your blood pools up in your legs and you faint. You can understand why I didn’t concentrate on pushing that little button on my watch. I was too busy trying to keep conscious.

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This article from Boing Boing brings up so many bad memories for me.

• Boing Boing – Torrid: Hot Topic for heavy girls – by Cory Doctorow

It talks about Torrid, which is a plus-sized store from the Hot Topic people. Cool clothes for plus-sized kids. Growing up a plus-sized teen was hard. There are some stores to this day that I won’t even walk into because they were so pretentious. Even though I can wear their clothes now, I boycott them.

Knowing that Hot Topic has set up these Torrid stores makes me so happy. It almost eases the pain that I felt back then. There were times when I had a purse full of money and nothing to buy that was cool or fit. I could buy cool clothes that didn’t fit or I could buy old lady clothes that did fit. Neither choice worked for me. I remember holding back my tears while my skinny cheerleader friend found outfit after outfit of cute, cool clothes.

There is a curmudgeon in the back of my mind that says, “Doesn’t having options like this promote unhealthy weight? Shouldn’t we only release cool clothes in small sizes as an incentive to overweight people to get healthy?”

No.

Getting to a healthy weight doesn’t happen easily. I didn’t get to a healthy weight when stores told me I was not welcome. It wasn’t the exclusiveness that attracted me to lose weight. I didn’t lose it for the clothes. In fact, I still shun those stores that treated me like a second class citizen when I was fat. I lost weight for me. I lost weight to be healthy. I lost it so that I would live a few years longer on this planet.

I was only able to get to that point in the journey when I believed that I was worth it. I deserve a healthy body. I deserve to live longer. I deserve to look good. Having stores exclude me didn’t help in that process, they hindered me. That’s why I’m so glad that Torrid exists.