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

I found this motivational poster on Positive Outlooks Facebook Page. It’s from the Positive Outlooks Blog.

It reads:

Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.

• Robert H. Schuller

This is SO true for weight loss. Whenever I start bragging about how much weight I’ve lost, I am in for trouble. It might be the bragging and the lack of humility that’s the problem, but looking BACK is not the way to face the world. I always need to look forward. I may have lost 59.4 pounds, but I still have 42.4 pounds to go. I am just barely past the halfway mark. I have a lot more to go, so I need to stop looking in the rear view mirror and focus on those 42.4 pounds. THEY are the ones that are important…

I wish I had an Edna Mode in my life. Someone who would whack me over the head with a newspaper and inspire me to greatness!

Sometimes, when I’m feeling down, I pull up this scene and watch it over and over again. Edna Mode can inspire me to greatness far more than any other fictional character!

I saw this motivational poster on Funeral for my Fat:

It reads:

Now punch that laziness in the face and have a great day!

I started thinking about punching laziness and it seemed like such a weird concept. I kept envisioning a lazy cat and I didn’t want to punch it in the face at all.

When I did an image search for laziness, I mostly saw people SLEEPING. Men, women and kittens sleeping. Maybe you’re not lazy. Maybe you’re TIRED. Make sure your workout routine isn’t too strenuous. If it is, then you won’t want to exercise because you’re TIRED, not because of laziness.

If the thought of working out today sounds horrible and you are feeling lazy, try this. Give yourself permission to do an EASY workout. Tell yourself that you’ll go slow and easy for twenty minutes. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

If you get into your workout and want to do more, then go for it. If all you can do is that easy twenty minutes, then you are TIRED, not lazy. Quit insulting yourself. It turns out that most of the time, when you try to punch laziness in the face, you just end up punching yourself…

Lazy cat image via: Dry Skin Saviours for Lazy Girls

Just when I was about to delete Fitness, Health and Confidence for being food porn and real porn, they posted this awesome animated GIF:

It reads:

Train your mind to see the good in everything.

YES!!! This has helped me FAR more than any diet or exercise program. When I’m angry or resentful, I am always tempted to eat, so dealing with those emotions keeps me from overeating. Learning to see the good in everything has evaporated anger, alleviated resentment and helped me beyond words. The next time you’re feeling anger, remember to take a deep breath and try to think of three good things about the person you are angry about. Let it truly sink in how good this person is before you act and before you turn to food.

I went to CES this year and the only really good exergaming thing I saw was the virtual reality thing from Virtuix Omni.

It is a virtual reality headset that works with first person shooter games on the PC. My first thought was, “If that thing worked with Animal Crossing, I would get SO much exercise!!” Then I realized that if it worked with Animal Crossing, then I would never play my game because it would be too much physical activity.

The way the it works is slippery shoes and a convex platform! It’s not a treadmill, like I thought it was. This video shows you how it works.

I don’t really want to play first person shooters, even if it’s cool like this, but if this worked with my Animal Crossing game, I think it would be awesome!

I LOVE this video showing me how to eat various fruits!

The hardest part of eating some fruits is finding out how to cut them up or get them out of their rind.

After seeing this, my only thought was, “But how do I eat a star fruit?!” Fortunately, I found a video about this as well.

I have seen star fruits and kiwis in the store so many times and wondered how they are eaten and what they taste like. I was scared to buy star fruit, but now that I’ve seen this, I’m stoked to go try it!

I am running the Color Run in Las Vegas on February 28th next month!

If you don’t know what the Color Run is, here is a video:

Yes, it’s the race where they throw crap on you while you’re trying to run a 5K…

It actually looks like a lot of fun and according to my friends who have done it, it is. I am excited to run it and I’m hoping you can come along. Heck, it’s in Vegas at the BEST time of the year for that city, winter!

I joined the team, “Electric Sunshine.” I have no idea what team that is or what they stand for, but it sounded hopeful to me, so I joined that one. If you want to be on my team, join Electric Sunshine and you’ll save some money.

If you use this code: LASVEGAS You’ll get another five dollars off the race entry fee.

Come run with me in Las Vegas!

This postcard from PostSecret could have been my own, so it’s comforting to know that there is another person out there who feels the same as I did.

It reads:

I blame all my problems on my weight…

This was one of the biggest stumbling blocks to getting healthy for me. Just like the person who sent in this card, I thought that my life would be perfect once I got thin.

And then I got thin, or nearly thin…

And my life still sucked. I was starving myself (and bingeing as well), and I was still miserable, even though I was so close to my goal weight. It felt so pointless to put forth all this effort if being thin didn’t solve the problem.

Ironically, when I solved my emotional and spiritual problems, eating healthy and exercising moderately became SO much easier. Now, I feel great AND I’m not starving myself. That’s why the twelve steps are so helpful because they solve those problems that make you miserable so that you don’t NEED to eat to forget them.

If you are feeling horrible and blaming everything on your weight, get yourself to Overeater’s Anonymous and work through the steps diligently with a sponsor. Be entirely honest and you won’t have as many problems to blame on your weight anymore.

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.

This is one of the quotes that convinced me that I had been living my life incorrectly.

It reads:

The secret of all success is to know how to deny yourself. Prove that you can control yourself, and you are an educated man; and without this all other education is good for nothing.

• R. D. Hitchcock

I had known that living a life of hedonism was wrong. I had learned that over the years, but I never knew of the concept of sophrosyne. I had never been taught that self-control and moderation could create a healthy state of being. Sure, I had heard the phrase, “All things in moderation,” but it wasn’t a way of life for me.

In fact, I loved to find objections to that rule. Really? All things in moderation? How much rat poison is moderate?

Despite that, the concept of living a moderate life has brought me FAR more happiness than hedonism ever did. Being able to deny myself has given me more peace of mind, happiness and calm than over-doing it ever did.

And YES, all my other education was good for NOTHING in the face of that hedonism. NOTHING. It didn’t matter that I had a degree. It didn’t matter that I was a writer. NOTHING mattered except more and more eating. There was no way to stop it, no matter how much I learned about the dopamine response, it was useless without the ability to deny myself.

And I haven’t learned how to deny myself, really. I just handed all those decisions about food over to a part of mind that continually makes better decisions than I ever did. Should I eat that? What does my FitBit say? Has my meal alarm went off? What does Lose It say? Do I have any calories left? I don’t make those decisions anymore, because when I did, I chose hedonism. I can’t be trusted to make those decisions, so sophrosyne is in charge, not me.

I am so surprised that this quote means so much to me. It has literally saved my life.

I adore this quote from Horace:

It reads:

Remember when life’s path is steep to keep your mind even.

• Horace

The path in that picture is of the Na Pali Coast Trail. Mike and I visited Hawaii back in 2002 and hiked part of this trail on that trip. It was VERY hard for us and I was sore for days afterward. Here’s a picture Mike snapped of me on that trip.

I remember thinking, “Someday I’ll be really fit and be able to do the whole hike.” It is nearly THIRTEEN years later and I’m not there yet. This life really is steep, so I’m keeping my mind even. Hopefully, by the time I return, I WILL be fit and able to do the whole hike without suffering for days afterwards.