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

I was reading this blog entry from Wil Wheaton and I realized how different normal people are from overeaters.

• With diet and exercise, and a little help from my friends | WIL WHEATON dot NET

I immediately cut down my beer consumption to one pint a day. I reduced #burritowatch to maybe once a week. I started to enter my meals into my app, and after a few days, I started to see that it really wasn’t that difficult to make healthy food choices, once I knew what was going into my body.

I was having a lot of fun, I was starting to feel pretty good, and — here’s the thing that blew me away — when I got back on the scale at the end of the first week, I’d lost almost 6 pounds.

THAT is the difference in a nutshell. He realized he had gained twenty pounds, cut down on the burritos and beer and dropped back where he wanted to be. In that same time period, I have also lost twenty pounds, but it looks VERY different.

I, too, have been adding my food into my app. I, too, bought a Fitbit after Christmas. I set it to go off every two and a half hours and I’m counting the minutes until I get to eat again. Sometimes I eat my snack and I immediately start counting down until the next time I eat, waiting for that silent vibration on my wrist.

My twenty pound weight loss has nothing to do with cutting out the beer and burritos and everything to do with avoiding a plethora of foods that can set off a binge.

And, the only time I’ve earned a badge was when I was in Las Vegas and I had to walk a mile every time I wanted to get to my car from my hotel room. I seriously exercise for thirty minutes each day, but the rest of my life is so sedentary that it’s a struggle to get to 10,000 steps a day.

Just like him, I find the Fitbit motivating. Just like him, I track my food in a food diary app every day. But unlike him, it was a vicious struggle every day. THAT is the difference between normal people and overeaters. Our brains are wired differently for food, so just going easy on the burritos and beer is much harder.

Cartoon Via: Toon Pool

I saw this photo on The Rowing Life and it reminded me that there are NO EXCUSES!

If that lady can find a way to exercise with a BROKEN leg, then you can get your butt out of bed in the morning and get on that treadmill!

Via: Funeral For My Fat, row-hard: Genius

I don’t know why, but I really needed this video from Kid President today.

I really liked this part:

“We all mess up sometimes. The biggest mess up? Not forgiving each other’s mess ups.”

Something about this kid just makes me feel like it’s going to be alright.

“You’re gonna need a pep talk sometimes. That’s okay. For now, remember this: You’re awake. You’re awesome. Live like it.”

Via WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR — “You’re gonna need a pep talk sometimes. That’s….

I have this old Fleetwood Mac song in my Workout playlist. It reminds me of President Clinton and how enthusiastic we were when he was first elected. It seemed like a good, upbeat song to put in my list. You can hear it here:

The truth is, thinking about tomorrow has gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past.

“I’ll start eating right again tomorrow,” while stuffing my face with food.

“I’ll start running again tomorrow,” while sitting on the couch, watching too much television.

“I’ll get some healthy snacks tomorrow,” while skipping my snack time, allowing myself to get too hungry and binge the next meal.

Tomorrow has gotten me into a BUNCH of trouble. I know this is a long journey and the long view will help with that, but I’ve used the promise of tomorrow to CONTINUE the bad practices of today. Instead of all those horrible lies, I said to myself, I should have been thinking of NOW.

“I’ll start eating right NOW,” while putting down the binge food, throwing it away or spitting it out.

“I’ll start running NOW,” while lacing up my running shoes and putting the leash on the dog.

“I’ll get some healthy snacks NOW,” while running quickly to the closest store to get fruit and veggies for my snacks.

NOW is far more powerful than TOMORROW. I don’t know why I never saw that before.

This photo was from Valentine’s Day in 2006. Back then, I didn’t know that I was sensitive to gluten, so this meal LITERALLY made me sick and I didn’t even know it back then.

What other Valentine’s Day advice have I given over the years that is poison instead of medicine?

Order whatever you want: Seriously. Quit trying to tell yourself that you can only have salad or chicken breasts. If you want a steak, order it. If you are dying for some pasta, stop denying yourself.

Nope, again, I can’t eat that pasta. Now, instead of thinking it’s denial, I remember the bloating pain in my abdomen that I suffered with for SEVEN years before we were able to figure it out. Sometimes you MUST deny yourself some foods because they just aren’t good for you, and the worst trick ever played on us is that those foods are different for each person.

Valentine’s Day is just one day. So is the Super Bowl and Thanksgiving and Christmas and your birthday and St. Patrick’s Day and Halloween and the World Series and New Year’s and Mardi Gras and Independence Day and March Madness and… There are enough holidays, sports events and birthdays in your life to warrant an excuse to indulge every week.

Okay, I was spot on with that one. There are so many holidays that having one isn’t an excuse to overeat.

You don’t need to eat the candy to accept the love.

I said that?! How many times in the last few years have I made that mistake? They are just trying to tell you that they love you. Accept the love and leave the candy.

You don’t need to overeat to celebrate.

I may have said this way back in 2005, but I have lived the polar opposite for far too many years. It’s time that I learn how to celebrate without overindulging.

As far as Valentine’s advice goes, I’ve done a pretty good job over the years, but I still can’t get beyond that image of those heart shaped pancakes. I should have posted this image instead. Eggs work much better for me.

This music video by Boggie has been making the rounds of the health Tumblrs as an example of ways in which the images that we see are actually artificial creations.

While watching this video, I was struck with a strange sense of wonder. What if there was some way for us to be transformed, not just in an artificial image, but wholly? In fact, the ending shot showing the drastically different visions became an almost Before and After image.

Are there photoshopped pictures in every magazine was look at? YES. Is there a way to transform ourselves into healthier and stronger people? YES AGAIN. There are artificial images all around us, but that doesn’t negate the fact that we can change ourselves.

Via: Fierce Owl Full of Love — wheres-margo: Singer uses her music video to…

I saw this image of Victoria’s Secret model Karolina Kurkova on Funeral For My Fat and I’m ashamed to say that the first thing I noticed was the cellulite on her legs.

If a Victoria’s Secret model has cellulite, then it is NORMAL for women to have cellulite. The idea that we’re NOT supposed to have it was created by all those companies who are making anti-cellulite creams and drugs and rubs and wraps.

Don’t buy ANYTHING that promises to remove cellulite. It’s a NORMAL aspect of women’s bodies and does not need to be eradicated. It’s like saying that you have unsightly hair on your head. Love your little leg lumps and let’s hope that someday everyone will be able to look at that picture and realize that it’s Karolina Kurkova looking PERFECT!

I love this motivational poster I found on run, eat, relax.

It reads:

Lose an hour Gain a mile

I really miss being able to run outdoors. We live near a beautiful lake and while it’s possible to go for a run out there, the temperature is at 38 degrees right now, so it’s miserable. I miss those nice weather runs where everything is gorgeous and there is a lovely sight to be seen around every corner. I know they’ll come back in a month and a half, but it’s hard to wait.

Until then, I’ll print up this poster and put it in front of the treadmill. I can pretend I’m in a lush forest while I gain my miles.

Didn’t even realize until this very second that if you run a mile in one hour, that’s REALLY slow. That’s even slow for walking. Still a good thought, though.

I love this image from healthy moi

It reads:

Eat Train Sleep Be Humble

I especially like the final “Be Humble.” THAT is exactly what has tripped me up EVERY time I’ve started getting my eating in order. I talked about that before here:

• How To Be Humble
• Accepting Your Limitations
• Appreciating Others
• Rediscovering a Sense of Wonder

Back then, I said:

I have noticed a strange pattern in my weight loss journey. EVERY time I start to see some success and talk about it here on Starling Fitness, I end up backsliding again. It has made me skittish, superstitious and unwilling to share any positive experiences I’ve had.

That’s why I love this image. It reminds me to be humble.

Via: Funeral For My Fat

It sounded like the headlines from Weekly World News:

• DailyMail – ‘I have plastic sewn to my TONGUE so it hurts too much to eat solids’, reveals extreme beauty queen desperate to stay thin

And the pictures were gruesome.

I nearly dismissed it as untrue until I saw the BBC symbol on the pictures. They are from an episode of Extreme Beauty Queens on BBC.

• BBC Three – Extreme Beauty Queens: Secrets of South America

You can see the video here:

At the 2:36 minute mark, she talks about the work she has had done to her body, nose and teeth, but the mesh comes at the 3:11 mark. She said:

Yes, I’ve had a mesh put on my tongue.

The plastic patch is sewn onto the tongue, making it too painful to eat real food. My stomach turns just looking at the video.

The worst part is that it wouldn’t work for me. I would cut the thing off myself or keep eating despite the pain. In fact, during the worst of my gluten days, I kept eating bread and pasta until my intestines bled. I would have never lost weight with a torture device like this. I would have just melted down milkshakes or blended up Big Macs.

Devices like that mesh plastic approach the problem the wrong way. Just like having your jaw wired shut or your stomach torn apart and sewn smaller, that plastic mesh sewn on the tongue is a torture device, plain and simple. It’s almost as if we feel that it’s a proper punishment for gluttony. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. I don’t know the right way, but that is certainly wrong.