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

I am short. At 5’2″, most people tower over me. I can’t reach things on top shelves. Sometimes I need to ask my husband to get something from a high spot. Sometimes I need to get a step out of the closet to reach them.

I never berate myself for being short.

I never feel guilty when I have to get a step out of the closet to reach things.

I never get angry at myself when I have to ask Mike to get something that is high.

I can’t change the fact that I’m short.

The same is true about my eating disorder.

I have binge eating disorder. I have no control over food and when I start a binge, I cannot stop it. There are certain foods that are really dangerous to me because when I eat them, they make me want to binge for days afterwards. I can never eat like a “normal” person again.

Sometimes I need to ask for help when I want to binge. Sometimes I can’t stay away from food on my own and I need to call my sponsor or a friend. Sometimes I need to get myself away from the food. Sometimes I need to go back to basics and work on the steps.

I do not berate myself for overeating.

I never get angry at myself for needing to work my Overeater’s Anonymous program in order to keep myself from bingeing.

I never feel guilty when I need to ask for help to stay away from food.

I can’t change the fact that I have an eating disorder.

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.

I love this list of healthy and easy snacks from Fit Personality. So many times I get BORED with my food and then that leads to a binge. Having lists like this helps me.

Here is the list:

• Frozen grapes
• Blueberry greek yogurt
• Boom Chicka Pop
• Dried fruit medley
• Clementines
• Naked Juice
• Raw almonds
• Peanut butter and fruit slices
• Larabars
• Peaches and cottage cheese
• Edamame
• Watermelon chunks
• Carrots and guacamole
• Apple chips
• Strawberries and balsamic vinegar
• V8 Juice
• Celery and peanut butter
• Protein smoothie
• Pistachios
• Cinnamon Rice Cakes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Raspberries and lime
• Bell peppers
• Frozen mango
• Hard boiled egg
• Cauliflower and hummus
• Greek frozen yogurt cups
• Fruit kabobs
• Tomatoes and feta cheese
• Chocolate almond milk
• Peanuts and raisins
• Dry whole grain cereal
• Blackberries
• Cinnamon pears
• Roasted chickpeas
• Laughing Cow wedges
• Almond butter and toast
• Banana slices and chocolate
• Oatmeal balls
• Pomegranate
• 100% fruit pops

It’s very important to keep the variety of your food constantly changing in order to prevent dopamine burnout. This is all explained in my entry here:

• Starling Fitness – Fitness, diet, and health weblog » How Sugar Affects The Brain

Speaking of healthy foods, let’s say you’re hungry and decide to eat a balanced meal. You do and dopamine levels spike in the reward hot spots. But if you eat that same dish many days in a row, dopamine levels will spike less and less, eventually leveling out.

That’s because, when it comes to food, the brain evolved to pay special attention to new or different tastes. Why? Two reasons: first, to detect food that has gone bad, and second, because the more variety we have in our diet, the more likely we are to get all the nutrients we need. To keep that variety up, we need to be able to recognize a new food and, more importantly, we need to want to keep eating new foods, and that’s why the dopamine levels off when a food becomes boring.

Keep changing your meals and snacks and you won’t have that leveling out of your dopamine. That’s why I love lists of interesting foods I could have for snacks!

Via: Funeral For My Fat, fit-personality: Get your snack on y’all.

I saw this quote and I felt I should say something about it.

It reads:

Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest.

• Marilyn Ferguson

I started this weight loss journey when I was a child. I tried to lose weight for years. I was never able to keep it off for a month, much less a year. I didn’t come to Overeater’s Anonymous until I was 44 years old. I am now 46 years old and I am closer to a healthy weight than I have ever been in my life.

Don’t let the idea of middle age, menopause or anything else get in the way of your success. You can do this, no matter what your age. Don’t let this fat kill you just because you think you can’t do it. Don’t be a victim of that self-fulfilling prophecy.

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.

It’s rare when an article actually gets it right about how to conquer disordered eating, but this one is perfect:

• 6 Lessons on Overcoming Disordered Eating

There is a list of six lessons and it’s a good idea to go over to their site and read the whole story. It was very helpful to me.

• Comparing yourself to others only sets you back.
• Your relationship to food mirrors your relationship to your life.
• You will never be done.
• Perfectionism derails progress.
• You are really, truly good enough—just as you are.
• Disordered eating is your soul desperately crying out for help.

Each person has a different journey when they are recovering from disordered eating. For me, issues of control, envy, perfectionism, fear, expectations, judgment of others and many other faults came up when I worked through my program. Knowing that these problems with my thinking have caused me to overeat for years, really helped me. I learned to reprogram my thoughts and have had wonderful success.

If you want what I have, find the nearest Overeater’s Anonymous meeting, get a sponsor, do everything they say and keep coming to meetings.

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.

I found this motivational poster and it really made me nod my head.

It reads:

You will get a lot more compliments for working out than you will for sleeping in.

It’s true and that might be a great motivation for some people. Here are a couple more iterations of the idea.

The truth of the matter is, I am pretty uncomfortable when I receive compliments, especially about my body. At the same time, I CRAVE them. It’s a strange dichotomy that I really need to work in my mind because the longer I maintain this loss and the closer I get to the weight the government thinks I should weigh, the more compliments I’m going to get.

This is one of those things I haven’t figured out yet. I crave compliments, but at the same time, I am uncomfortable when I get them. I brush them off, feeling that I don’t deserve them. A friend of mine the other day said that I was looking svelte and I literally waved it away and said, “No.” I want to impress people and at the same time, I am tremendously unwilling to take any compliments I receive.

This is insanity and I’m sure if I had a better self-esteem, it wouldn’t be a problem. I just don’t know how to get one of them self-esteem things.

Images via:

• You Will Get Alot More Compliments For Working Out Than You Will For Sleeping In
• You’ll Get A Lot More COMPLIMENTS For WORKING OUT than you will for SLEEPING IN | Nourished Existence | Balanced Brunette
• Share a LUV KiCK – It’s Time To Kick BuTs

I saw this motivational poster on Daily Gains Fitness and I about jumped out of my seat.

It reads:

If you have time for Tumblr, then you have time to workout.

For me, it’s not Tumblr that takes up all my time. It’s Facebook. There’s a poster for that one too, from Fit Photos page on Facebook.

It reads:

If you have time for Facebook, then you have time for exercise.

I spend a lot of time just zoning out and scrolling down on Facebook and Pinterest. If I just walked on the treadmill while I did that, I would have much more activity calories burned. I should put this motivational poster on my phone and iPad home screen so I see it every time I pull up my favorite obsession and replace it with a MUCH healthier obsession.

I love this quote that I found today.

It reads:

The hardest thing when you think about focusing. You think focusing is about saying “Yes.” No. Focusing is about saying “No.” And when you say “No,” you piss off people.

• Steve Jobs

That is so true for me. When I focus on a project, I really feel like it’s saying “yes” to that project. It is, in some respects, but it is also saying “no” to other projects. Not only that, it’s CONTINUALLY saying “no” to other projects until you make your goal.

That’s how it is with losing weight. It’s not about saying “yes” to losing weight and living healthy. It’s about saying “no” over and over and over again. In fact, you find yourself saying “no” so many times that it begins to feel negative.

• Would you like a piece of pie?
• Would you like to go out drinking with us?
• Would you like to go to the movies?
• Would you like to blow off your workout?
• Would you like to take the rest of this home?
• Would you like to meet me for dinner?

There is nothing wrong with any of these questions. There is a time for pie (at least a tiny sliver) and a time for movies, but when those things interfere with your goal of losing weight and living healthy, then you have to say “no.”

There is another way to look at it, though. Every time you say “no” rephrase it as a “yes.”

• I would love that pie, but I have already eaten enough. Can you wrap me up a piece that I can take home? (Then throw it away in the nearest dumpster.)
• I’d like to go drinking, but I need to wake up early to workout. I’ve got a 5K to train for.
• I’d like to go to the movies, but I can’t handle all the popcorn and food there right now. How about we rent a DVD instead?
• I love my workouts and I don’t ever want to blow them off. Want to come with me?
• I would love to take that food home. (Then throw it away in the nearest dumpster.)
• I’d like to see you, but it’s too late for me to eat right now. Let’s meet up at the bookstore (library, park, skating rink, etc.) and see each other.

The truth is, you WILL piss some people off when you have to say “no.” They’re not used to you giving your health a priority. After years of doing it, however, things will be different. People will treat you differently.

• I know you don’t like pie right after dinner. Should I save you a piece to take home?
• We want to go out drinking. When is your rest day for your morning workouts? We’ll go the night before.
• Want to go to the movies? We can arrive right before it starts so there isn’t time for popcorn.
• Can I come with you on a workout this week?
• You probably don’t want this, do you? I didn’t think so. I’ll just save it for leftovers.
• Want to meet at the bookstore?

Then, you can say “yes” instead of “no.” Training our families to be respectful of our dreams is something that is very important on this journey and this is one way you can start doing it now.

I found this image of a pattern for a pioneer dress on Antique Dollhouse of Patterns. It reminded me of 7th Grade.

When I was a kid, my grandmother made me two or three of these dresses. I was in the middle of an intense Little House on the Prairie phase and I needed dresses to go to church three times a week. I LOVED these dresses.

I learned to sew that summer by watching my grandmother make those dresses. Since that summer, I’ve always made some of my clothes and altered most of my store bought clothes. Store bought clothes never quite fit me correctly. Finding the right ones usually involves hemming or altering them somehow.

I always thought it was because I was fat.

Now that I am approaching “normal” sizes and can buy large “normal” clothes instead of plus sized clothes, I am surprised that I STILL need to alter my clothes. They never seem to fit correctly, but now I don’t have fat to blame.

That is EXACTLY how a lot of things are for me. I have blamed EVERYTHING on my weight, when in actuality, it had very little to do with things. Just like the fact that I still have to hem my pants, despite losing 70 pounds, I have many problems in my life that had nothing to do with my weight.

Like self-esteem. I still think I’m fat. Honestly, I still AM fat. I have thirty pounds to go right now, but I still feel as fat as I did when I was seventy pounds heavier. The fat has NOTHING to do with it. I feel fat sometimes and it has nothing to do with my body and everything to do with my mind.

Just like hemming my pants, I still need to work on my mind, no matter what I weigh. Getting thinner doesn’t solve my problems, it merely shows me what problems were caused by my fat (like chaffing thighs and being out of breath) and which ones were caused by my brain.

The description of how to do a burpee on Wikipedia is horribly confusing:

• Wikipedia – Burpee (exercise)

The burpee is a full body exercise used in strength training and as an aerobic exercise. The basic movement is performed in four steps and known as a “four-count burpee”:

1. Begin in a standing position.

2. Drop into a squat position with your hands on the ground. (count 1)

3. Kick your feet back, while keeping your arms extended. (count 2)

4. Immediately return your feet to the squat position. (count 3)

5. Jump up from the squat position (count 4)

It is so much easier to SEE it, like with this animated GIF from Nike Women:

After watching this for a little while, I feel as if I could do a burpee or two. This is intense exercise that I have never been able to keep up for more than one day. I wonder what would happen if I tried.

Via: Funeral For My Fat, nikewomen: And I’m donnnne-nope.

I absolutely ADORE this quote from President Obama!

It reads:

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.

• Barack Obama

Thinking of other people instead of myself has been one of the most helpful things I’ve learned this last year. So many times when I am feeling bad, it’s because I am only thinking about myself. The minute I try to focus my goals on making other people happy, all that worry, fear and desire for control go out the window. Taking the focus off myself and my crazy head and putting it outside myself somehow makes the crazy go away.

And when the crazy goes away, I don’t feel the need to binge. I can eat healthy food and feel satisfied. I can exercise reasonably without injuring myself.

So go find somebody to be successful for.