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

If I am only making a few slices of bacon, my George Foreman Grill is the absolute BEST way to do it. Since I’ve started eating low carb, I’ve found the joy of eating bacon again. I can put the grill on high heat, put three or four strips of bacon on the grill and set the timer for ten minutes. When I’m done, most of the grease has drained into the pan under the grill and the bacon only needs a dab of a paper towel to be perfect. It’s ideal: no turning, no draining the grease and no grease splatters all over the stove.

However easy the bacon is to cook on the George Foreman grill, I was still reluctant to write this entry. Here is a tip to make cooking bacon easy, clean and fast, and yet, I was unwilling to post that picture of my own grill stacked high with bacon. Why?

Because bacon has been considered an evil for my entire life.

High in fat and calories, bacon was a guilty pleasure for me. It was avoided when I was “on program” and a binge-worthy desire when I was off. Now that I’m eating low carb, bacon can be an every day breakfast. I can’t even write the words that I should write: bacon is a HEALTHY breakfast.

I’ve lost TWENTY pounds since I started eating low carb in June. That’s TWICE as much as I lost all last year while I was starving on Weight Watchers. That kind of reduction in weight is considered a GOOD thing for my health, and I did it by eating plenty of bacon.

So, YES! Bacon IS a healthy breakfast.

I should feel no shame in writing that, yet it goes against everything I have been told for my entire life. Of course, everything they told me ended with me starving and paradoxically obese, so maybe it’s alright to just do my best to put all that old “wisdom” out of my mind.

If you want to easily cook bacon, here are a selection of George Foreman Grills at Amazon. My favorite is the first one (pictured at the right) and lucky you, it’s MUCH cheaper now than when I bought it several years ago.

• George Foreman GRP90WGR Next Grilleration Electric Nonstick Grill with 5 Removable Plates
• George Foreman Next Grilleration 4-Burger Grills with Removable Plates
• George Foreman GR20B Family-Size 60-Square-Inch Nonstick Grill
• George Foreman GR10B 36 Square Inch Nonstick Countertop Grill, Black

For my whole life, they told me that I needed to have self-confidence to succeed. All those teachers and leaders urged me to love myself in order to see progress. I never once loved myself. I never once had self-confidence. I have seen enough success in my life to realize that maybe self-confidence isn’t nearly as important as they say.

Then I read this article:

• Caroming the Combination: The Paradox of Self-Confidence

It’s about playing billiards and pool and truly has nothing to do with me, but the title attracted me, so I read it. The author suggests that most of us can calculate with a pretty high degree of probability how well we are going to do. We KNOW whether we suck or not, but when we are doing it, we delude ourselves for that briefest of moments.

This isn’t superstition or some vague positive psychology. I’m saying that it is a simple matter of not allowing distracting thoughts during the execution. “I might miss this shot,” is one of the worst thoughts that you could possibly have during a shot. If that enters the mind, you probably will miss the shot.

Using the delusion of self-confidence while we are trying to do great things is a method of clearing our minds of distractions. THAT is something that I do all the time. When I’m bowling, I know how poorly I’m doing, but when I throw that ball, I am pretending that I’m a pro-bowler on ESPN THE OCHO. When I’m logging my daily food intake, I know how likely I will be able to stay under my 20g of carbs, but when I’m choosing food, I pretend that I am a carnivore.

Self-Confidence is a delusion. The only people who truly have it are utterly insufferable. Those of us who use it as a method to avoid distractions, succeed far beyond our meager hopes for ourselves.

For a long time, I’ve know that running along those pine needle lined paths in the park are just as injury prone as running on asphalt. In fact, I talked about it SEVEN years ago in this blog entry:

• Starling Fitness » June 29, 2004 – The Perfect Run

They say that the ideal running environment is a trail run on pine needles, but “they” obviously don’t run as often or in as many places as I have. Where there are pine needles, there are pine trees. Where there are pine trees, I am going to trip on a fucking pinecone. It’s just how nature works. You can’t have the pine needles without the pinecones. No, the ideal running environment is not a trail run on pine needles; it’s the sixth floor at the Luxor Hotel.

It seems that now a exercise physiologist has come to same conclusion:

• For Runners, Soft Surface Can Be Just as Hard on the Body – NYTimes.com

Dr. Tanaka, a runner, once tried it himself. He was recovering from a knee injury, and an orthopedist told him to stay away from hard surfaces, like asphalt roads, and run instead on softer surfaces, like grass or dirt. So he ran on a dirt path runners had beaten into the grass along an asphalt bike path.

The result? “I twisted my ankle and aggravated my injury while running on the softer and irregular surface,” he said.

I stand by my assertion that the perfect run is the sixth floor of the Luxor Hotel. Soft carpeting, even flooring, and no pine cones to trip over. If only we could get the staff to pick up the room service trays earlier, it would be absolutely danger-free. Until then, I’ll have to dodge the leftover food and dishes.

If you think orange juice is a healthy way to get vitamin C, think again. According to Civil Eats, here is The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes. Not from concentrate juice is held in huge vats for over a year. To keep it from spoiling, they remove the oxygen from the juice.

When the juice is stripped of oxygen it is also stripped of flavor providing chemicals. Juice companies therefore hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. Flavor packs aren’t listed as an ingredient on the label because technically they are derived from orange essence and oil.

Rather than drink a glass of franken-food, how about just eating an orange. Sure, they’re hard to peel and the spray juice all over your fingers, but you get the added benefit of fiber from the orange, plus the REAL flavor of an orange.

Via The Flavor Of Your OJ Is A Chemically-Induced Mirage – The Consumerist

My friend. Mindy, found this soda can in an old wall on her property. It’s a Weight Watchers Lemon-Lime No Sugar Soda can.

Somehow, seeing this made me remember what Weight Watchers has been all along: a business first. The leaders of Weight Watchers are dedicated teachers doing their best to help the members, but the entity of Weight Watchers is a business. They sell frozen dinners and ice cream treats. They lend their proprietary points system to other food companies. They no longer sell soda, but they do profit from the food they sell.

Why did I ever trust them?

This is the same company that brought me Slender Quenchers:

• Starling Fitness » Wendy McClure rescues old Weight Watchers recipe cards, circa 1974

Why should I trust them now when I wouldn’t put those old recipes anywhere near my lips?

After spending ten years on Weight Watchers with little to no progress, it’s hard not to feel bitter. I was hungry all the time and all I wanted to do was eat. I only lost weight when I was ravenous. They helped Jennifer Hudson lose weight by giving her the secret: stay away from carbs. Why didn’t they let me in on it? Why did they let me stagnate for so long?

I know it wasn’t my leader’s fault. She would have told me exactly what to do if she only knew. They didn’t tell her either.

Did they WANT me to stay fat so I would keep paying them? Why did they sell me frozen dinners with more than a day’s worth of carbs in one meal when they had their celebrity loser eat low carb?

I know it’s not healthy to stay so bitter about this, but I can’t help but blame them for the years that I struggled, starved and stagnated. It feels as if I were the one stuffed into that old wall on my friend’s property for all those years instead of that Weight Watchers Soda Can.

This photo reminded me of the phrase, “You are what you eat.”

One of the commenters said, “I am glad my tummy is not transparent.”

But the more I thought of it, the more I realized that while our stomachs are not transparent, it is quite obvious to everyone around us what we are eating. Orson Welles said it best:

Gluttony is not a secret vice.

Whether my abdomen is transparent or not, everyone around me can see what I’ve been eating for my entire life. It’s plastered on my body in the form of bulges and fat. I may not be an ant with a see-through gut, but the idea that I can hide my years of eating is gone.

Photo via: Tasting The Rainbow: The Ants Whose Multi-coloured Abdomens Show Exactly What They’ve Been Eating » Design You Trust – Design and Beyond!

The other day, we were all at Craft Lake City. Mixed in among the art was a booth for GeekyCookies. Staring at me were Star Trek cookies and Pacman cookies. They even had Browncoat Brownies. Mike made a joke about how each time we go to the planet we have to eat a red shirt cookie and we all laughed. Then Mike bought a Pacman cookie.

“Now you know what it feels like when someone eats you, Pacman!” he said while biting into the sugar cookie.

I haven’t wanted a sugar cookie for AGES, but Pacman tempted me. Why?

Part of the reason is the artificial scarcity. It’s not every day that I could eat a Pacman cookie. Sure, it’s just a sugar cookie, but it’s a sugar cookies shaped like Pacman (or a Star Trek shirt or a Invincibility Star). It doesn’t taste any differently than a normal sugar cookie, but it seems rare because it’s something I don’t see every day.

I found myself reacting the same way when I saw these Donut Kitties.

They are just donuts, but I wanted to eat one just because they are so darn cute!

The next time you’re tempted to eat something that you wouldn’t normally eat, stop and think why. Is it just because the food is cute? Is it because you think that you may never get a chance to eat something like this again? Take the time to really analyze how you are feeling and don’t let the appearance of food affect your judgement.

Related article: Starling Fitness » Patriotic Food Can Screw Up Your Eating

I love this photo of a billboard.

It reads:

You are not stuck in traffic.

You are traffic.

Get a bike. Break free!

I’ve talked about riding my bike to work before. You can read some of the articles here:

• Starling Fitness » Is Riding Your Bike To Work Bad For The Environment?

• Starling Fitness » Riding My Bike To Work

• Starling Fitness » Save Gas By Walking or Riding Your Bike

• Starling Fitness » How To Ride Your Bike To Work

• Starling Fitness » PostSecret: Bike To Work

My commute was longer when I rode my bike to work, but when I realized that I didn’t have to take extra time in my day for my workout, it made up for it. Plus, the added worry about getting to work on time helped keep my ride energizing and in the aerobic zone.

If it is at all possible to ride your bike to work, you should do it. Not only will you slip past the gridlock of traffic, you’ll live longer and look better.

Photo via: image-33.jpg on imgfave

I absolutely love this video:

I love it at the 0:27 mark when he claps his hands and the birds go flying! Just seeing him walking through all of those exciting places makes me want to get out and take a walk of my own.

It looks like he also did a video called Eat:

It may not feature the healthiest of food, but it showcases the variety of food available. Next time you’re feeling sick of what you’re eating, watch this video to get ideas for something new that you can fit into your diet routine.

Via: Twitter / @scottharrison: This video is brilliant. M …

I originally downloaded Lose it! last May when I first started going low carb. I don’t think I used it for more than one or two days before abandoning it for two months.

The main reason I stopped using it was because their food list is kind of limited. I couldn’t find myzithria cheese (no matter how I spelled it) or a taco salad without the shell. There are other apps with far greater food lists and I used them.

The one thing those other apps don’t have, however, is support.

I’m not talking technical support. Quite honestly, Lose It! is so easy to use, I haven’t had to contact tech support. I use both the website and the iPhone app and they work seamlessly together (Hello, WW! Are you listening?! Your app sux!).

I’m talking about weight loss support. There are TONS of people using Lose It and if you make some of them your friends (and set up your privacy settings), they can see your workouts, your weight losses and your food log. They can give you kudos for getting out there and exercising. They be a shoulder to cry on if you show a gain on the scale. They can even be an inspiration to you when you see that they exercised their butts off when you sat on the couch yesterday.

It’s everything that WW promised me about their meetings, but I never got. That’s a bit of a lie. I had one friend at WW and seeing her every week was the only thing that kept me going that last year. I’ve kept in touch with her via email, but I really do miss seeing her in person every week. All the people on Lose It! have filled that void for me.

There are so many people using Lose It! that I have been able to find a whole group of friends that are eating low carb. It has been refreshing to have a group of people who eat the same way I do without the constant lecturing about the “benefits” of whole grains and fruit.

Lose It! isn’t a program for people following low carb. It tracks calories, but it also allows you to watch other macronutrients, so I have it tracking calories AND carbs. Lose It! isn’t about dictating a diet to you, it’s just a tool that allows you to formulate a diet of your own that works specifically for you.

I absolutely LOVE Lose It!’s reports. I can analyze my nutrients so that I am sure that I’m eating a high fat, moderate protein and low carb diet. I’ve never been able to do that analysis before, so it gives me a piece of mind to know that I’m on the right track. There are many other reports for exercise trends, favorite foods, and calorie expenditures that give a visual reminder to keep on track or change course. I adore how they crunch my data for me so I don’t have to pull out a spreadsheet.

And the badges! I love getting little prizes for working toward goals and Lose It! badges are PERFECT for that. I’ve earned a couple of small badges, but seeing all the things I could earn on other people’s profiles makes me want to work harder. One of my friends had earned these badges and I am on a mission to earn them as well.

I love how they reward you for exercising regularly and tracking your food consistently. It’s so inspiring to me!

Once I’ve earned those badges, I can order a t-shirt with one of them on it. When I get that Die Hard badge, I’m definitely getting a t-shirt. Oh, and the Goal Achieved badge, too. In fact, I’ll have to order a t-shirt for the Exercise King badge, as well. I can’t wait until I can do that!

Of course, if you’re shy about sharing your information, Lose It! has privacy settings that allow you complete secrecy. Your friends can only see what you allow them to see, and the rest of the world is blind. Or the entire world can be blind to you. You have that option and I love Lose It! for it.

In the end, I have been extremely happy with Lose It! If you feel like your diet is getting a little stale, log onto their site and see if it helps you as much as it has helped me.

• Website: Lose it!
• iPhone App: Lose It! – iPhone
• Android App: Lose It! – Android
• Book in Paperback: Lose It!: The Personalized Weight Loss Revolution at Amazon.com
• Book at the Kindle Store: Lose It!: The Personalized Weight Loss Revolution at Amazon.com

Update 09-20-11: I’ve found two more badges that I’d like to earn: The Pool Shark and Om badges.

Of course, neither of them have gotten me to swim or do yoga yet, but they are even more badges that I can work toward.