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

I had an epiphany the other day. I have been struggling with my eating and exercise. I will get everything in order and start exercising again. Then I’ll have to go out of town on a trip and I’ll forget everything I’ve learned because I get out of the habit.

I realized that habits are like baby animals. They are very delicate and it’s surprisingly easy to kill them. It takes only a few days of neglect and they die on me and I have to start again. I imagined my habits for healthy eating to be like a fuzzy weeple-like animal and I suddenly felt guilty for all of those I have killed over the last year.

If I had an ACTUAL baby animal who was depending on me to keep it alive, there is no way that I would leave it alone in the house while I went out of town. I would defer my trip, find someone to take care of it, or bring it with me.

Since habits can’t be sent to the kennel and I’m not willing to put my life on hold until I get to goal weight, I guess I’m going to have to take this baby animal habit pet with me when I go out of town again. If I think of my habits as a defenseless baby animal who needs to be nurtured and cared for constantly, what would I do differently?

• Find a hotel that will allow me to have my pet: If I had a puppy that I had to take with me on my trip, I would need to find a hotel that allowed dogs. The same is true for new habits. I need to make sure that the hotel has an exercise room and a fridge in my room for healthy snacks and meals.

• Take care of my pet EVERY day no matter what: Just because I’m out of town doesn’t mean that my habits should suffer. I wouldn’t allow my puppy to go without attention all day. I need to give just as much attention to my new habits as I would a helpless puppy.

• Provide special food for my pet: I wouldn’t expect the hotel breakfast to have the proper food for a newborn puppy. Why do I expect it to have it for my healthy diet? The truth of the matter is that it’s possible to eat healthy at most complimentary hotel breakfasts, but depending on them to provide me with the food I need is just as stupid as expecting a hotel to have puppy chow on hand.

• Make sure my pet has fresh water: I don’t know why I tend to skimp on drinking water when I’m out of town, but I continually find myself thirsty and parched. I can’t even imagine leaving a small animal without fresh water. Why do I do it to myself?

Imagining my newborn habits as a baby animal has made me more aware at how stupid I have been over the last year. I have allowed countless habits die of neglect and I have brushed each of their deaths off as “falling off the wagon.” If each of those habits had been a hamster, I would feel like a serial killer by now, but I’ve let them die with hardly a thought.

I always knew that nurturing my new habits was more difficult when I was traveling. Now, I have a visual representation of why it’s harder and what I need to do to keep my precious little ones alive while I’m out of town.

• Just completed a 1.59 mi walk with @runkeeper, check it out http://rnkpr.com/a5ex7v #RunKeeper #
• Just completed a 0.56 mi walk with @runkeeper, check it out http://rnkpr.com/a5ewd4 #RunKeeper #
• Just completed a 2.39 mi bike ride with @runkeeper, check it out http://rnkpr.com/a5e363 #RunKeeper #
• Just completed a 1.68 mi walk with @runkeeper, check it out http://rnkpr.com/a5dvny #RunKeeper #
• Check out the 2.50 mi walk I did with @runkeeper http://rnkpr.com/a5cn15 #RunKeeper #
• ran 0.47 mi on 4/27/2010 at 1:43 PM with a pace of 24'48"/mi http://go.nike.com/062on3ch #

• Check out the 2.21 mi walk I did with @runkeeper http://rnkpr.com/a58ct3 #RunKeeper #
• Check out the 1.68 mi walk I did with @runkeeper http://rnkpr.com/a579c6 #RunKeeper #
• Just completed a 0.39 mi walk with @runkeeper, check it out http://rnkpr.com/a56333 #RunKeeper #
• Pedaling for power and energy awareness http://bit.ly/arukty (via @cnn) #
• Just completed a 1.49 mi walk with @runkeeper, check it out http://rnkpr.com/a5439m #RunKeeper #
• Check out the 2.00 mi walk I did with @runkeeper http://rnkpr.com/a5355n #RunKeeper #

I literally thought the KFC Double Down was a joke when I saw the commercial for it.

It reminded me too much of this 30 Rock sketch with Tracy Morgan.

Meat is the new bread? Maybe they have a point there…

Is the KFC Double Down any less healthy than any other fast food chicken sandwich?

The Double Down Original Recipe is 540 Calories and 32 grams of fat. Compared to the Big Mac nutrition facts of 540 calories and 29 grams of fat, it’s very similar.

When you look at the Grilled Double Down, it’s 460 calories and 23 grams of fat. The McDonald’s Grilled Chicken Classic is 420 calories and 10 grams of fat.

Bread DOES take a lot of calories and doesn’t fill you up much compared to protein. Maybe the calories are similar with a Double Down and other fast food options, but it just might keep you feeling full longer. Is it healthy? I wouldn’t say so, but if you’re going to eat a fast food sandwich, maybe meat IS the new bread…

This postcard from PostSecret made my eyes fill with tears.

It reads:

I did not get enough of these as a kid.

Despite my many awards and certificates, I feel like I didn’t get enough stars as a kid either. No matter how many gold stars I earn, it never feels like enough. I would probably feel the same even if I won an Webbie, an Academy Award or a Grammy.

What do I do when all the accolades aren’t enough?

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.

• ran 2.25 mi on 4/19/2010 at 7:19 AM with a pace of 21'01"/mi http://go.nike.com/2eeb8a8 #
• ran 1.15 mi on 4/12/2010 at 9:59 AM with a pace of 17'31"/mi http://go.nike.com/08lp921k #

For the next few weeks every Monday, I’ll share a playlist of songs that I have in my Workout Playlist on my iPhone. I’ll include clips to listen to, where you can buy them and why I have them in my list. Just so you know, I do get a portion of the sales of these songs from Amazon, so if you buy them, you’re helping me out.

Get Up! (Before The Night Is Over) by Technotronic: I love this song at the beginning of my workout because those first few steps, I’m really tempted to just quit. I’m still close to home and I could just turn around. This song tells me to “get up and move that body” so many times that I just keep running, even if I’m feeling like going back home.

Sound Of Letting Go by David Guetta – Tocadisco – Chris Willis: This song has a great beat and it starts out with the phrase, “This is the point of no return because this is where we crash and burn. And now every time I face this pain, I can hear it coming back again. It’s the sound of letting go.” I know this song is about breaking up, but sometimes I just need to let go of my images of my old self. Sometimes I need to break up with the person I used to be.

Naturally by Selena Gomez and The Scene: The catchiness of this song is a given, but I love the idea of exercising coming naturally. I like to think that I’ll eventually become the kind of person for whom “everything comes naturally.”

Growing Pains by La Roux: This song reminds me that I am changing and I might run into stumbling blocks on the way. “Oh, I make mistakes and you just say it’s growing pains. When I feel ashamed you tell me it’s just growing pains.” Instead of continuing a binge, I can stop myself, put this song on my iPod and take a quick walk around the neighborhood.

I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas: I absolutely love this song. It has been playing EVERYWHERE, but despite the repetition, I still love this song. Will.i.am is telling me over and over that tonight is going to be a good night. Sometimes I need that kind of positive reinforcement. Fergie tells me that when I feel stressed out and I wanna let it go, that I should go way out and space out. Plus, this is the first pop song to use the phrase “mazel tov” since The Fiddler on the Roof Soundtrack.

You Da Boss by SkinnySongs: “This is your conscience talkin’. You don’t need that piece of pie. Gotta let it go pass you by.” This week’s song from Skinny Songs is a reminder that I’m in charge, not the food. I like to sit down and listen to this song when I’m tempted to eat, but I also keep it in my workout mix to remind myself of why I’m exercising. I’m the boss of my body, too.

Knock You Down by Keri Hilson: I know this song is talking about love, but there are a ton of other things that can knock me down on this journey. The chorus says, “Just get back up when it knocks you down.” I remember this when I slip up with food.

If Today Was Your Last Day by Nickelback: If today was my last day, I would eat all the food I ever wanted to eat. THAT is the kind of thinking that makes me binge because I deny myself when I don’t need to. Why should I hold off on my life until my last day? Every day, I try to eat something that I would have wanted to eat on my last day so that I don’t feel neglected. I work it into my caloric restrictions and I live every day like it was my last. Oh, and there’s all that other positive stuff that Nickelback says in this song.

Runaway by Cher: This song starts with the words, “Nobody said it would be easy. Nobody gives you guarantees.” It’s okay if exercise isn’t easy. It’s not supposed to be. If it were easy, EVERYBODY would have a hard body. Keep working and don’t focus on perfection. Cher continually singing for me to “run away” keeps me running when I want to walk and there is NO better motivation than Cher looking as awesome as she does in her sixties!

Listen to the clips for these songs. If you find just one song this week that motivates you to exercise, then buy it and make it your powersong when you’re working out this week. I bet you’ll find that you’re more willing to get your butt to the gym and your workouts are easier.

I ran this race to get a baseline. I wanted to get a time that I could aim to beat. Well, I have it. It took me 48 minutes to run a race that used to take me 40 minutes.

I guess I can only go up from there. I’ll post my time from my next race and we’ll see how much I have improved.

You might think that getting a pedicure or massage has nothing to do with losing weight, but I’ve been shocked to realize that they do. I went to my favorite nail shop today to get a pedicure and I was surprised by how good it made me feel.

I use food to make myself feel better. I know I’m not alone in this. Not everyone who is overweight uses food to pamper themselves, but an awful lot of us do. When I’m eating healthy, I don’t get that nurturing effect from carrot sticks and hummus as I do from potato chips and sour cream.

Pampering myself with a pedicure gives me the same relaxation and comfort as eating an entire box of cookies, but what works for me might not work for you. You need to ask yourself what makes you feel nurtured and pampered.

What do you avoid doing because it costs too much money? I always think that pedicures cost too much, but the truth of the matter is that they cost less than a binge at a fast food restaurant. If getting a new coat of polish on my toenails prevents me from eating us out of house and home, it’s totally worth it.

The next time you’re tempted to binge, try something different that will make you feel pampered. You might just find that food doesn’t work nearly as well as the other options available to you.

• ran 1.02 mi on 4/8/2010 at 10:33 AM with a pace of 16'56"/mi http://go.nike.com/077aik4l #
• ran 1.12 mi on 4/6/2010 at 5:02 PM with a pace of 21'29"/mi http://go.nike.com/01sc4f36 #