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

I received this comment on a post last week:

• Starling Fitness » My Symbiont Part 3 of 3

Nicky Says: June 3rd, 2009 at 9:08 pm

Hi Laura! Your 2006 video made me sad – I felt so bad for you. I hope every day today is not as much of a struggle.

I noticed that you actually use food as a reward for when you exercise…do you think that perhaps a non-food reward would help decrease your obsessional thoughts about food more effectively?

I’m also very concerned about your statement, “If I have a perfect day, I spend some time with a good friend either on the phone or in person.” Two issues – first, the focus on having a “perfect day”. You should feel good even if you have a “pretty good day.” Perfectionism is the route to self-hatred. Second issue – you need to reward yourself with positive social interaction WHETHER OR NOT you had a good or “perfect” day. Positive social interaction may be even MORE important after a “horrible” day – it can help you take better care of yourself the next day!

Good luck – and be good to yourself!

Nicky,

Thanks for the comments and email. Honestly, I still struggle, even after all these years.

As far as using food for a reward, the beast inside us is an animal and not even one that’s as smart as a dog. Food is an incredible reward for it and has helped me have less obsessed thoughts. I make sure the food is healthy, but it’s a great bribe.

For me, a perfect day includes eating all the things I’m supposed to eat:

• Five servings of fruits or vegetables
• Two servings of dairy
• Two servings of protein
• Two servings of healthy oils
• Whole grains
• Six glasses of water
• A multi-vitamin

It doesn’t mean that I have to stay within a caloric limitation or even stop a binge. I just have to feed myself a minimum of healthy food every day. It’s a pretty liberal definition of “perfect,” so there is plenty of wiggle room for me. It’s a little easier to achieve and less likely to cause self-hatred.

Thank you for all the positive comments. I really appreciate it!

Laura

• RT @ginnyky: What I learned today- 1 Big Mac is 12 WW points, 2 cheeseburgers are 14 WW points #

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I’ve talked a lot about retraining the beast within me. If you haven’t read the entries, here they are:

• Starling Fitness » My Symbiont Part 1 of 3
• Starling Fitness » My Symbiont Part 2 of 3
• Starling Fitness » My Symbiont Part 3 of 3

Sometimes it’s like I’m having a conversation with myself and it’s a war within me. Having a year of perfect days is harder than I thought it would be and easier than I thought it would be. Just when I think I’ve got it down, it gets hard again and I have no idea why. This commercial from Nike is JUST what I needed right now.

Next time you find yourself face to face with the beast within you, remember this commercial and those fateful words:

I’m done with you!

Leave your old self behind.

This applies to keeping on running when I want to stop and it applies to eating when I’m not hungry or eating food that I KNOW is going to start a binge. I’m ready to retrain that beast inside of me to do what I want, not what is easy or gratifying.

Via: Twitter / Sue B: Great post on overcoming t …

Every once and a while, I need to indulge in something decadent. Eating healthy is best done in moderation as are indulgences. This month, I want to try bacon pancakes.

Kathy at Merriment Design has the recipe she tried for bacon pancakes with wonderful results.

• Merriment Design » Bacon Pancakes

The next time you need to have an indulgent meal, try bacon pancakes!

Via: Craftzine.com blog : Recipe: Bacon Pancakes

The ever wonderful Braidwood has written a couple of great entries about eating healthy and listening to your body when it comes to eating:

• Every weight issue is really a power issue | Authentic Threads

What impacted me the most when I saw this was hearing that, “The root of the problem is giving away your power.” ! What? That’s the root of the problem? … Hey, that is the root of the problem!

I said that phrase to myself a few times and then turned it around. If that’s the root of the problem, then: The root of the solution is accepting my power.

• Thintuition | Authentic Threads

She recommended this video:

I understand the feeling of not wanting to diet again. Somehow, Weight Watchers works for me because communicating with my body was really hard at first. Weight Watchers gave me a good idea of what to eat to stay healthy. Eventually, I’ll develop enough Thintuition to eat healthy without guidelines, but for now, I WANT to follow a program that helps me make healthier choices.

Yesterday I talked about cupcakes and how the easiest way for me to eat them is to not eat them. If that is confusing, take a moment and read yesterday’s entry:

• Starling Fitness » How To Eat A Cupcake: DON’T

What if I really WANT a cupcake, however?

If I really want a cupcake, I can eat one whenever I want. That is the most powerful reason why it was so easy for me NOT to eat those delicious cupcakes a couple of weeks ago. I knew that I could have one if I wanted, but the thought of eating them stressed me out so much that I didn’t, even though I had plenty of calories left that day to afford one.

Every time I read a diet book that goes into scolding mode about what foods I can and cannot eat, it sends me into a binge. Even if I’m not planning on following that diet, I will start to WANT to eat foods that I never wanted to eat before. If I read a book that told me pickles were bad, I would suddenly want all sorts of pickles: dill, bread and butter, kosher, and sweet. You call it a pickle and I’d want it.

Won’t eat it is VERY different than CAN’T eat it. One is control imposed on me by another person. The other is a CHOICE. We all prefer to have choices. A prison is a prison, no matter how gilded the cage.

For me, eating healthy is about having infinite choices and fulfilling them. The minute I start limiting my choices, the animal within me rebels and craves only those foods I am denied. Ironically, I don’t need to eat foods to consider them one of my choices. I just need to give myself permission to eat them. All of this makes very little sense to me, but learning how to deal with the way my mind works will eventually set me free.

Photo via: Nicole Lee

You are looking at some of the most delicious cupcakes in Salt Lake City. They were provided by The Sweet Tooth Fairy at a geek event I went to a couple of weeks ago.

They were beautiful and lovely, but I had absolutely NO desire to eat them.

Surprising, really, considering my eating patterns, but they didn’t appeal to me at all.

That was the day that I realized that I don’t actually like cupcakes. It has taken me forty years to finally come to that conclusion. Sure, I like the flavor. I like the frosting. I like the cake.

It’s the cup that I don’t like.

Cupcakes are top heavy and awkward. I have to get frosting on my fingers while I try to take off the cupcake liner or I have to risk a bite of paper if I don’t remove it. The frosting is usually piled too high at the top to eat appropriately with the rest of the cake, so I end up with some bites with too much frosting and others without any. They are simply impossible to eat neatly.

When I attended that geek event in Salt Lake City, the delightful catering included platters and platters of gorgeous cupcakes. I looked at the table of food, and all I could do was stress out about how to eat one of those cupcakes. I was in a room full of people that I barely knew peppered with people who I knew really well who were desperate to introduce me to all of their friends and I was stressed out about a CUPCAKE!

In desperation, I decided not to eat.

Suddenly, the weight of all that beautiful catered food was lifted from my shoulders. All those people I was introduced to asked me if I had tried a cupcake and I said, “I’m not eating cupcakes today.” They accepted my words and most replied, “I shouldn’t be either.”

I watched them struggle with the cupcake liners and the frosting and the top heavy creaminess of it all and I breathed a sigh of relief instead of feeling left out.

This is AMAZING for me. It’s like one of those breakthroughs or A-Ha moments everybody talks about. Food stresses me out and sometimes it’s just easier to NOT EAT IT! If you had asked me that morning how to deal with the mess of eating a cupcake, I would have written you a bullet list on how to eat a cupcake without splurging too much or making your hands too messy. I wouldn’t have even considered not eating it. It just wasn’t an option

So, the answer to the question of how to eat a cupcake is: DON’T.

The simplicity of it all could just knock me over with a feather.

Photo via: Crystalyn Life Images

• RT @ddrdiva: GHR video here (thx @daniel_hautjobb) http://bit.ly/13fid4 they are much harder than they look! I can only do negs! #
• Not excited about this one 🙁 RT @ddrdiva: Trailer for Wii Sports Resort w/Motion Plus, coming 7/26 http://bit.ly/ggGHv #
• RT @motivation “It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.” – Garrison Keillor http://tqpage.com/25856 #

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I dare you to watch this video without wanting to get up and do something active.

There are a few particularly cool scenes:

• When he jumps into a moving car and gets into the driver’s seat.
• When he does a back flip off the back of a moving car.
• When he climbs up the light post just like the Cirque du Soleil people do in their show.
• When he jumps onto the car going right for him, bounces off it onto the wall and bounds past it to continue running.

The description of the video is humbly listed as:

Playing around with some new moves for 2009.

My description would have been.

Super-human feats of gymnastics! Do not try at home!

Next time you’re feeling a little down and not wanting to workout out, watch this quick video and get inspired to MOVE!!

• RT @ddrdiva: Trailer for “Your Shape” game for Wii: http://bit.ly/L2IVm #
• How does it work? RT @ddrdiva: http://twitpic.com/6gw27 – my homebrew glute ham raise #
• @arholtz UR right. I just can’t believe that Microsoft can write software that can tell my movements. Natal is no match for the Wii. #
• Radishes taste like the ground they’re grown in. RT @SproutCubed: Why does anyone grow radishes? They taste like poison. #

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