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

• RT @motivation “Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.” – Mason Cooley http://tqpage.com/33421 #

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Watermelon has been in my grocery store all winter this year, but the one that I bought didn’t taste right. Not to mention the fact that it cost about three times what it would have cost me in the summer. So, I’ve been waiting for watermelon season and it’s finally here!

Watermelon is a great, low calorie treat. It’s only 46 calories for a full cup. You can have two servings of fruit for less than fifty calories, so it’s a great food value.

It’s also very thirst quenching. Unlike the other melons, watermelon bursts with water and juice in your mouth. That’s why I love to eat watermelon at a picnic. By the time the Utah sun has bled me dry of moisture, I’m ready for a huge slice of watermelon to quench my thirst.

Here is a great video from Photoweborama on how to cut a watermelon:

Personally, I like watermelon with the rind, so I have a handle for the food. This video shows you how to cut a watermelon for the kids.

I can just imagine taking one of those large slices and eating it all the way through. Drops of juice are on my cheeks where they hit the side of the rind. I love to eat right through the white rind and enjoy the slightly sour taste in contrast to the extra sweet pulp.

This summer jump right into watermelon season with both feet and enjoy!

This photo of a Dr. Pepper advertisement from 1939 surprised me.

The advertisement says:

When you drink a Dr. Pepper

You drink a bite to eat

It’s a surprising bit of honest advertisement. A can of Dr. Pepper is 156 calories, so it’s as much calories as an apple and a bit of cheese. Of course, if you eat the apple and cheese, you won’t be hungry again in two hours, but honestly, Dr. Pepper WANTED you to be hungry again in two hours.

In fact, they built an entire advertising campaign around it. If you notice on that advertisement, there is a clock with the numbers 10, 2 and 4 highlighted. In fact, I own a Dr. Pepper clock with those numbers highlighted as well.

Their marketing campaign suggested that at 10 am, 2 pm and 4pm, you should have a Dr. Pepper. If you were to add three cans of soda to your diet every day, that’s an extra 468 calories a day, meaning an extra 3276 calories a week. That’s a weight gain of almost a pound a week, just from soda.

Back in 1939, most people didn’t need to worry about getting fat. They were too busy trying to get enough calories to maintain weight, but now, that Dr. Pepper slogan is ominous.

Next time you’re tempted to get a Big Gulp, remember the Dr. Pepper slogan:

When you drink a soda, you drink a bite to eat.

Wouldn’t you rather just have a bite to eat?

It is finally Farmer’s Market season here in Utah. Every Saturday at Pioneer Park, they have a Farmer’s Market with tons of wonderful food just for me!

I love to go to the Farmer’s Market for a lot of reasons:

• The food is CHEAP: This is the main reason that I go to the farmer’s market. Compared to fresh fruits and veggies at the grocery store, the food is very cheap. Sometimes I feel guilty because the farmers are asking so little for the yummy food.

• The food is FRESH: A lot of times when I buy produce at the grocery store, it goes bad within a day or two because it has been sitting at the store for so long. The fruits and veggies that I buy at the farmer’s market tend to last longer than the produce that I buy at the grocery store.

• The food is YUMMY: I don’t know why produce that I buy at the farmer’s market tastes better to me. Especially the tomatoes, taste just like the tomatoes that my grandpa grew in his garden. I’ve never been able to get that taste from a grocery store tomato, even at Whole Foods. I think part of the reason the food tastes better to me is because I saw the person who grew and picked it. I gave them money and they put it into a bag for me. I know that shouldn’t make food taste better, but it DOES.

• I like to take pictures: The farmer’s market is a place where there are tons of interesting people and colorful food. I love to take photos there.

Here are some tips to make your farmer’s market trip hassle-free:

• Bring cash: I use my debit card EVERYWHERE, so it’s a bit of a surprise when I actually need to use dollar bills to buy something. The farmer’s market is one of those places. Make sure you get plenty of cash in small bills so it’s easy to buy what you want.

• Bring a basket or canvas bag: A lot of us are used to bringing our own bags into the grocery store so we can get a discount (or to save the environment), but when I first went to the farmer’s market, I wasn’t in that habit. Hardly any of the vendors had bags to put my fruit and veggies in, so I ended up carrying food in my shirt to the car, embarrassed at my tummy for all to see. Make sure you bring something to carry what you buy.

• Expect to talk: At the grocery store, I’m able to just run in, get what I want and leave. Sometimes, I don’t even deal with a clerk because I go through the self-checkout line. At the farmer’s market, however, you end up talking to everyone. If you want tomatoes, pears and peppers, you’re going to end up talking to at least three farmers unless you’re lucky enough to find one that sells all three. The farmer’s market is a community thing, you can’t escape it without talking to someone.

There are plenty of farmer’s markets this time of the year. You can find one in your state here:

• AMS at USDA – Farmers Markets Query Page

I wish we had farmer’s markets all year here in Utah, but they will close up shop in September, so I have to enjoy them while they are here. Next weekend, make sure you get out of your house early and hit your local farmer’s market for some fresh fruit and veggies.

• RT @motivation: “The body is a sacred garment.” – Martha Graham http://tqpage.com/1493 #

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I know I should eat more fish because it’s protein that’s low in calories and has some cool fat in it (omega-3) that’s supposed to be super healthy. I KNOW this, but I haven’t really ever made it a habit in my life. I can’t even say that I eat fish more than once a month.

Part of the reason is that fish is difficult. Sure, canned tuna is easy, but after a summer of eating it almost every day, I have a hard time eating it more often than once a month. Frozen fish is so variable. Sometimes it tastes delicious, other times it tastes like fish long gone bad.

Fresh fish is even more difficult. Seeing heads and fins and eyes pretty much grosses me out. Oh yeah, and there are BONES. I found this video teaching me how to eat fish with bones in it, but the head of the fish just made me queasy.

Dining Etiquette: How To Eat Fish On The Bone

So, what am I to do? How do I get past all of these excuses? They are just excuses, I realize and I need to just get over them, so here’s my plan for eating fish at least once a week.

• Flavored Tuna: Lately, I’ve been enjoying the Starkist Hickory Smoked Tuna. Starkist makes lots of flavors including Lemon Pepper and Sweet & Spicy. These different flavors make it easier for me to eat tuna regularly.

• Frozen Cod Fillets: I haven’t been able to find these consistently at the grocery store, but when I do, I stock up. I have never had a frozen cod fillet that tastes really fishy. I can’t say the same for salmon or halibut. I love the buttery flavor of cod and if I defrost the fillet in the microwave for a minute and then put it on my George Foreman Grill, it turns out absolutely delicious without having to add any fat or butter.

• Salmon Burgers: I have found salmon burgers at Whole Foods and they are super delicious. I talked about them before: Starling Fitness » Health Food Stores Have Tasty Meat

I’m sick of letting excuses come between me and healthy eating, so I have made a plan to add fish to my diet at least once a week. If you have any other ideas on what I can do to make it work, please leave me a comment.

• Can’t wait for the farmer’s market to open up. Two more weeks! #

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Here is an interesting video from a college student about the Freshman Fifteen:

He takes you on a video tour of the student cafeteria at his school. The video pans over all the food and he says, “This is why I’m fat.”

I don’t like concepts like The Freshman Fifteen. It makes it seem like an inevitable outcome. Naming it like that makes it feel like it’s a natural part of growing up. I didn’t gain fifteen pounds when I started college. It took me three years to gain about twenty pounds, but I didn’t leave home to go to school. I was still living with my parents at the time. It wasn’t until I got married that my weight ballooned. Do I blame Mike for gaining that weight? No. Should students blame the cafeteria when they gain weight? Again, NO.

It’s not the food’s fault if I gain weight.

It’s possible to eat healthy and go to college. It’s possible to eat healthy and leave home for the first time. It’s possible to eat healthy and be a newlywed. Just like with every other aspect of my life, I need to be CONSCIOUS of what I’m eating, whether it’s in an attempt to avoid the Freshman Fifteen or the Middle Age Spread.

Swimsuit season is nearly upon us. If you are thinking that you’ll just forget about getting a suit this year, go read last year’s series starting with this one:

• Starling Fitness » Get Into That Swimsuit This Summer: Week 1

Why bother?

I don’t know about you, but too many summers of lost opportunities have gone by for me. I refused to participate in activities that I really wanted because I was “too fat.” Honestly, if I had found a swimsuit that I loved and enjoyed, I might have been more willing to participate.

If I had lived with that attitude my whole life, there are a myriad of wonderful experiences that I would have never had, like snorkeling in Hawaii.

I wrote an entire series meant to get you back into a swimsuit and feeling good about it. You can see all the episodes here:

• Starling Fitness » Get Into That Swimsuit This Summer: Week 2
• Starling Fitness » Get Into That Swimsuit This Summer: Week 3
• Starling Fitness » Get Into That Swimsuit This Summer: Week 4
• Starling Fitness » Get Into That Swimsuit This Summer: Week 5

Photo Via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Swimsuits for sale in the 1972 Sears catalog

I found Beeble Fitness a while ago and completely forgot to tell you about it. It’s a great website that has tons of little videos and descriptions to tell you how to do exercises properly. Form is extremely important when you are exercising because if you do everything correctly, you are less likely to get injured. Beeble Fitness has tons of little videos to show you proper form. For example, here is a link to only ONE of their exercises, the squat.

• Learn how to do the Squat – Body Weight exercise with videos, muscle pictures and instructions

It’s really easy to do the squat incorrectly, so Beeble Fitness has a large list of to do’s and NOT to do’s. I also love the little video showing you exactly how to do it. Next time you read about a workout and you’re unsure of how to do the exercise, head on over to Beeble Fitness and see if they have a video for that particular exercise. It helps me so much to have a clear visual example.