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

Back in February, I had a nasty case of food poisoning. It was like my digestive tract was at war with the rest of my body. I was hungry, but anything I ate was immediately expelled (from both sides). I could feel my entire digestive tract complain in pain from my throat to my colon.

In my fevered state, I imagined my digestive tract to be a completely other being inside of me just like the Trill in Star Trek. This portion of the episode, The Host, explains very quickly about the Trill:

The Trill are a joined species with a host and a symbiont. When Odon’s host body was injured in an attack, Dr. Crusher must implant the symbiont into Commander Riker. The symbiont controls Riker’s body and both consciousnesses live in the body together. Odon makes Riker do things that he normally wouldn’t do, like kiss Beverly Crusher.

In my fevered state, I realized that I have a symbiont: my digestive tract.

According to Wikipedia, my digestive system has a huge array of nerves that control it called the enteric nervous plexus. It has as many as 100,000,000 neurons. Now, that’s only a thousandth of the neurons that we have in our brains, but still, that’s a lot of brain matter for stomach.

So, my symbiont is like an animal inside of me. For all I know, long ago, we used to be two animals and now we exist as one, just like the Trill in Star Trek. With only one hundred million neurons, it’s a pretty DUMB animal, though.

After a couple of months of considering myself a joined species, I’ve had a few revelations. Tune in tomorrow to read all about them.

Here is a closeup of an old advertisement for Ayds Weight Loss Candy:

You can see the full ad here: Ayds Ad Jean Hunter: Click to see full size ad

The ad goes through the same story as every testimonial for any weight loss product I’ve ever read:

• A before and after photo with derogatory remarks about the before.
• A profession that the person had ALWAYS been fat.
• A series of confessions about the pain of being a fat person.
• More confessions about all the other plans, pills, and products that the person has tried.
• The incredible shame of being fat, especially in regard to family members: i.e. “My poor husband!”
• The gratitude of finding the miraculous product that made her slim.
• The joy of being slimmer than a past rival (sister, brother, friend, etc.).
• The act of trying on old clothes that used to fit.

It seems like ALL testimonials have most (if not all) of these ingredients. This advertisement is from 1969, but I remember reading testimonial ads like this in Seventeen Magazine when I was a teenager in the 80’s. I’ve even seen similar ads from the 1800’s. This is a formula that has been used to deceive us for a LONG time.

Ad via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Vintage campign for Ayds weight loss candy

You can read the full ad here: (more…)

Acai berries are in EVERYTHING lately, even Vitamin Water. I get at least fifty spam emails in my box every day for acai and weight loss. Acai berries are supposed to be chock-full of antioxidants, but do they help you lose weight? Not according to the Connecticut Attorney General.

• Consumers Warned of Web-Based Acai Scams

Acai began attracting attention in 2005 on the belief that its juice was especially high in antioxidants. In truth, acai juice has only middling levels of antioxidants less than that of Concord grape, blueberry, and black cherry juices, but more than cranberry, orange, and apple juices. Even so, the extent to which antioxidants by themselves promote health is a matter of some debate. No credible evidence suggests antioxidants promote weight loss.

Here is a list they gave of some of the questionable websites that promote acai:

• Oprah-best-acai.com
• OprahsAmazingDiet.com
• DrOzMiracle.com
• rachaelray.drozdiet-acaiberry.com

Oprah Winfrey, Mehmet Oz, and Rachael Ray have NOTHING to do with these sites and have all stated that they are not affiliated with them.

Worse still, they say that some of these companies lure you in with a “free” trial, take your credit card number and charge you monthly for pills that you no longer want to receive.

“There are no magical berries from the Brazilian rainforest that cure obesity only painfully real credit card charges and empty weight loss promises,” said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. “Aggressive Acai berry pitches on the Internet entice countless consumers into free trials promising weight loss, energy and detoxification. These claims are based on folklore, traditional remedies and outright fabrications unproven by real scientific evidence. In reality, consumers lose more money than weight after free trials transition into inescapable charges.”

Any company promising weight loss is suspect. Acai berries are no magic solution to lose weight and any company that says they are doesn’t have the medical data to support those claims right now, so stay away from them.

I found this question in the entry about Weight Watchers:

• Starling Fitness » Why I Don’t Trust Weight Watchers Points System

Laura,

Does anyone have ideas on how to get daily oils? Not sure how to sneak the oils in…ideas on what foods or supplements to take to get the daily oils?

Heidi

Heidi,

I talked about some ideas for getting your healthy oils here:

• Starling Fitness » Ask Laura: Why do we have to eat two tsp. of healthy oil?

Here are some of the recommendations I’ve heard:

• Cooking food in the oil
• Using it on toast instead of butter (canola is good for this one)
• Adding it to smoothies (I prefer flaxseed oil in my smoothies because of the interesting taste)
• Choosing oil on your sandwich at Subway (they use olive oil)
• Eating it straight from a spoon like medicine

I don’t recommend taking a spoonful of oil like medicine. It’s yummy fat! ENJOY it!!

Here are some recipes that I eat regularly where I add one of the healthy oils:

• Starling Fitness » Frozen Grapes: Healthy Diet Staple
• Starling Fitness » Easy Meals: Italian Beans: I add 1 teaspoon of olive oil in the bowl. It adds one WW Point to the total.
• Starling Fitness » Easy Meals: Mexi-Beans
• Starling Fitness » Toad in the Hole: I use 1 teaspoon of canola oil instead of the non-stick spray. It adds one WW Point to the meal.

As far as Weight Watchers is concerned, I’ve heard my leader say MANY times that oil supplements are NOT considered a replacement for the healthy oil requirement, so you can’t take a few flaxseed oil capsules and be done with it.

Why would you?

Adding healthy oil to your food makes it TASTE GOOD. Let yourself enjoy an egg fried in canola oil. Let yourself sop up every drop of that oil out of the pan with a piece of whole wheat bread. Let the artichokes bask in the glory of a teaspoon of olive oil. Enjoy the rich creaminess of a teaspoon of flaxseed oil in your smoothie.

Weight Watchers is all about eating healthy food. FOOD, not pills. Let yourself enjoy the additional fat in your diet. Your body needs it and so do your taste buds!

I found this advertisement from the 1920’s for The Weil Reducing Belt.

It reads:

Fat Men!
This new self-massaging belt not only makes you look thinner INSTANTLY – but quickly takes off rolls of excess fat.

Diet is weakening – drugs are dangerous – strenuous reducing exercises are liable to strain your heart. The only safe method of reducing is massage. This method sets up a vigorous circulation that seems to melt away the surplus fat. The Weil Reducing Belt made of special reducing rubber, produces exactly the same results as a skilled masseur, only quicker and cheaper. Every move you make causes the Weil Belt to gently massage your abdomen. Results are rapid because this belt works for you every second.

Fat Replaced by Normal Tissue

From 4 to 6 inches of flabby fat usually vanish in just a few weeks. Only solid, normal tissue remains. The Weil Reducing Belt is endorsed by physicians because it not only takes off fat, but helps correct stomach disorders, constipation, backache, shortness of breath and puts sagging internal organs back into place.

This ad might seem ludicrous and silly over eighty years later, but there are companies that are still selling this idea to this day:

• Starling Fitness » The Electric Corset: 1883 Is Very Similar to 2008

• Starling Fitness » Curves and Avon Embrace Quackery

Just like in 1920, you are unlikely to see any long term effects from a reducing belt, or trimming belt, or abs belt or anything that you put on your body. The only thing that will be lighter is your wallet.

Photo via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1920s ad for “fat men”

In what has become a silly extension of the worry about the environment, everyone is asking whether riding your bike to work is better for the environment than driving your car.

• Roger Kramer Cycling: The Blog Page

The study Nye speaks was written by Karl T. Ulrich of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and it’s titled “The Environment Paradox of Bicycling” (PDF file). In short, the study suggests there is an immediate energy savings by bicycle riding, since a cyclist is up to nine times more energy efficient than a single-occupant car. However, the study suggests cyclists increase their longevity by 10.6 days for every year of cycling. Because of that, they consume more energy over their lifetimes, thus doing more harm to the environment.

Which is more important: human life or the environment? If you really believe that the environment is more important than your own life, then you should commit suicide now. There are none of us with a carbon footprint of zero.

If it’s at all possible for you to ride your bike to work, you should DO it! It will help the environment in the short run and keep you alive in the long run. I’ve written about this in the past:

• 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

• Starling Fitness » You ARE Traffic

I found this advertisement for Quaker Puffed Wheat cereal from 1969:

It reads:

You can win the battle of the bulge.
Eat the 56 calorie cereal.
You don’t have to skip breakfast.
Just calories.
Quaker Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice have only 56 per bowl. A satisfying yet frugal way to start the day.
From your friends at Quaker.

In the days before nutrition facts, the statement of “56 calories per bowl” could mean almost anything. What size of bowl? Now that we have nutrition facts at our disposal, it’s VERY easy to see that Quaker wasn’t lying to us back in 1969.

You can have 1 and 1/4 cups of Puffed Wheat for only 55 calories, 0.3 g of fat and 1.4 g of fiber. With nutrition facts like that, Quaker Puffed Wheat is one of the better cereals to choose for breakfast.

Of course, The Battle of the Bulge is a war that not many of us are fighting now. I haven’t heard that phrase for a LONG time…

Photo via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1969 ad for low-cal puffed wheat cereal

I have been looking for a good iPhone application to keep track of my Weight Watchers Points for a long time. Weight Watchers Online has a page that works with the iPhone, but it is SEVERELY lacking in usability, so I kept looking.

Back when I had a Palm Treo, I used to keep track of my points using WWCalc. It was a GREAT program, but Weight Watchers shut them down. I used to wish that the programmer would alter his program so that it could just keep track of anything and allow me to put a formula of my own in it. That is EXACTLY what Edibles has done for me.

You can download Edibles for your iPhone here:

• Edibles – Diet Journal [iTunes Link]

Here is a detailed guide to setting up Edibles to work with Weight Watchers: (more…)

I’ve talked about Raw Food Vegans before, but here is some information that makes me think that maybe they are on to something.

• Rudd Sound Bites: There May Be More Links between Big Tobacco and Big Food than We Realize

There are many mixed messages about whether certain foods or food preparation methods also contribute to cancer risk. One substance that is particularly controversial is acrylamide. Acrylamide is found in both cigarette smoke and in food products produced by high-temperature cooking. Acrylamide has been found at especially high levels in potato chips and French fries. Rodent studies have shown that acrylamide exposure increases the risk of several types of cancer in the animals, but human studies are incomplete.

Here is more information about acrylamides:

• Acrylamide in Food and Cancer Risk – National Cancer Institute

How does cooking produce acrylamide?

Asparagine is an amino acid (a building block of proteins) that is found in many vegetables, with higher concentrations in some varieties of potatoes. When heated to high temperatures in the presence of certain sugars, asparagine can form acrylamide. High-temperature cooking methods, such as frying, baking, or broiling, have been found to produce acrylamide, while boiling and microwaving appear less likely to do so. Longer cooking times can also increase acrylamide production when the cooking temperature is above 120 degrees Celsius.

I still have my doubts that a raw food vegan diet is the best for humans, but maybe frying food isn’t the best way to cook. We already knew that, but it’s nice to know that we’re closer to the reason WHY.

For more information about the raw food diet:

• Starling Fitness » Raw Food Vegans Thin But Healthy
• Starling Fitness » Living Cuisine Raw Food Bar
• Starling Fitness » Diet Book Review: The Raw Truth
• Starling Fitness » Diet Book Review: The Raw Food Detox Diet
• Starling Fitness » Raw Food Enzymes and Quackwatch

This photo from I Can Has Cheezburger? made me smile the other day.

When I look at this, I realize how silly it is to look at models in fashion magazines and feel bad about my body.

That cat is adorable and I want to pick him up and nuzzle my face on his belly. Whether he’s that size or the size of the cat in the book, he’s still adorable.

That’s how we are as humans. No matter what size you are, you are adorable. There is someone out there who wants to pick you up and nuzzle their face into your belly, whether it’s flat as stone or soft and round.

You deserve to be loved no matter what size you are.