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

I am so inspired by this guy! Matt Diaz has lost 270 pounds! He is self-conscious about his excess skin, but I am truly inspired by him! You lost weight, man! Be PROUD of your body! You EARNED it!

I, too, have excess skin under my arms and lying flaccidly over my flatter stomach. I will never have a six pack. I will never be one of those girls to wear a mid-riff baring shirt, but it’s not out of shame. Even if I had always been thin, I wouldn’t have worn one of those shirts. I was never that comfortable with showing off my body. That’s WHY I ended up gaining so much weight. To protect myself.

Now that I’m all grown up, I can protect myself. I don’t need a layer of fat to keep the guys away. I can just calmly and gracefully let them down easily. I am completely unaffected by that loose skin flapping on my body because I lost weight to save my life, not to look sexy.

This video is funny.

THIS is why I workout at home…

This postcard from PostSecret broke my heart.

It reads:

I never gave anyone these because I thought I was fat.

When I saw these photos, I imagined the person who didn’t get them. There was SOMEONE in love with this girl. I don’t know who that person was, but they did not get the photo. That person wished that she would give them a photo. That person cried when the photos came out and didn’t get one because they believed that someone else got all the pictures instead of them hiding in a box somewhere.

If you think you’re fat, STOP DOING THIS! If you KNOW you’re fat, STOP DOING THIS! There is someone out there RIGHT NOW, who loves you. That person WANTS a photo of you in all your “fatness.” Whether your fatness is real or imagined, don’t let it stop you from getting the love you deserve. There is someone out there who wants to love you. Don’t disappoint them. Don’t push them away. Give them the photos.

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.

The only reason I know that this fruit stand was in a foreign country is because the newspaper the fruit is sitting on is in Spanish.

I believe I took this photo while we were on an excursion on a cruise. I vaguely remember eating fruit out of a plastic cup.

The funny thing is, when I remember all the cruises I’ve been on, I can hardly remember this glorious fruit stand. In fact, I remember very little of the food from the cruises. I ate constantly while I was on them, but the memories of the food are hazy and vague.

What I DO remember from the cruises was playing trivia and winning a trophy for it. I remember sitting on the balcony off our room, relaxing, reading and talking with my family. I remember swimming with manta rays in Cozumel.

I remember seeing whales in Cabo San Lucas.

I easily gained ten pounds on each cruise I went on, but I don’t remember the food at all. I’m going to learn from this. I’m going to remember ONE thing about eating on cruises: I’m not going to remember it, so I might as well eat as little as possible.

I was looking through some old photos and I found this one of myself.

I’ve talked about the Utah State Fair in the past here:

• Starling Fitness – I Was In No Mood To Eat One

The only reason I ever went to the Utah State Fair is staring you in the face right now. I went to eat. I wasn’t attracted by the cross-stitch or the leather work. I didn’t go to pet the goats (okay, maybe a little). I didn’t go for the cheesy vendors. I went for the FOOD.

Last September when I wrote that entry, I had no desire to go to the State Fair. Even now, looking at that picture, doesn’t make me salivate at the thought of corn dipped into lemon pepper butter. All I can see was what I was and how different than it is from now.

I don’t have a current picture in a similar outfit to show an “after” shot, but I am better physically.

Most importantly, I have my life back. I’m not spending all day of every day thinking about food, getting food, planning what I’m going to eat, exercising off food or trying not to eat it. I have so much extra time that I feel an incredible joy and gratefulness to Overeater’s Anonymous.

If you find that there are some events that you only attend because of the food, like I did with the Utah State Fair, then you might have an eating problem and Overeater’s Anonymous might help you. It sure helped me.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.

When I was doing the Color Run in Las Vegas last weekend, I ran right past it. “Glutton” the sign read:

I had no idea that they made a restaurant dedicated to my eating disorder. This is not a restaurant review and I’m sure they are a lovely restaurant with delicious food. That wasn’t the point.

The point was the sign. It said, “Glutton.”

Despite all my work in Overeater’s Anonymous, I still have the disease. I know this because I had been planning the binge I was going to go on after the run. I was literally thinking about which Las Vegas Buffet I was going to eat at when I saw that sign. Glutton? Why, yes. Yes, I am.

The truth of the matter is that whenever I do intense exercise like a 5K run, it makes me crave food. Intense exercise makes me want to binge. I know it’s good for me every once and a while, but I really think that I do better with walking, weight training and yoga. They just don’t seem to inspire fantasies about food the way an intense run does.

Am I still doing the Color Run in Salt Lake City? You betcha! Am I still training for it? Only once a week instead of 3-4 times a week. Am I going to eat at Glutton Restaurant? I don’t think I can. It just hits a little too close to home and the reality of my situation.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.

I had NO IDEA that a run could be so fun. Unlike the other races I’ve run, this one was dedicated to fun. It was awesome!

Amazingly, even though I only know about five people in the city of Las Vegas, I found a friend who I knew at the starting line. I was so lucky to find her and we ran the whole race together. It was amazing! Here she is, tossing a pink color packet. So beautiful!

It was an amazing experience, so much so that my husband decided to do the next one with me. We will be running the SLC Color Run on 08-22-15. If you’d like to run with us, our team name is Starling Fitness and you’ll save a few bucks off your entry fee.

• SLC Color Run 08-22-15

There are a ton more pictures after the break: (more…)

I was looking through my photos from a trip to Vegas a while ago and I found a picture of some beautiful desserts. I made them into a poster:

It reads:

Beautiful food isn’t for eating. It’s for looking at. Don’t get drawn into the trap!

I didn’t eat any of those desserts. I remember that trip and I was WAY too broke to spend eight dollars on a tiny dessert, so I just snapped a photo and went on my way. I remember feeling deprived at the time, but right now, I couldn’t care less. I wouldn’t have been able to remember how that dessert tasted if I could have afforded it, but I certainly would be regretting the extra fat it would have put on my body.

If I can remember this, it will help me the next time I feel deprived. There have been MANY times when I could afford the expensive dessert and I can’t remember what they tasted like. I don’t remember having a better time when I could afford the dessert than the time when I couldn’t.

Good times aren’t about the food I ate. They are about the people I spend them with.

Those desserts were beautiful, but beautiful food isn’t for eating. It’s for attracting customers… attracting consumers. The next time you’re tempted by some beautiful food in a glass case, remember that it’s not food for eating. It’s food for looking at.

I was looking through old photos a few days ago and I found one that surprised me. I still had the clothes I wore that day, so I put them on and snapped a picture for comparison. Since the clothes felt like they still fit, I thought there wouldn’t be much difference, but there definitely is. Click on the picture to see it full-sized.

I had snapped that picture because I really liked that outfit and thought it looked super cute. It DOES look super cute, actually. I took that photo on December 5, 2013. The after picture I took on Saturday, February 21, 2015. I found Overeater’s Anonymous in January of 2014, so this photo was right before it.

OA doesn’t like to post pictures like this without faces blotted out because they don’t want me to get a big head and they don’t want to compromise my anonymity. The truth is, however, just a photo of my hand holding the iPhone is enough to break my anonymity. No one else on the planet has a hand like mine. As I have said before, it’s not possible to be anonymous.

More importantly, so many photos like these are FAKE. Either they are pictures of two different girls or they are highly altered. Showing my face proves that it’s me in both pictures. I tried to alter the photo only enough to put in a watermark and put them next to each other, but it’s obvious that there has been no alteration. You just can’t fake this difference.

Is this picture amazing? No. I am only halfway through my journey and I still have a long way to go. I wanted to post it here so that you would have hope. Hope that there is something out there that can help you stop the cravings. Help you stop the binges.

If you feel like you’re too old, you’re not. I am forty-five years old. If you feel like you need to exercise like a crazy woman to lose weight, you don’t. I walked the dog twenty minutes a day. That’s about it. If you feel like you need to starve, you don’t. I never once felt like I was starving.

All you need to do is be willing to TELL THE TRUTH. Tell the truth to yourself, your sponsor, your OA group. Get yourself to an OA meeting. Keep going back. Do everything your sponsor tells you as quickly and efficiently as possible and you will see results.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.

I love this quote:

It reads:

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

• Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The thing that has helped me refrain from eating the most has been that inner tranquility. I find it almost daily in a variety of ways:

• Reading uplifting literature
• Meditation
• Talking to others who are suffering from eating disorders
• Going to Overeater’s Anonymous Meetings
• Exercise
• Petting my cat or dog
• Listening to inspirational music

If you can give your brain a dose of those feel-good chemicals every day without eating, then you have learned the secret to living a healthy and happy life. Take some time today to get that dose of good feelings from something other than food.

Overeater’s Anonymous does not endorse anything on this entry or blog. I speak only of my personal experience and not for OA as a whole.