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

A while ago, I wrote an entry called Why Do Skinny People Hate Fat People? and the crux of my argument was that people DON’T hate fat people.

Then the comments began piling up:

As a firefighter, I am called upon almost daily to help lift obese people who have just got to low to the ground that they cannot get themselves up. No other reason except they are just to big to lift themselves. I tore out a rotator on one of these lifts, and had to have sugary to get it fixed.

I’m sorry, fat people are disgusting. Humans were not intended to carry so much weight on their bodies. It sickens me to see so many Americans defending their fatness and acting as if it is natural. As the firefighter mentioned earlier, they are stressing our healthcare system, costing us billions of dollars, and lowering the quality of life for millions of people.

I wouldn’t know, but I guess it’s the shame of being fat that causes fat people to make up so many excuses for their indulgent lifestyles and excessive critical mass. The reason why skinny, athletic, muscular people all hate fat people is because you constantly villainize every healthy group of individuals in a desperate attempt to justify your gluttonous lifestyle and resultant unattractive and unhealthy physique.

Funny how the fatty fat mc lardos on here feel it necessary to write an essay length discourse explaining how THEY are the ones who are truly happy and how healthy people are secretly miserable underneath their seemingly more happy and fulfilling lives.

Fat people disgust me. Like mentioned above, our bodies were not built to hold that much excess. People say I’m judgemental and stereotypical when it comes to stuff like this. And I am. I judge you because you are destroying your body; I stereotype you because every single fat person that walks the earth is too lazy to become healthy.

This is just a small sampling of the comments. That entry has MANY comments on this subject and I actually deleted a lot of the really rude ones. So, the verdict is out.

Skinny people DO hate fat people, but why?!

Gluttony Is A Sin

We can thank the 4th century monk, Evagrius Ponticus, for devising the Seven Deadly Sins and including gluttony on the list (kind of an easy choice for such a skinny guy). From that day, being overweight became an undesirable thing. There are people who are atheists who still staunchly believe that gluttony is a sin. THAT’S how ingrained this idea is in our collective unconscious.

Ironically, the idea that gluttony is a bad thing has some valid points. I wrote about it here:

• Starling Fitness » St. Thomas Aquinas And Gluttony

There is an assumption that fat people are gluttonous. While overeating CAN contribute to obesity, that’s not necessarily the case.

Fat People Are Lazy

I don’t know how the idea that fat people are lazy came about. Even scientific explanations to the causes of obesity link it to sedentary lifestyle. There is a strong correlation to the fact that if people exercise more, they lose weight, so people tend to assume that those who are overweight don’t exercise. This assumption is generalized into the idea that fat people are lazy. It’s not necessarily true, but that’s what people believe.

Burden to Society

Many of the comments I received mentioned that fat people are a burden to society. The most notable was the firefighter complaining about lifting overweight people who have fallen, yet he probably never mentioned the aged who are in the same situation. Society says it’s alright to hate fat people, but not the elderly, so he doesn’t feel put upon by the old people who have fallen and can’t get up.

Others feel that fat people have more medical bills and burden society in that manner. Still others feel that just having to look at fat people is a burden. They say that fat people “cost us billions of dollars.”

It’s Kinda Gross, Dude

As much as I don’t like to admit it, it’s hard to deny that severe obesity is kind of gross. It affects our disgust reaction on a guttural level. I hate to say it, but I have had that reaction to photographs of fat people, despite my belief in fat acceptance. After reading and deleting hundreds of comments saying just that, it was a shocking surprise to me that so many people have this response.

This might not be something that is in our control. The feeling of revulsion could be a response deep down in our genes telling us that mating with an overweight person would not produce healthy offspring. This idea has been argued by scientists, but no proof of it has been posited.

The hard truth, however, is that some people are disgusted by the obese.

It’s Not Healthy

The ones who won’t say these other things to your face will ALWAYS fall back on the fact that being overweight isn’t healthy. I know that it’s more difficult for me to climb stairs. I know that I don’t feel as well as I did when I was close to my goal weight. I cannot argue with these people. I don’t think being overweight is healthy, either.

So, They Hate Me…

The HONEST truth is, there are people out there who hate fat people. They HATE them. They write scathing comments extolling how MUCH they hate them. They list their reasons with poor grammar and atrocious spelling, but the truth of the matter is, they hate fat people.

These people are making decisions about you without even getting to know you. They might even be in positions of power over you. They could be your teachers, advisors, bosses or peers. They decide things about you just by looking at you.

Sometimes, whether you’re fat or thin can decide your success. This is a hard truth and I can’t make it any softer. With these people, you’ll have to work ten times harder to prove you’re not lazy. You can never have a sick day without being considered a burden to the group. You will never be considered a viable love interest.

Unless you lose weight…

You can’t change their minds. I believe in Fat Acceptance, but it’s not working. These people are vitriolic and adamant in their hate and sometimes they are in charge.

There are only two ways to deal with these kinds of people: cut them out of your life or lose weight. More importantly, you never know WHO these people are. Since they are only willing to say these horrible things when they are anonymous, it’s nearly impossible to know if a person who has significant control of your life is a person who HATES fat people.

I’ve never known a better reason to lose weight. They are out there, judging you and some of them control your destiny. Don’t give them an excuse to count you out.

I saw Disfigured a few months ago and it messed me up. It’s the story of a friendship between an obese woman, Lydia, and an anorexic woman, Darcy. They meet when Darcy attends a Fat Acceptance group only to encounter the kind of prejudice and rejection that overweight people receive every day. Lydia is the only one willing to give Darcy a chance at friendship and healing. Their friendship takes a strange turn, however, when Lydia asks Darcy for “anorexia lessons.”

You can see the trailer for Disfigured here:

Anyone who has ever wished they could get anorexia has thought about it. When Lydia asked Darcy for “anorexia lessons,” I sat there in awe of it. Yes! I had always wanted someone to teach me how to get anorexia. If I had to have an eating disorder, why couldn’t it be the popular one?

Lydia and Darcy’s experiment goes wrong, of course, because it’s a story about loving yourself at any size, but that isn’t what messed me up. What really screwed me up and set my healthy eating back for at least a month was Darcy’s view of the world.

There is a scene when Darcy is giving Lydia anorexia lessons. They are sitting in the park, watching girls walk by and Darcy is ruthlessly commenting on their bodies. Any little flaws, whether they be muffin tops or minor bulges, are pointed out and criticized by Darcy in order to get Lydia into the anorexic frame of mind.

This is how it is. This is blood sport.

It made me think that if I were to get to my goal weight, I might become one of those skinny people who hate fat people. I didn’t want to be that judgmental person that Darcy was and it took me a while to realize that I wouldn’t become that person, but I have to tell you there was a lot of bingeing before I got to that point.

It was a good movie and it had a great message, but it messed me up when I saw it.

If you haven’t picked up the December issue of O Magazine, I highly recommend it for ONE article. The article is called, “The Fat Fight” and it’s on page 205 and it chronicles the story of a mother, Robin, and her daughter, Jess.

Robin Marantz Henig starts the article, telling her side of the story. She was a health and fitness writer while her daughter was growing up. When Jess was nine months old, a stranger made an off-handed comment about Robin’s baby, which turned into Robin’s obsession with making her daughter thin and acceptable in her mind. From the beginning paragraph, when Robin describes her daughter belly-dancing, she just CAN’T stop herself from demeaning her.

She wore a costume of bright blue and a gold hip scarf with jiggling coins. Her midriff – also jiggling – was bare.

She goes on to pay lip service to the dance by calling it graceful, but I can tell that the “jiggling” belly was the first thing on her mind. From the tone of Robin’s side of the story, you might think that it was all a misunderstanding on her daughter’s side, but one paragraph shows that Robin is still trying to spare her daughter the “pain” of being fat.

When she was 16, Jess sat me down one night and told me she’d been bulimic for years.

That was a VERY brave thing for Jess to do. I never did tell my grandmother about my eating disorder spawned by her desperate attempts to spare me the pain of being fat.

My first thought was she couldn’t be [bulimic], or she wouldn’t be so fat.

When I read that I KNEW with a capital “K” that poor Jess had experienced all that I had, but unlike me, she didn’t have a mother to run home to who loved her just the way she was.

When I read Jess’ side of the story, however, I learned that it was MUCH worse.

When I was 6, my mother, a journalist, wrote an article for Woman’s Day called “Kids Get Fat Because They Eat Too Much… and Other Myths About Overweight Children.” Under the main bar was a sidebar about how she’d turned me from a slightly chubby 4-year-old into a slightly less chubby 6-year-old… by feeding me less.

Let’s be honest. It wasn’t by “feeding her less.” It was by STARVING her. Just like when my grandma fed me 600 calories a day, Robin was starving her daughter because some random woman had said, “I love fat babies,” when Jess was nine months old.

This was typical. When Mom wrote about children and health, I appeared in the role of Fat Kid Saved by Diet or Exercise.

Not only was Robin mistreating her child, she wrote about it regularly for women’s magazines. The kind of magazines that my grandma read. Not only did she starve her own daughter, she recommended the similar treatment of children all over the nation. Maybe even including me.

Somehow the two of them have mended their “fractious mother-daughter relationship,” but I have no sympathy or clemency for Robin. No matter how much she thinks she has changed and accepted her daughter for the way she is, there is monster lurking in there who will never be satisfied, even if Jess were to wither away to a wisp of herself.

Believe me, I know this because I was a wisp of myself when I was 17 years old and my grandparents never accepted me. In their minds, I ALWAYS needed to lose weight. Even as an adult, when I got down to a healthy weight for my height, my grandpa never mentioned anything about my weight loss. Instead, he recommended that I go to Weight Watchers like his friend had done.

There is no satisfying beasts like Robin and my grandparents. Sure, they love us, in their way. They think that the constant negative comments about our bodies will somehow spare us pain, never realizing that the only people causing us pain about our bodies are THEM.

If you have a person like this in your life, I doubt you will ever be able to have a civil conversation about weight. Even if you think you’ve made a breakthrough with them, like Jess and Robin, know that it’s just a truce, not a victory. You will have to find someone different for support with your health and fitness because you can never depend on them to be helpful without bringing up all that pain from the past.

I got this comic in an email from Mike’s aunt.

Disfigurement from liposuction is a very REAL result, but having scars and misshapen skin isn’t considered a medical risk. Here is some more information from Discovery Health’s website:

• Liposuction Risk : Risks of Liposuction : Discovery Health

Whether reported or not, liposuction problems are real enough — though some, such as wavy or uneven skin after fat removal, are not medically serious.

Considering the risk of dying from plastic surgery (like Kanye West’s mother did), liposuction doesn’t seem worth the risk. When you add the chance of being disfigured, I’m surprised how many people are willing to have the procedure.

The weather has slid into winter this week and I just told Jen that I wasn’t willing to go on our weekly walks until it warms up again. With a foot of snow and temperatures in the teens this week, she didn’t blame me.

Instead of reverting to the trusty treadmill, Jason is hitting the slick sidewalks. Here are his tips for winter running.

• Jason Learns to Draw: Running Hacks

I really like this tip:

Use old cotton socks as mittens.

This was a tip I got recently from one of my ol’ high-school teachers. I was skeptical, but it works! A sock keeps your hands warmer than the cotton gloves that have fingers, but breathes enough so that your hands don’t get too sweaty.

Personally, this is the time of the year when I LOVE my treadmill. While the weather rages its worst outside, I can enjoy a workout without risk of frostbite. I miss the scenery, though, so I better pull out all of my Starling Fitness Walking DVDs so I can enjoy a little outdoors, even though I’m indoors.

• ran 0.51 mi on 12/7/2009 at 12:43 PM with a pace of 28'44"/mi http://bit.ly/8TOPO4 #
• ran 1.5 mi on 12/4/2009 at 10:38 AM with a pace of 20'06"/mi http://bit.ly/8ndB7V #
• ran 0.23 mi on 12/2/2009 at 7:06 PM with a pace of 1:42'43"/mi http://bit.ly/7bkZCM #
• ran 0.86 mi on 11/29/2009 at 7:35 PM with a pace of 28'04"/mi http://bit.ly/8Qp4tw/?sitesrc=twit_ab_plus #

If you are tempted to eat some McDonald’s food, here are a couple of videos that might put you off your Big Mac.

This first video is of Morgan Spurlock, testing what McDonald’s food looks like when you just leave it to rot. ALL food looks disgusting when it is rotting, but if you’re tempted by a Quarter Pounder, this might change your mind.

I wouldn’t put it past Spurlock to have switched out those fries to make us believe that they lasted that long without decay. Other people have tried this experiment as well and have gotten VERY different results.

Still gross, though. McDonald’s food isn’t any worse than other food. The fact that they are a little slower to grow mold and decay actually points to a cleanlier cooking environment and lack of moisture in the food.

However, if you’re tempted to eat a Big Mac when it isn’t part of your program, watching these videos might give you the strength to abstain.

I am swimming in nostalgia. I found Mickey Mouse’s Splashdance album on Amazon’s MP3 downloads. My sister, Stacey, and I listened to that album SO many times. I could almost sing all the songs by heart.

I can’t express how much this album means to me. This song, You Can Always Be Number One, sounds like an ABBA rip off. Sometimes I find myself singing it to myself, especially when I’m not doing well in some sport I’m trying. You can hear the song here:

The lyrics to the chorus are SO good:

You can always be number one.
You can always be a winner.
Even if you’ve played the game for years
And you play like a beginner.

You can always be number one.
Let Goofy show you how.
Don’t hide your face when you miss a point.
Get up and take a bow.

The whole idea of the song is that trying to play a sport and failing is WAY better than never trying. Because of this song, I have always been willing to try things. Even when I’m falling down, over and over, I remember Goofy and this song and keep trying.

This song was the theme song for Sport Goofy, here are the closing credits that include that song.

Sport Goofy was a series of cartoons that Disney did. Goofy would try a sport, have clumsy problems, but still try. Here is a good example in which Goofy buys a home gym.

Goofy just keeps on trying, no matter what happens. Thanks, Disney, for keeping me willing to try anything no matter how clumsy I am. Trying and failing is ALWAYS better than never trying at all.

Not since Raymond Raving Rabbids have my arms hurts so much. Last weekend while we were out shopping, Mike and I bought a little gift for ourselves, Toy Story Mania! for the Wii.

I wouldn’t classify it as an exergame, but it’s so addictively fun that Mike and I played well past the point of pain. I wanted to play more, but my arms couldn’t take anymore pointing, shooting, twirling or shaking. Here’s a video showing some highlights from the game.

This commercial is a little misleading because it shows the entire family of four playing with 3D glasses on, but the game only comes with two sets of glasses. Maybe if you buy the game twice, the whole family can play. Or, you can just swipe the glasses from your Monsters Vs. Aliens 3D DVD. They’ll work just fine.

More importantly, Mike and I haven’t been able to find the 3D games yet. Honestly, the user interface leaves a little to be desired, but the game is so addictive that we muscled past the difficulty of learning how to navigate the menus.

I was hoping it was as fun as riding the Toy Story Midway Mania ride at Disney’s California Adventure. If you’ve never been on that ride, then here is a walkthrough the Disney World version to introduce you to it. This video is LONG because it shows the walk through the line (past Mr. Potato Head) and the entire ride. Fast forward to 5:50 to see the game part of the video.

The video game is actually BETTER than the ride at Disneyland because you can have as many tries as you need to get it right. Each game has a series of goals that you should achieve (i.e. breaking several submarine plates or hitting the golden plate on the airplane), so working on those goals together with your partner is fun. You also have individual scores, so you can beat your friend as well as work with them to achieve your goals.

The closest to exergaming that Toy Story Mania came to was the game with Hamm (the pig) where you are supposed to stand up and do what he does. Unfortunately, he’s a pig and it was VERY difficult to realize what he was doing. They should have used Jesse, Buzz or Woody for that game so we could visualize what they wanted. Let’s be honest. When a pig does jumping jacks, it does NOT look like jumping jacks.

Mike and I have LOVED this game and we’re eagerly awaiting the day that they come out with a Buzz Lightyear game.

Back in 2005, I stumbled upon a method of eating that really helped me lose weight. It was called the Zig Zag Diet.

• Starling Fitness » The Zig Zag Diet

After nearly four years, it has finally been proven in a medical study that the Zig Zag diet is effective. They took 16 people and had them eat 25% of daily caloric needs on the every other day and whatever food they wanted to eat on the other days.

Here is a link to the abstract from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

• Short-term modified alternate-day fasting: a novel dietary strategy for weight loss and cardioprotection in obese adults — Varady et al. 90 (5): 1138 — American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

Dietary adherence remained high throughout the controlled food intake phase (days adherent: 86%) and the self-selected food intake phase (days adherent: 89%). The rate of weight loss remained constant during controlled food intake (0.67 ± 0.1 kg/wk) and self-selected food intake phases (0.68 ± 0.1 kg/wk). Body weight decreased (P < 0.001) by 5.6 ± 1.0 kg (5.8 ± 1.1%) after 8 wk of diet. Percentage body fat decreased (P < 0.01) from 45 ± 2% to 42 ± 2%. Total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triacylglycerol concentrations decreased (P < 0.01) by 21 ± 4%, 25 ± 10%, and 32 ± 6%, respectively, after 8 wk of ADF, whereas HDL cholesterol remained unchanged. Systolic blood pressure decreased (P < 0.05) from 124 ± 5 to 116 ± 3 mm Hg.

All of the results are in metric, so here are the facts:

• People were able to stick to the diet 86% of the time on the calorie restricted days and 89% of the time on unrestricted days. This is REALLY important because a diet that is hard to stay on isn’t worth it.

• They lost weight EVERY week at a rate of 1.5 pounds a week.

• After eight weeks, they lost a total of 12.3 pounds and their percentage of body fat went from 45% to 42%.

• After eight weeks, their cholesterol levels decreased by 21 points.

• After eight weeks, their systolic blood pressure decreased from 124 to 116.

When I followed the Zig Zag Diet, it wasn’t as restrictive and I lost weight, but I did heavy exercise for an hour on the non-restrictive days. This plan severely limits the calories on the fasting day, but doesn’t put limits on the other days, so it sounds like it would be a plan I could follow. I’m glad to know that there is some medical proof that Zig Zagging works.

Via: Diet Blog: On-Off Fasting: Does It Work?