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

A couple of weeks ago, US Weekly had a little blurb about stars and how they keep their figures. You can see it here:

When are we going to stop this madness? People are LITERALLY starving themselves in order to keep their jobs in the entertainment industry. Here are the quotes:

Elizabeth Hurley: “I swear by almost nothing for breakfast. Mugs of hot water!”

Amanda Seyfried: “[My raw food diet is] sort of awful. Yesterday for lunch? Spinach… and some seeds.”

Kristin Bauer: “The other day I realized as long as I’m in this business, I’m going to be hungry.”

Julianne Moore: “Boring diet of, essentially, yogurt and breakfast cereal and granola bars. I hate dieting. I’m hungry all the time.”

The next time you compare your body to an actress, remember what these women said and repeat this mantra:

What I see isn’t always what I get on TV and in ads. It takes a lot of airbrushing, dieting, money and work to look like that.

It’s time we stop treating our bodies like their the enemy and give them what they need: healthy food, vigorous exercise and plenty of sleep.

This postcard from PostSecret came up a couple of weeks ago while I was out of town. It made me sad and angry to see it.

It reads:

Pretty please loose weight so my family can love you the way I do!

Firstly, I just wanted to smack the author of the secret upside the head. If you want someone to weigh less, you want them to LOSE weight, not LOOSE weight. Loose weight suggests that the fat is somehow not tight on the body. Maybe your beloved should break up with you just because you’re not smart enough to know the difference.

Secondly, if you loved them just the way they are, it wouldn’t matter what your family thought. Deep down inside, you’ll only love them if they get thin like you think they should be.

If you find yourself in this position, dump the person asking you to “loose” weight. They’ll never be happy no matter how thin you become. If you want to get healthy for yourself, that’s great. If you want to get healthy so you’ll live longer and be able to spend more time with your loved ones, that’s even better. If you want to lose weight just to earn love from the unworthy, then run away as fast as you can.

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.

I want to give a shout-out to Seventeen Magazine for their Body Peace Treaty. You can see it here:

You can read more inspiration here:

• Jess Weiner Body Peace Blog – Positive Body Image Advice for Teens – Seventeen

They were even featured on Huge (one of the best shows this summer):

Update 09-15-10: Here are some screenshots from Huge, where they sign the Body Peace Treaty.

I was looking through my old Seventeen magazines from the 80’s and I found this article in the November 1987 issue about Aerobikata. Actress, Christine Harnos, demonstrates the cool new workout craze from New York that was supposed to be a mixture of aerobics and karate.

Christine Harnos was best known for her part playing Jennifer Greene, the wife of Mark Greene on ER. The only thing I’ve seen her in was a guest spot on Star Trek: Voyager. It’s good to know that she went on to bigger and better things than Aerobikata.

The “workout craze” however doesn’t seem to exist on the Internet. Far from Japanese, the word aerobikata is Finnish and simply means “to do aerobics.”

• aerobikata – Wiktionary

As non-existent as the craze may have been, the moves shown in the magazine are pretty interesting and will probably get your heart rate going if you give them a try.

I especially like number 11. It’s the perfect depiction of a hamstring/calf stretch as you’ll ever see. Keep your back straight and you should feel the stretch in your straightened leg.

Whenever I read the fitness magazines of today, I’m reminded of articles like these from twenty years ago. Sure, it might look like the new fitness craze now, but in twenty years, it’ll be as silly as Aerobikata is today.