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

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.

I love this commercial that portrays a lovely solution to the Internet Rage:

I wish sugar water could fix all that stuff, but it won’t, The song, however, might. I added it to my Workout Playlist and it makes me all kinds of happy.

• Show Me Love – Hundred Waters – iTunes Link
• Show Me Love – Hundred Waters – Amazon Link

I adore the lyrics to this song:

Though I may make mistakes

Don’t let me show ugliness

Though I know I can hate

And don’t let me show evil

Though it might be all I take

Show me love

Don’t let me think weakly

Though I know that I can break

Keep me away from apathy

While I am still awake

And don’t let me think too long

Of the one I’m bound to face

I had heard that Beyonce started a Vegan Meal Delivery service called 22 Days Nutrition. I looked at it and decided that even though it’s gluten-free, it wasn’t the kind of thing that would work for me.

What REALLY motivated me was this video from her YouTube feed, called 7/11:

You can buy the song here:

• 7/11 – Beyonce – iTunes Link
• 7/11 – Beyonce – Amazon.com Link

It’s such a fun and free-spirited video of her dancing in various stages of lazy day dress that I loved it. Not since Single Ladies, have I wanted to learn the dance moves to a video so much. With all the “Smack it in the air,” I just had to download the song. I’m still trying to talk on my foot like a phone. Gotta practice some yoga..

I might not be able to take diet advice from her, but even after all these years, she is still inspiring me to workout. Thanks, Beyonce!

This motivational poster from Library of beauty surprised me.

It reads:

Remember the compliments you receive. Forget the insults.

When I look at this honestly, I have found that the compliments send me back into overeating FAR more than the insults. I had been insulted by my grandmother since I was four years old. The kids at grade school called me Chug-A-Lug. It was all one huge insult, so much so, that it didn’t hurt anymore. Sure, call me fat. I AM fat.

The compliments, however, are jarring. “You must really be enjoying your skinny new body.” “You are looking so good, have you lost weight?” I had compliments like that back when I was still bingeing and purging with exercise.

I’ve had compliments like that now, and it feels different. It’s one of those rare times when “attraction, not promotion” is at work for Overeater’s Anonymous. I feel like it’s my duty to tell the person who complimented me how very grateful I am to OA. The compliments STILL make me want to binge, though.

I haven’t figured this out yet, because it seems like the polar opposite of what I should feel. Shouldn’t compliments make me want to work even harder? I really don’t understand what is going on in my mind when this happens, but quite honestly, I’d rather have neither compliments nor insults. I’d rather just live my life without anyone feeling that it’s within their right to comment on my body.

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.

This is one of those quotes that just makes me confused.

It reads:

Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one’s levels of aspiration and expectation.

• Jack Nicklaus

I didn’t know if I agreed with that, mostly because I didn’t know what aspiration was. I thought that was breathing something into your lungs. I LITERALLY had to look it up.

as·pi·ra·tion

a strong desire, longing, or aim; ambition

It wasn’t until we got to the third definition that breathing came up.

So the quote is saying that as long as I hope and expect HARD enough, then I will achieve my goals.

Yeah, that’s complete bullshit.

You kind of have to DO things to succeed. I hoped that I would get thin. I wished on every damn eyelash that fell out of my head. That never helped me get thinner.

I even EXPECTED to get thin. I spent hours visualizing a thinner me. I never lost one pound from all that visualization.

I think this quote is fundamentally WRONG. Expectation and aspiration might send your mind where your body needs to go, but you need to DO the things to make your body go. For example, for my hard training runs, I visualize being able to easily complete them, but then I actually get my butt on the treadmill and DO the workout. Expectation and aspiration can only take you so far. You need to do that work, too.

My Facebook page is filled with posts from my friends talking about putting butter into your coffee. Here is a link to an article that is an example:

• Latest coffee trend is to put butter in your coffee | Fox News

The latest trend in coffee may boost your energy and help you lose weight. Or maybe you’ll just throw up.

Go ahead, put some butter in your joe.

Well, not just any butter, and not just any coffee.  The butter has to be unsalted and grass-fed, and the coffee beans have to be low-toxin – not the ones you find at the supermarket or Starbucks.

This trend is supposed to give you a little extra fat in your diet, which is really what many of us DO need to inch out the carbs in our diet. The problem is, butter? Why butter?

For hundreds of years, we have been doing this. We have been putting “butter” in our coffee. It’s called CREAM. You DO know what butter is made of, right?

You wan’t a “creamy” latte? How about this radical idea? PUT CREAM IN YOUR COFFEE!

Bulletproof Coffee is just a food trend. It’s not a magic thing that will help you lose weight. It’s a fad. If you need a bit of fat added to your diet, add some cream to your coffee. Steer clear of the fad.

This commercial from Weight Watchers is SPOT ON about how I feel about food.

Weight Watchers is a great diet, but it never helped me get beyond the bingeing. Even when I got down to 150 pounds on their diet, I was still bingeing and purging with exercise. It’s a great diet, but I just couldn’t follow it.

That’s because, in my experience, the eating problem is not just diet and exercise. That is only the physical aspect of the problem. There is also an emotional and spiritual aspect as well. For me, working the Steps of the Overeater’s Anonymous program helped clear up the emotional side of my problems. Meditating every day helped me with the spiritual side.

It was only when I had ALL THREE working and cleared up did the bingeing go away. Weight Watchers gave me a diet and it’s a pretty good one if you want to follow it. But what I needed was more and I didn’t find it until I lost every bit of pride and walked my butt into the door at Overeater’s Anonymous.

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 found this quote today and it made me feel better about the journal writing I do every day.

It reads:

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

• Chinese Proverb

I spend a half hour writing in my journal every day. I credit it with keeping me sane and it very well do that, but at the same time, I begrudge the time. In that thirty minutes, I could get my exercise done, or play video games or read. There are so many other things I could be doing in that time that don’t feel like a chore.

But I have seen a marked correlation between my sane times and the times when I write in my journal faithfully. Oh, and it’s great for keeping track of my life because I can turn back to that time and check my facts. That quotation is correct. The palest ink IS better than the best memory, because there are lots of times when I have remembered things incorrectly and my journal fixed it or proved me wrong.

If you have been struggling, try keeping a journal, not of your food, but of your emotions, history and thoughts. You might find that it’s easier to keep eating sanely when your crazy ideas are out of your mind and on the paper.