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

We’ve finally reached the final episode of Super Slim Me, where healthy Dawn Porter finishes her 500 calorie a day diet in an effort to get to the elusive size zero. Will Dawn be able to fit into her glamorous size zero dress at the end of all of this?

Dawn’s experience with laxative tea shows the disadvantages of so-called cures.

In the end, she lost about four inches around her waist. Her starting weight of 147 pounds (66.6 kilos) drops to 130 pounds (59.4 kilos) and she still feels like a failure. After eight weeks of hell, she lost 17 pounds and dropped two dress sizes.

“I thought I was just going to be hungry for two months. I thought I would get really pissed off because I couldn’t eat. I had no idea I was going to feel crushed down depressed. I had no idea that I was going to completely lose my social life. I had no idea that I was going to have a headache, not sleep for two months, and I had no idea that every word that anybody said would make me want to literally lynch them. I had no idea that I was going to be so weak and pathetic. I thought, it’s just two months being hungry, I can do that.”

Her BMI dropped from 22 down to 19, on the edge of underweight, and she STILL couldn’t fit into her size zero dress. She ate her own slice of the cake of culpability for buying into the skinny model and threw out all her photos of stick thin celebrities.

On another note, here is a transformation that they did with her just like the models in magazines:

I found this in an advertisement for Aleve.

I thought it was a great motivational photo to paste in a collage with all my pictures of how I want my body to look when I get to goal, so I tore it out of the magazine.

The underlying message of the advertisement is take Aleve and you’ll be able to keep exercising through the pain. THAT message isn’t quite as positive as the initial euphoria of “Never Stop Moving.” Aleve is a non-steriodal anti-inflammatory drug called naproxen sodium. It’s like aspirin or ibuprofen, but totally different than acetaminophen.

For a long time, Advil ran advertising calling their product “Vitamin I.” I’ve even heard runners refer to ibuprofen as Vitamin I. The idea of just popping a pill instead of giving your body the rest it deserves after hard exercise isn’t the healthiest mindset to subscribe to. It looks like Aleve is jumping on that bandwagon.

There are risks to every medication. I’ve written an article here about the problems with over the counter pain relief:

• Starling Fitness » Drugstore Pain Relief

I love the idea of Never Stop Moving. I love the idea of working out every day, no matter what. I HATE the idea of choosing to take an Aleve rather than giving my muscles a rest. In the end, I choose to take the image as inspirational and forget all about what they were trying to advertise.

This postcard from PostSecret shows the power of vision.

It reads:

I’ve always been the person who lectured my friends about anorexia.

So I guess it’s karma that I’m on the verge of an eating disorder, myself.

Your mind automatically tries to move you toward whatever you focus your attention. If you focus on what you DON’T want, then you will get closer to what you don’t want. That’s why it’s so important to envision a future that you DO want.

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.

This week, Dawn has collected diet information from newspapers, tabloids and magazines. Who is to blame for all of this?

The cake of culpability includes: celebrities, stylists, model agencies, designers, or even the fashion shows themselves. Suddenly, all the of them refuse to even comment with her and none of them are willing to take any responsibility.

Will Dawn be able to fit into her glamorous size zero dress at the end of all of this? Tune in next week for the final episode.

This postcard from PostSecret is one of my fears of finally getting to goal.

It reads:

I will never miss the person I lost when I lost 100 lbs. +, but I will always live in constant fear that no one will love the body that she left behind.

What if I get to goal weight and I don’t like that sagging skin any more than I like that fat tummy? Sure, I can hide it with clothing, but will it make me feel any better about myself? What if I hate my body just as much when I’m skinny as when I was fat?

I finally decided that it doesn’t matter.

I’ve always hated my body. I’ll probably STILL hate my body, even when I’m finally at goal weight. The difference is, I’ll be treated better. I won’t be discriminated against by employers, health insurance companies, doctors and strangers. I will be healthier. I’ll be stronger and more able to do strenuous activities that are fun. I’ll finally be free of the shackles of binge eating. All of that is more important than loving my body.

Someday, I might be able to finally love my body, but I’m not waiting around for that to happen before I allow myself to get to a healthy weight.

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.

Every time I see an advertisement for a new kind of exercise machine, I just roll my eyes and wish they would just quit trying. This time, however, I got a little excited. I got an email about Real Ryder, which is an exercise bike that acts more like a real bicycle.

• Real Ryder-The Next Generation of Indoor Cycling

Introducing the RealRyder™ ABF8: It tilts, turns, and banks like an outdoor bike–works out the core, upper body, legs, cardio, and improves balance the way other indoor cycling bikes can’t.

Here is a video of it in action:

The biggest problem that I can see with the Real Ryder is that you can’t buy one. Just like so many other exercise products being advertised on the Internet, it’s not just a simple case of giving them your credit card number to get one. There is no price listed on their website and buying one isn’t as easy as filling out a form and waiting for FedEx. In fact, you have to contact a Sales & Marketing representative to even find out more information. Additionally, two of these “sales” people have the same last name. That smacks of nepotism to me, and I’ve found that it isn’t the best way to run a company.

The Real Ryder is a GREAT idea. I’d love to see it made into a video game controller so I could play motocross video games using this bike instead of buttons. I have so many good ideas that could work with Real Ryder, but if I can’t just give them my credit card and BUY one, I’m not going to believe they exist.

This week, Dawn poses as a modeling agency who wants to hire girls. How far will these girls go to get a modeling job?

Dawn is in her fifth week of the 500 calorie restriction and she isn’t feeling well:

“I feel like I’m drunk all the time. I just want some food.”

During this episode, she tries the Master Cleanse lemonade diet and the Cabbage Soup diet. The soup didn’t work well for her:

“I’m so bored of this. And sure, I probably lost a few pounds, but my tummy is so swollen. And the side effects are slightly unsociable. I’ve got terrible farts. My cat won’t sit with me and she certainly won’t sleep in my bed.”

At week six, she has a skinny Christmas and a dire conversation with her doctor. The doctor wants her to stop the diet, but she wants to continue the experiment until the end.

Tune in next week to see what Dawn has collected from newspapers, tabloids and magazines.

This postcard from PostSecret is so true of anyone with an eating disorder:

It reads:

Your anorexia is changing you into a person I don’t know.
I miss you… the old you.

Anorexia isn’t the only disordered eating that changes you. Binge eating makes me do crazy things. Sometimes I see the look on Michael’s face and I KNOW that I’m doing something insane and that I should stop, but I do it anyway.

I just want to be the person I was before food became so weird in my life.

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 was looking for an image of a book called No Fat Chicks, so I looked at Google’s Image Search. Instead of the book cover I was looking for, I found a huge pile of derogatory images.

The sign reads:

Nudist Beach: Fat chicks prohibited beyond this point.

I’m sure this is a photoshopped sign, but it just made my blood boil. There are guys with horrible acne and bad breath that laugh at this sort of thing and never once think for a moment that they need to look within. EVERY man I’ve seen with a “No Fat Chicks” bumper sticker on his jacked up pickup hasn’t been the image of perfect manliness himself. What gives these guys the right to degrade anyone like that?

Of course, women aren’t the only ones on the “laughing” block. I found this image on the same page.

It reads:

Can’t find your penis?
We’ve got two solutions for you:
For a smaller gut: go to a spam website
For a big dick: go to a spam website

This was supposedly a spam email that was making the rounds for a while back in 2007.

Both of these images are so infuriating because they treat overweight people like objects. They say that the only way we are considered worthwhile human beings is if we fit into the seats on an airplane.

THIS IS NOT TRUE!

There have been MANY famous and influential fat people throughout history:

• Famous Fat People List

The sad truth is, however, that there are people out there who believe this. They make decisions about whether we get a raise, pass a class, or get health care. If there was any reason to lose weight besides health, getting away from the discrimination should be number two on your list, because people who laugh at these jokes are in power to decide our lives.

No Fat Chicks via: No Fat Chicks Sign | Funny Pictures

Can You Find Your Penis? via: Laughter is the Best Medicine » Blog Archive » Funniest Spam Ever!

Dawn goes to Venice Beach to see if normal people have just as much of an obsession with size zero as the celebrities in Hollywood.

Dawn is on her second week of eating 500 calories a day in order to get down to a size zero. It’s affecting her mind a little:

“I’m in my own little world that is obsessed with body image. It’s all I can think about. It’s all I can see. I’m really kind of jealous of women who are a bit bigger than me at the moment because I’m thinking, ‘You lucky cow. You just let yourself go. You can have pie and enjoy a nice life.’ And then I see someone who is really skinny and I think, ‘You lucky cow. You’re really skinny.’ So I can’t be normally satisfied either way.”

Restaurants are hard. She has a calorie book with her at all times trying to stay within her 500 calories allotted each day.

“I’m just kind of getting used to the feeling of being hungry all the time. It’s a really weird feeling because usually I’d do whatever I could to prevent feeling hungry. And now I’ve gotten to this stage where I’m kind of proud of myself for feeling hungry.”

She went to see a holistic healer who has worked with Gwenyth Paltrow to get an evaluation. He was quick to tell her that she was obese and needed to take a bag full of supplements:

“I just find it a bit funny how the Olympic medics [Dawn's medical team], probably the best in the country are quite happy to pass me off as body perfect and then some holistic guy mentions the word obese within twenty minutes. I had EVERY single test you could possibly have on your body at the Olympic place, and then I stood on a pair of scales and he told me I was obese. That’s dangerous. That’s dangerous for people who don’t have the support and who are going in there with a bit of a fluffy head, thinking they are fat.”

Watch next week while Dawn poses as a modeling agency who wants to hire girls. How far will these girls go to get a modeling job?