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

I thought that I left bullying long behind me when I left high school, but I got a big surprise during the Bosu Incident a few years ago. It seems that bullying at the gym happens to adult women all the time. Lisa Williams talks about her latest incident with it here:

• Learning The Lessons of Nixon » Why do women do that?

After a childhood of torment, she still encounters women who believe that life is a fashion show:

This morning I went to the gym. As I was leaving, a woman in a powder blue car and stopped me and said, I’m sorry to be personal, but it’s not just me, I talked to the other women in the class and you wear the same clothes every time, don’t you wash them?

I have a lot of black t-shirts and black bike shorts. It’s true, in one sense, that I always wear the same clothes to the gym: but they’re copies of the same clothes.

The woman offered that she and the other women were trying to be helpful.

Uh huh. To whom? To people like you, for whom people like me exist only to make you feel superior?

After my incident with bullying, I cancelled my membership to that gym and started running on the treadmill at home again. It took a couple of months to let the dream of a gym of adults who actually acted like adults die, but it die it did. I still have a gym membership at a different gym, but I rarely go there. I run outside alone. Ride my bike outside or on the trainer alone. All my exercise has become a solitary event because of bullying at the gym. I don’t even exercise with Mike very often.

I wish I knew what the answer was…

With all the gushing I’ve done about the Nike+iPod, you might think I am in love with Nike. Quite frankly, I was a little bit. The Nike+ has gotten my butt out the door for a couple of months now. When I walked into the Nike Store in Las Vegas, I was a fan.

I walked out a hater, though.

You’re looking at the reason why. I have been in love with the Nike+, so I thought I would look at some of their overpriced iPod clothing and see if there was anything that I would be willing to plunk down my money for. The commercial for the Nike+ had the guy wearing a shirt where the iPod fit into the sleeve. I liked that shirt so much that I was willing to pay the 70 bucks for it. Unfortunately, Nike lost a sale.

The shirt that I’m holding up is an XL. By my estimation, it is about the same size as an extra-small in other brands, but Nike thinks that this is an extra-large. The not-quite-so helpful service girl said, “Try it on. They are stretchy.” I took the XL into the dressing room, but it was so tight that the bottom seam rolled up to my bra. It was a painful reminder of what it felt to weigh 235.

At that weight, I couldn’t fit into any exercise clothes except one brand from K-Mart. I was so grateful that they made exercise clothes in my size that I bought two weeks worth of pants and shirts. I bought the entire inventory at three K-Marts.

Nike just doesn’t get it.

The fact that they don’t carry a size for me when I’m fifty pounds lighter, just tells me that they aren’t an athletic clothing company. They’re a fashion clothing company just like Kenneth Cole. They don’t want “fatties” like me wearing their clothes and giving them a bad name.

Despite the look on my face, I was near tears when I had Mike click this picture of me. Despite all the weight I’ve lost, I’m still not thin enough for Nike. Well, they can take their 70-dollar shirts and stuff ’em. I’m going to give my money to a company that deserves it.

It makes me want to throw my Nike+ in the garbage.

I saw this postcard on PostSecret this week and it looked so familiar. I used to keep a tally like this to mark the days I had gone without a binge. I think the most I’ve lasted is eight weeks. I stopped doing it because I would see all the tally marks pile up. Just looking at them grow would make me feel this enormous pressure. I would say, “It has been so long since I last binged.” Part of me would be proud of that and at the same time, another part of me would think, “I can do it just this once… It’s been so long…”

Right now, I don’t know how long it has been since I last binged. I know I didn’t binge yesterday, but I really have no idea if I binged the day before. I don’t know if keeping track was good or bad…

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.

My biggest complaint about Yahoo! Avatars was that I couldn’t make my avatar look even remotely like me.

• Pick Me! » Winter Avatar

Even though I have lost weight, I’m still really curvy and that skinny thing that they came up with looked nothing like the busty version that looks back at me in the mirror. Well, they finally did something about it.

• Yahoo! Avatars

Now, you can choose Plus Size in the Clothing section and your avatar will have a little meat on its bones. You can see my before and after avatars here:

No matter how little I eat or how much I exercise, I could never be as thin as the avatar on the left. I actually prefer the new one. It’s more realistic.

Good Job, Yahoo!

Via: Big Fat Blog: Yahoo! Avatars Expands

For a while now, cupcakes has been the new food fad. Specialty shops in New York and Los Angeles create elaborate cupcakes that are more a work of art than a treat. The cupcake fad hasn’t hit Salt Lake City yet. I’m sure in a year or two, it will be the “new” thing to hit our town and all the local bakeries will start specializing in designer cupcakes.

Part of me is torn when I see beautiful food like this. It’s so pretty and all the food weblogs are talking about “amazing” cupcakes from Bristol Farms. It makes me feel left out in a way. People are experiencing something that I would have to travel to just see. I want to eat this pink cupcake just because I can’t eat this pink cupcake.

This has nothing to do with sustenance and EVERYTHING to do with hunger. My desire for this cupcake isn’t about a tasty treat. It’s about wanting to fit in. It’s about wanting to be cool. It’s about getting what is denied me.

How much of eating is about feeding my body? I’m beginning to learn that I eat for almost every reason EXCEPT to feed my body.

Read Part 1 – Read Part 2

My grandma was insane about how “fat” I was. She was insane about my fingernails. Until about three years ago, I had hangups about my fingernails. I felt guilt every time I bit them, but it didn’t stop me. The only thing that stopped me from biting my fingernails was artificial nails. After four years of having them, I removed them and found out that I no longer needed to bite.

What happened? Can I get over my food issues the same way?

• I couldn’t bite my nails: With artificial nails, I couldn’t bite my nails. There was no possible way to do it. I couldn’t even bite the artificial nails because they were so thick. I could bite my cuticles, but doing that too much hurts.

• I got out of the habit of biting: Instead of biting my nails when I was nervous, I would click them against each other (an entirely DIFFERENT irritating habit). I eventually stopped that also. The most important part was that I COULDN’T bite, so I got out of the habit.

• When I stopped wearing artificial nails, I didn’t go back to biting: I suppose that there was a moment when I could have picked up biting my nails again. For all I know, I will always be at risk for biting, but I didn’t. I click my nails together every once and awhile, but I am continually shocked at how easy it is for me to grow long fingernails without even trying.

What if I could stop bingeing just like I stopped biting?

It’s not like my bingeing behavior is any more psycho than my history with nail-biting and my grandmother. What if I could just stop bingeing and never pick it up again? What if I could just look down at my body and be continually shocked at how easy it is for me to stay thin?

How would I do that?

I have no idea, but for once in my life, I KNOW that I can beat bingeing and never go back to it. I KNOW that I can have a thin and healthy body without writing down every morsel of food that goes in my mouth. I KNOW that I can have an indifferent relationship with food.

For once in my life, I KNOW…

Read Part 1 of “I Don’t Bite My Fingernails Anymore”

Just in case you thought that my grandmother didn’t have as many hangups about fingernail biting as she did about fat little girls, I present you with this faded photograph. This is me in 1973. Unlike many of the photographs taken of me, I remember the day this one was taken. My grandma had taken me to a REAL photographer to have my picture taken. That purple-striped shirt was brand new because I had gotten too “fat” for my other clothes.

The photographer put a box in front of me and placed a baby blanket on it. I remember thinking that I wasn’t a baby anymore, so I shouldn’t have a baby blanket in my picture, but I didn’t say anything. He placed my arms on the box and I remember looking at my fingernails. I was so proud that I had been able to stop biting them for long enough for them to grow for the picture.

I was four years old.

Tune in tomorrow to read the conclusion of “I Don’t Bite My Fingernails Anymore.”

My grandmother was obsessed about my weight. It was as if my body was somehow hers and any extra fat cells were a failure on her part. My first memory of her is an argument she had with my mother about my girth and what she thought they should do about it.

Second only to my weight, she hated that I bit my fingernails. It disgusted her that my fingers were always in my mouth and she thought that I would never be a proper lady if I didn’t learn how to stop biting my nails and cuticles.

Eight years ago, I became a real estate agent. I donned the full real estate uniform, including the artificial nails. I wore artificial nails for about three or four years. I had those perfect hands that my grandma always wanted me to have and all I had to do was pay 20 bucks every two weeks for them.

When I quit real estate, I removed the real estate uniform, including the artificial nails. A funny thing happened, though. My real nails grew.

My real nails grew like they had never grown before. I would trim them and look down a week later and they were long again. If a nail broke, I would trim them all the same length to match and within a week or two, I had talons again. I wasn’t manicuring. I wasn’t painting, but after four years of having the hands that my grandma said that I SHOULD have. I had them. WITHOUT EFFORT.

Even now, I look down at my hands and my unmanicured nails are longer than I could have ever achieved before.

I don’t bite my fingernails anymore.

Tune in tomorrow to read Part 2 of “I Don’t Bite My Fingernails Anymore.”

I’m still eating healthy. I haven’t binged for a week now. The only thing I can credit to staying on track is planning my meals. Mike and I sat down a week ago and planned three days worth of meals for me. We wrote down breakfast and lunch and then planned the evenings that we were going to go out to eat dinner. For the first time in months, I was able to keep myself from bingeing by following that plan. Friday evening, we sat down and planned an entire week for me and I’ve been able to keep from abusing myself.

I was always reluctant to plan my meals ahead of time. I didn’t want to lose my spontaneity. I have always wanted to be the kind of person that eats what she wants when she wants. I was never willing to write out a plan for the next day, much less a week.

The only problem with that is I end up obsessing about food all day long.

As soon as I finish a meal, I need to think about what I’m going to eat next. I had no idea that giving up spontaneity would give me such freedom. Now, instead of worrying about my next meal, I already know what my next meal is going to be. It’s something that I was excited about when I planned it, and I know it’s going to fit into my program.

Since I’ve planned my meals, I actually obsess about food less, not more. If I follow the plan perfectly, I don’t need to journal a thing. I don’t need to write down one word because it’s already there. Planning makes eating healthy so much easier.

I know I’ve heard that before. It’s said so many times that it’s a cliche. Planning makes eating healthy easier. I would nod and I thought that I was doing enough planning by buying enough healthy veggies and fruits for the week. I didn’t want to have to plan every morsel of food that went into my mouth. Where’s the fun in that?

None. I have to be honest. There is very little fun in planning your meals for the week. Last Friday, it took Mike and I an hour to do it. There was a little bit of excitement when we chose which recipes we were going to cook on the eating at home dinners, but basically, it was an hour of boring planning. No fun.

The truth is, I feel such a sense of peace about food. I had gotten to the point that I wasn’t journaling because I was sick of writing down every bite of food I put into my mouth. Now, if I follow the plan, I don’t need to write. I just eat the meal on the schedule.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll share the spreadsheet that makes planning so much easier.

Twenty pounds since March. That’s how much weight I’ve gained because of my struggles with bingeing. I’ve been eating healthy for almost five days now. It took me a while to realize what my problem was, but I think I finally cracked it.

• Pick Me! » The Girl With The Most Cake

I thought that I was just lonely after SXSW, but really I was feeling jealous of all the girls who were more successful than I am.

How many times do I need to tell myself that it’s not a competition? Life is about living, not about “beating” someone else.

Five days is the longest I’ve gone eating healthy since March. I know they say that you are never cured of your eating disorder, you just manage it. I don’t want to believe it. I want to believe that that was the last time I ever have to fight that demon, but the damn thing keeps coming back.

Twenty pounds… I feel like I’m starting all over from scratch.