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

If you’ve been exercising heavily lately, you might have been tempted to use a topical analgesic like BenGay, but according to a recent study, it might not help you much more than a placebo.

• BBC NEWS | Health | ‘No proof’ that muscle rubs work

They looked at 16 studies involving nearly 1,300 patients using creams containing salicylate – a close drug relative of aspirin.

Results from four of the studies showed topical salicylates performed better than dummy creams against acute pain, but when lower quality studies were excluded, the results were not statistically significant.

When it comes to rubefacients they do not work well enough to take any notice of them.

As a child, my grandmother used Icy Hot every night before going to sleep. The smell of that ointment reminds me of her to this day. It almost seemed like the act of rubbing in the balm was far more healing than the balm itself.

If you have been exercising heavily, take the time to give yourself a little massage and see if that helps ease the pain. If you feel any relief from using BenGay, it’s more likely coming from the act of rubbing it in than from the cream itself.

Via: Drop the Bengay and Aspercreme?

A very small and unscientific study (no control group) has found what I found to be true when I tried Atkins. A low carbohydrate diet seems to ease the discomfort of Irritable Bowel Syndrome:

• Can Cutting Carbs Help an Irritable Bowel?

For the first two weeks, the participants ate a “standard diet” of 55% carbohydrate, 30% fat, and 15% protein. Then they were switched to a very-low-carb diet for the next four weeks, similar to the Atkins Induction phase. They were provided with the food to eat.

Of the 13 people in the study, 10 reported “adequate relief” from their symptoms all four weeks of the study. The other three reported relief on two or three of the weeks. The improvement was evident in Quality of Life measures as well as objective measures of stool frequency, etc.

Here is the link to the study:

• A Very Low-Carbohydrate Diet Improves Symptoms and Quality of Life in Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome

The real question is why I don’t follow a low carbohydrate diet all the time. When I KNOW that relief from my stomach pain is within my reach, why do I keep eating foods that are high in carbs? I LOVED how I felt when I was eating a low carb diet, but I have found myself completely unable to follow the diet. Why?

The short answer is: because I’m nuts.

Any time a certain food is restricted, I find myself wanting it even more. Anyone who was starved as a child understands this reaction. Being told that I cannot have carbs made me want them even more, despite the fact that I felt so much better when I was on that diet. In the end, I have to find a balance between my psyche and my digestive tract. Somewhere in the middle is where I end up eating, so sometimes I still have severe abdominal pain, but at least now I know WHY.

Wendy Bumgardener from About.com was flashed once while she was out walking on the trails. She didn’t look at the flasher and hurriedly walked away. Did she do the right thing?

• Walking About.com: How to React to a Flasher?

While most flashers are not immediately dangerous, some do progress to accosting, groping, and even rape. Calling the police with a good description and photo when possible is the right thing to do to protect others.

Walking and running outside are the best and most inexpensive methods of getting exercise, but there ARE risks. Flashers are only one of them, but they are incredibly RARE, so don’t let fear of pervs in the park keep you from your daily walk.

This postcard from PostSecret showed up yesterday. I feel that it’s the key to eating healthy and taking the time to exercise.

It reads:

To all the people I’ve tried pleasing during my lifetime:

I am finally going to please myself.

If this makes you unhappy…

GET OVER IT!

The truth is, you can’t make other people happy. Sure, there are things that you can do to please them, but their happiness depends on THEM. The ONLY person you can control on this planet is YOU. Concentrate on making yourself happy and the rest of the people around you will follow suit or struggle as they always have.

You have to take care of yourself FIRST before you can take care of anyone else.

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.

Exercising while I’m moving is EASY. All I have to do is haul all the boxes from the Sugarhouse house to the Daybreak house. All that lifting and carrying and climbing stairs is built in exercise and with every workout, I’m one step closer to being finished.

Eating healthy while I’m moving is a little more difficult.

Firstly, we had to move the fridge. Two weeks before the move, we stopped buying any groceries so that we could empty out the fridge. I ate up all the fresh fruit, veggies, and dairy within a couple of days. All that I was left with were condiments in the refrigerator. The freezer fed me the last week and a half, but there is only so many frozen dinners and halibut steaks I can eat before I feel like I can’t open the freezer door ever again.

Here’s what worked for me:

• Tetra-pack milk: I’ve talked about this milk before (Travel Milk). I usually use it when I’m traveling at a hotel that doesn’t have a little refrigerator in the room. I was able to buy a case of milk, keep it in a box and not worry about it spoiling while the refrigerator was sitting without its doors in the middle of my kitchen because it couldn’t fit in the space without removing molding from the wall.

• Canned veggies: Fresh veggies are always healthier, but canned do in a pinch and they don’t need to be refrigerated. Most cans have three to four servings of vegetables in each, so in a pinch, I was able to open a can and knock out three of my required veggies in one sitting. One note of caution, however, remember where you packed your can opener.

• Eating out the healthy way: After three days in the new house, we still haven’t gone grocery shopping. I have been eating out at restaurants so that we can just focus on moving, unpacking and getting the pets acclimated to the new place. Instead of cooking food, I have been doing my best to choose healthy options while I’m eating out. I found the menu and nutrition facts for a bunch of restaurants online (See Dotti’s Weight Loss Zone), so I can choose wisely no matter where I go.

Just because I’m moving, doesn’t mean I have an excuse to binge on whatever food is nearby. There are ways to eat healthy, even when I can’t find my pots and pans. Eating healthy is easy when I plan ahead and know that it is possible.

One of the biggest attractions for our move (and subsequent upending of our lives) was this trail map of Daybreak. We moved to this community so that we could live right next to a huge number of trails that go around lakes and through green areas.

Our last home was located near downtown Salt Lake City. There were lots of parks to enjoy. In fact, you can see the videos of all three of them here:

• Starling Fitness DVDS » Liberty Park
• Starling Fitness DVDS » Fairmont Park
• Starling Fitness DVDS » Sugarhouse Park

When we first moved downtown, I was so happy that I lived within walking distance of three parks. After six years of taking walks to them, I can still honestly say that they are just as wonderful now as they were when I first moved there. If Daybreak hadn’t had such accommodating trails all so close to my home (including a lake), I may have never been tempted away from the Sugarhouse area.

The truth of the matter is, no matter where you live, there is SOMETHING interesting to walk past. If you live in the heart of a big city, there are interesting restaurants, galleries and shops to peruse. If you live in the boondocks, there is wildlife, tall grasses and open skies to keep you company. The suburbs have parks and plenty of homes to walk past and compare with your own.

Stop reading my blog RIGHT NOW and go online to Google Maps to see what is near your home. Look for parks, shops, trails and back roads.

• Google Maps

Wherever you live, there is something interesting to walk and run past, I guarantee it. Explore your neighborhood right now because for all you know, your life may be packed up in boxes and you’ll be sleeping halfway across town within a month.

Mike and I are in the process of moving. Our entire life is packed up in cardboard boxes. Even my beloved computer has been broken down to it’s component parts: keyboard, mouse and monitor are all packed neatly into labeled boxes.

The bad part of this is that I’m barely able to work. I am tapping this entry out on my iPhone using an app I downloaded on a lark over a year ago. Even worse, I can’t send out any journal or DVD orders. If you want to buy anything, be forewarned that it will take an extra week to show up at your door.

The good part of all of this is that my real life is providing me with more than enough exercise. My muscles are stinging with the work of the last few days and there are many more to come. I’m ashamed at the pain I’m feeling in my legs and arms. Just when I think I’m a tough and strong bird, I find that my quads aren’t up for the challenge. I guess I need to increase my weight training when all of this is over.

My posting maybe sporatic over the next few weeks, but don’t be worried. I haven’t fallen off the wagon. I just don’t know where I packed it.

My friend, Jere, had a strange incident the other day. It was wonderful reading it:

• Blind Prophecy » Hey, good looking!

You know how sometimes you’re walking down the street casually glancing in the windows of the various shops on a sunny day.

And then you pass a shop where you see a cute guy inside the store, so you slow your pace just a bit.

And in the space of time it takes to walk one more step, you think, “He’s cute…

“But he’s probably in a relationship or out of my league…

Read the rest here: Blind Prophecy » Hey, good looking!

I don’t want to ruin the end of the story, because it’s a great one. I want to be that kind of person, too, Jere!

In Utah, the home builders periodically have The Parade of Homes, where they showcase their building skills. It allows normal people like me to tour huge mansions.

Most of the time, I don’t care at all for the homes. They are so large that I can’t even imagine keeping them clean, much less living in them. This year, however, I did fall in love with one aspect of one of the homes: The Canterbury Gym.

The house was on Canterbury Lane and their personal exercise room was gorgeous. On the wall was the following quote:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle

There were treadmills and elliptical trainers, but the most interesting feature of the gym were the light fixtures. They were a combination of light and rotating fans. Here is a little video of what they looked like.

Do you need a home gym like that to keep fit? No. All you need is enough room to move around or maybe a corner of a room for a treadmill. The fanciest home gym on the planet isn’t enough to get you fit if you don’t USE it. Those rotating fans were sure nice, though. What they provide more than a normal ceiling fan or even just a cheap fan clipped to your treadmill, I don’t know, but they looked pretty.

• “Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.” – Thomas Jefferson http://tqpage.com/3020 #
• Try this oatmeal pancake recipe when I get the chance. http://tinyurl.com/lwnkug #

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