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

Usually when a supplement company is found guilty of violations, they are required to pay a fine. It appears that Metabolife founder, Michael J. Ellis, has been sentenced to six months in prison in addition to his fine of $20,000.

Consumer Health Digest has the story:

• Consumer Health Digest, June 10, 2008

In November 2007, Ellis pled guilty to federal charges of lying to the FDA. Metabolife’s ephedra-containing diet pills triggered thousands of complaints from customers who had experienced adverse effects. Yet in 1999, while the FDA was considering prohibitions, Ellis knowingly told the FDA that the company had a “claims free history.” The FDA later banned ephedra as an ingredient in dietary supplements. With Metabolife 356 as its flagship product, the company became one of the largest retailers of products marketed as dietary supplements. Ellis’s indictment, the FDA ban, hundreds of personal injury lawsuits, and falling sales due to adverse publicity led the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005.

Remember all those people who took ephedra and had heart problems because of it? The fact that Metabolife is out of business doesn’t change the fact that they still have heart problems. Next time you’re tempted to try a diet pill, remember Metabolife and save your money. That company might not be around when they find out how dangerous your supplement is.

If you have ever watched The Biggest Loser, you know who Jillian Michaels is. She is the tough trainer who pushes her contestants to a win. In fact, last year, the two finalists for The Biggest Loser were both from her team.

If you have been wishing you could workout with Jillian, it looks like Majesco video game producer is going to give you a chance:

• Jillian Michaels makes fitness game

Majesco CEO Jesse Sutton said the title is aimed squarely at the growing casual gaming audience, especially women. He said exer-gaming should create a growing opportunity for fitness celebrities, especially those who already have make their mark on TV and DVD.

“Exercise and entertainment have gone hand in hand over the past 20 years,” he said. “So we think bringing that to games is the next big step.”

I have really enjoyed working out with Wii Fit and it’s great to know that serious trainers are excited about it. I love to know that my Wii Fit balance board will be useful in games long after I’m sick of running on Wii Fit Island.

Via: Jillian Michaels has a Wii fitness game in the works – TV Squad

The advertisement for Lucky Strike cigarettes says:

To keep a slender figure
No one can deny…
Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.

Is it true? Does smoking make you thin?

Almost a year ago, there was news of a study that researched that:

• FOXNews.com – Study: Smoking Does Not Aid Weight Loss – Health News | Current Health News | Medical News

Researchers conducted the study on mice over seven weeks. Half the mice were exposed to smoke from four cigarettes a day for six days a week, while the other half were smoke free.

The study found smokers lost muscle mass, which gave them the appearance of being thinner, but the fat instead was stored around their vital organs.

I don’t know about clinical research, but I can tell you that when I was in college, I decided to try smoking to lose weight. I didn’t lose weight. I got bronchitis and I realized that if I kept smoking, I would feel like that ALL the time. So I quit. While I was quitting, I gained ten pounds.

Smoking made me GAIN ten pounds.

What about you? I remember my girlfriends telling me that if I just smoked, I would lose weight. Is it just me? Does ANYONE lose weight by taking up smoking?

Photo via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1930s Luck Strike cigarette ad promises you’ll “keep a slender figure”

This postcard from PostSecret showed up a couple of weeks ago and it really hit home for me. It says:

I have convinced myself that I will never be pretty or be loved because I am not thin enough.

I have been willing to let myself be loved despite my physical appearance, but I am also convinced that I will never be pretty. I shrug and tell myself that being pretty isn’t as important as being smart, witty or kind. Sure, beauty is just one aspect of a beautiful person, but it’s a mighty important one, isn’t it? People will judge me within a couple of seconds based on appearance alone.

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 postcard from PostSecret showed up a couple of weeks ago.

It’s a pretty intense secret. It reads:

I’m 27 years old. Two years ago, I had surgery to lose 150 lbs. I am thin and beautiful now, but in my head, I still feel morbidly obese. I CAN NO LONGER HIDE BEHIND MYSELF and I am scared.

If you have ever wondered why so many people lose weight and gain it again, this postcard gives us an honest look into our minds. On the back of the postcard were written the words, “I miss being a lardass.” Getting healthy and staying there isn’t the same as just getting thin. It takes the entire body and mind to achieve and maintain that goal.

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.

Just this month, a new research study has been trying to find out what women want and how to convince them to take better care of themselves. You can read the summary here:

• Research Brief » Blog Archive » Appearance and Weight Trumps Disease In Women’s Concerns

What was most interesting to me is what women are willing to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Here was the information:

What Women Do to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle

80% Drink more water
70% Eat more fruits and vegatibles
49% Read nutritional labels
47% Avoid foods that are high in fat
44% Make a conscious effort to lower calorie intake
44% Watch my sugar intake
43% Exercise at least three times a week

Source: Meredith/NBC Universal, May 2008

It seems that a lot of us are willing to drink more water and try to eat more fruits and veggies, but when it comes to the nitty gritty of living healthy, like limiting fat, sugar and calories, less than half of us are willing to do it.

What are you willing to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle? Are you going to go all the way and do EVERYTHING on the list instead of just the top two? It’s our decision.

Thanks for the tip from Sheri Bigelow at Design Simply.

I just watched this amazing video of a talk from Barry Schwartz about the paradox of choice.

I KNEW this lecture was going to be interesting when he flashed this on the screen.

These were how many choices he had when he went to his grocery store.

• 285 Varieties of cookies
• 75 Iced teas
• 230 soups
• 175 Salad Dressings

With all these food choices, you would think that it would make eating EASIER, but it hasn’t. It’s actually HARDER to choose a cookie, tea, soup or dressing. This vast freedom of choice means that we constantly have to make decisions. This can cause a variety of problems:

• Paralysis rather than liberation: If you have ever faced a menu the size of a book, you might understand how difficult it can be to make a decision. Often people choose to make no choice at all. If you set aside your food choices until you are starving, you end up making the decision when you’re unable to choose healthy food.

• Less satisfaction with your decisions: If you choose one healthy option instead of another, it’s easy to imagine that the other one would have tasted better or filled you up more. This makes the food you DID eat LESS satisfying. Whenever you are eating something, you are haunted by ALL the things that you’re not eating.

• Escalation of expectations: With all the different options to eat available, your expectations about what makes a good meal goes up. If you had less choice, you would be just happy to be full. When someone offers you ice cream at their house, you’re just happy to have whatever flavor they have. When you go to Baskin-Robbins with all their flavors of ice cream, you expect the ice cream that you get to be perfect. “The secret to happiness is low expectations.”

• Self-blame: When you eat something that doesn’t taste right or doesn’t make you feel full enough to last you, the only person to blame is yourself. You had all these choices and you chose WRONG. When you follow a strictly structured eating plan, like Jenny Craig, you can blame the plan or their food.

Barry Schwartz admits that some choice is better than none, but it doesn’t follow that more choice is better than some choice. We are overwhelmed with food choices every day and this has made eating a unsatisfying chore. If you decrease your choices, then eating is easier and more satisfying. “Everybody needs a fishbowl.” I believe this is why people are attracted to diets that limit the kind of food you are allowed to eat. It makes your choices easier and increases your happiness.

Via: Mind Hacks: 2008-05-30 Spike activity

This is a photo of my grandpa working in his garden back in 2005. From fourth grade to my Junior year in high school, I spent every summer working in that garden. I would cringe when my grandma would call down to the basement, “Time to pick the beans!” I have scars on my arms from picking the raspberries. I can shell peas faster than anyone I know. Every summer, I repeated the mantra:

When I grow up, I will NEVER pick vegetables again.

Here I am, twenty-two years later, considering planting a garden of my own. It’s too late for this summer, of course, but if I want a garden next year, I have to start planning right now. What on earth would convince me to plant a garden?

• My grandpa died last summer. Planting a garden would give me a connection to him that I can no longer have now that he’s gone.

• Fresh veggies are EXPENSIVE lately. Growing my own might defer some of that cost (if I don’t count my time planting, tending, weeding and harvesting).

• Vegetables from the store just don’t taste as good as my grandpa’s did. I remember being shocked at how wrong vegetables from the store tasted when I first got out on my own. I asked him about it and he said that it’s because they aren’t as fresh as his. I haven’t had a good tomato this season because my grandfather’s garden is fallow.

After years of cursing that garden, I find that I miss it incredibly and want to start one of my own. Only time will tell whether I do start my own garden or not, but this season, I will have store bought vegetables and only dream of snapping fresh green beans between my fingers.

I couldn’t help laughing at this video for the Treadmill Bicycle.

If you love your treadmill as much as I do, then you know that deep down, you kind of wish that the treadmill bicycle wasn’t a joke. Honestly, I only like to run and walk outside when the weather is perfect. If it’s too cold or hot, I head for the treadmill and watch one of my walking videos instead.

Major props to the people at Bicycle Forest for thinking of the Treadmill Bicycle:

• The Bicycle Forest :: Treadmill Bike

In all sincerity, though, funny gadgets like this remind us that all we really need to be fit are a good pair of running shoes and a door out of the house.

Via: CraziestGadgets.com » Treadmill Bicycle

Sometimes the most simple and traditional recipes turn out to be healthy. Take Toad in the Hole, for example:

This simple dish is delicious and healthy. Here is the recipe:

Toad in the Hole

Ingredients:

• One slice of whole wheat bread
• One egg
• Non-stick cooking spray
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Spray the pan with non-stick cooking spray.
• Using a glass, cut a hole in the whole wheat bread.
• Place the bread in the pan and crack the egg into the hole.
• Add salt and pepper.
• Put a lid on the pan and cook for four minutes.
• Toast the round piece.

Calories: Approx. 150 WWPoints: 3

I like to have this for breakfast because it’s very filling and will last me even if my lunch hour comes late in the day.

Enjoy!

Update 03-18-10: I learned last month that this dish is NOT called Toad in the Hole. That is a sausages in Yorkshire Pudding dish, which I have never made nor tasted. This dish is called Eggs in a Nest. Mike’s mom always called this dish Toad in the Hole, so that’s what I called it here (since he taught me to make it). If you would like to see a variation of this recipe, here is another version:

• Starling Fitness » Eggs In A Nest