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

What About Mom? shares with us her ten things she hates about running 10Ks and finishes with the ten things she loves about running the race.

• 10 things I hate about running 10Ks, and 10 things I love | What About Mom?

My two favorites from each list is here:

10 things I hate about running 10Ks

People who run a few miles before the race to warm up show off.

Overly cheerful people who patronize old people wearing Pike’s Peak Marathon (”America’s Ultimate Challenge”) t-shirts.

10 things I love about running 10Ks

Exercise that doesn’t involve cute, coordinated arm movements.

It’s a lot shorter than a marathon. A lot.

For more motivation, go to her website and check out the rest of the list:

• 10 things I hate about running 10Ks, and 10 things I love | What About Mom?

I have been lucky enough to get to know Naked Jen in person. Introduced online by a mutual friend, I learned that she would be moving to Salt Lake City. I was so happy to have such a revolutionary woman come to live in my hometown!

Jen really talked about what she was all about in this article from her website. Be warned, her blog is EXACTLY what it sounds like, so if you are reading this from work, you might want to wait until you go home to click on the link.

• nakedjen: Real Women

“But the reason I started writing Nakedjen, the reason I get naked and share the photos of myself on line, is because I want all of us to appreciate the bodies that we have. To love ourselves. Just the way that we are. All bodies are beautiful. Our media will have us believe otherwise, as many of us who pick up any big fat glossy magazine these days can attest.”

Like the rest of us bloggers, she regularly writes about everything that fill her life, but once a week, on Naked Fridays, she shares her body with the world. This week, she let me be the photographer and we got some beautiful shots of her at home. Here’s a work-safe photo that we can share.

Next time the fashion and women’s magazines make you feel like you just don’t stack up, remember Naked Jen. She believes that you are beautiful and that you should love yourself just the way you are.

Awhile back, I wrote about the episode of Friends where Phoebe and Rachel run:

• Starling Fitness » The One Where Phoebe Runs

At the time, I couldn’t find a video of what I was talking about, but maquiem has been kind enough to edit the video for me. Sadly, the most important line about the episode wasn’t included:

“I run like I did when I was a kid because that’s the only way it’s fun. Didn’t you ever run so fast that you thought your legs were going to fall off?”

Running for the joy of running is something I haven’t done in a long time. I kind of hit a breaking point in my running and I have been playing DDR to exercise instead. As long as I get my exercise in daily, I’m healthy, but I feel a little sadness at my break with running. The thought of turning on my iPod Nano and Nike+ just makes me cringe right now, so I’ll stick with the dance pad and Dance Dance Revolution.

No matter how smart I get, there is still a desperate little girl inside of me that wants to be skinny at any cost. When I saw this postcard from PostSecret, my first thought was, “God, I wish I could be like this.”

Honestly, I am happier when I am eating.

I have tried for years to change this aspect of myself, but even after years of behavior modification, I am the same. I know I say that you should never wish anorexia on yourself, but seeing this postcard makes me long for a different problem. Instead of the bingeing, how about the starving? Can I trade one for the other?

I do know one thing. For years, I tried to give myself anorexia. I starved myself for days. I subsisted on Slim Fast for weeks. No matter what I did, it always ended up in a binge. Even eating healthy for years can end up in a binge. I am constantly fighting or succumbing to the binge monster at all times.

I guess it’s time to give up the idea that I will magically be anorexic and get skinnier than I’ve ever been, but it’s also time to give up the idea that I will magically be free from wanting to binge. I need to accept myself the way I am and work on being healthy from that point of acceptance.

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 is the last week I’ll be giving you some direction for how to actually KEEP your New Year’s Resolution to lose weight or get more active. If you’re short on time, scroll down to the end and read “The Short Version” to get your weekly tips.

If you have been following the plan from the beginning and have been able to keep up, then I only have two more jobs for you. If you haven’t you can start fresh here: New Year’s Resolutions: Week 1.

Get Support and Accountability

This will be the difference between success and failure. You need accountability at the scale and support when things are hard. Join Weight Watchers, Overeaters Anonymous, or some other support group if you have to. Find a friend who will hold your feet to the fire. Whatever it takes to make sure that you have support and accountability.

If you have been faithfully following along since Week 1, you just need to keep on keeping on.

Cut Your Intake By 100 Calories A Day

Your goal is to get to The USDA’s MyPyramid recommended daily calorie intake. If you complete their little questionaire, it will give you an idea of how many calories you should be eating every day. If you are still above that amount, then cut your intake by 100 calories a day.

If you are eating the right amount of calories every day, then keep it up. If you are eating LESS than the recommended amount, then increase your calories by adding healthy food. Never eat less than the USDA’s recommended daily calorie intake for your height and gender.

Save enough calories to eat two teaspoons of healthy oil each day

We talked last week about eating healthy oils. Increase your daily intake to two teaspoons. The USDA has a list of healthy oils that they recommend. My preferences are olive oil, flaxseed oil and sunflower oil. I don’t recommend just eating oil like medicine. Find a way to substitute healthy oils for other fats that you might use. How do I get my oils in? I cook with them and use them on salads. Sometimes I mix flaxseed oil with my cereal because I like the flavor of it.

Lean Proteins and Whole Grains

Manage your protein and “starches.” Choose lean meats with as little fat as possible. Choose whole grain breads and cereals over “white” bread. Choosing lean protein limits your fat intake and choosing whole grains increases your fiber intake. Both of these are supposed to be healthy. Once again, head over to the USDA’s MyPyramid to see the amounts recommended each day.

Plan One Non-Food Related Present Every Day

The longer you follow this program the more important it is to give yourself a non-food present every day. It will help you avoid the feeling of deprivation by finding non-food activities to nurture yourself. Since this is different for every person, think of some activities that you like to do. If you didn’t do this exercise, then go back to New Year’s Resolutions: Week 3 and work on finding out what these activities are for you.

Plan a non-food activity for yourself EVERY day and protect that time. It is your reward for eating healthy every day. You MUST reward yourself every day to stave off any feelings of deprivation that limiting your calories might cause.

Eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day

One way to stay within your calorie range is to eat vegetables on a regular basis. You should be adding four to five 1/2 cup servings of fruits or veggies to your diet every day now. They are low in calories, provide essential vitamins and fiber and they keep you feeling full.

Save enough calories to eat two servings of dairy products each day

You need to make sure that you have enough calories saved up for two servings of dairy products every day. This is another healthy food to add to your diet. One cup of fat-free milk is approximately 110 calories. It’s probably your best option for adding calcium to your diet, so make sure you get two servings a day.

Increase Your Exercise

You should be walking 2.0 miles five days a week. Now is the time to increase your speed. Here are some tips to get you started:

• Starling Fitness » How To Run Faster

I want you to exercise at the same time every day. Consistency is key. Now is the time to work on your speed, but getting your workout in every day is the most important thing you can do.

If you are keeping track of your mileage, you can join us at Runner+ to track your miles and compete against other beginners.

Give Yourself Kudos

If you are still working toward your New Year’s Resolution, then you need to give yourself kudos. There are little boxes on the forms every day to give yourself a shiny sticker. Each day that you stay on the program, you need to acknowledge yourself and how good you are doing.

This is the final week of the series. It is imperative that you get support to help you through this journey, because from here on in, it’s just continuing the good habits you have been developing over the last two months.

The Short Version:

• Get support and accountability: Join WW, Overeaters Anonymous, or some other support group. Find a friend who will hold your feet to the fire.

• If you aren’t at your recommended daily caloric average, reduce it by another 100 calories. Write down EVERYTHING you eat including measurements and calories.

• Choose lean protein and whole grains.

• Save enough calories to eat two teaspoons of healthy oil each day.

• Avoid the feeling of deprivation by finding non-food activities to nurture yourself EVERY day.

• Eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day.

• Save enough calories to eat two servings of dairy products each day.

• Increase your speed. Walk/run 2.0 miles five days this week. Remember consistency is more important than speed, but you need to make sure you’re pushing yourself.

• Give yourself kudos for coming this far.

It might sound like a difficult feat if you are watching your calorie intake, but new research from Purdue University shows that consumption of artificial sweeteners creates a physiological reaction that makes you GAIN weight instead of lose it.

Honestly, when I saw this article from Times Online, I didn’t believe it.

• How artificial sweeteners may be making slimmers put on weight – Times Online

I wanted to see the research. I wanted to see the data and that article didn’t provide it. Fortunately, I found the data from Purdue University itself:

• Purdue University Research on Artificial Sweeteners

This research was published in Behavioral Neuroscience 2008, Vol. 122, No. 1, 161–173. I worked in a research lab for a few years, so I can make out what happened in this experiment. The most telling of all is the graph of Cumulative Body Weight Gain, but it was too confusing if you haven’t slogged through the experiment method to find out which group is which. I did the slogging for you.

• Non-Predictive – Rats fed yogurt with artificial sweetener half the time and unsweetened the other half. “Rats in the sweet nonpredictive group received plain, unsweetened yogurt for 3 of the 6 days each week that yogurt was provided and received yogurt sweetened with 0.3% saccharin for the other 3 days that week.”

• Predictive – Rats fed yogurt with sugar half the time and unsweetened the other half. “Rats in the sweet predictive group received plain, unsweetened yogurt (approx. 0.6 kcal/g) for 3 of the 6 days each week that yogurt was provided and received yogurt sweetened with 20% glucose (wt/wt; approx. 1.2 kcal/g) for the other 3 days that week.”

• Predictive Control – Rats fed only sugar sweetened yogurt. “The sweet predictive control group, was included to control for the total number of calories from the yogurt supplement per week (approximately 104 kcal per week). This group received only yogurt sweetened with 20% glucose (wt/wt; approx. 1.2 kcal/g) on the 3 days per week that rats in the sweet nonpredictive group received sweetened yogurt (i.e., this group did not receive any unsweetened yogurt).”

The rats that gained the most weight were the rats in the Non-Predictive group (artificial sweetener). Even though their calorie intake was the same as the same as the Predictive Control group and LESS than the Predictive group, they were significantly fatter.

What they found was that the artificial sweetener makes your body less able to regulate energy. Have you ever wondered how you could be eating so little, exercising so much and STILL gaining weight? This could be the problem.

Unfortunately, they have no data on whether you can reset your body to regulate energy correctly. Since it took about two to five weeks for the effect to take place in the rats, I’m hoping that a month and a half off artificial sweeteners might reset my body.

For years, Atkins recommended that you stay away from artificial sweeteners. He figured that the taste of sweetness caused you to crave sugars. Other nutritionists recommended staying away from artificial sweetened foods as well. Their logic was that you might overeat other foods because you were “good” and drank a diet soda. They had good instincts, if not good reasons.

After seeing this research, I’m cutting artificially sweetened foods out of my diet completely. Medical research may not know if I’m permanently damaged from drinking Diet Coke almost my whole life, but I’m going to do the best I can to fix it from here.

If you have ever wondered what you would look like with a thin and svelte body, here is a cool email application that can let you.

• HairMixer.com: See a new hairstyle on your photo in seconds!

This is meant to try out new hairstyles, but you can upload any photo and put your face on it. I gave it a test spin and found it to be a pretty cool application.

All you have to do is upload two photos and mark where you want to replace the face.

It won’t look like a Photoshop artist did it, but it’s good enough to give you an idea of what you would look like when you reach goal weight.

Via: EPIC-FU – episodes – web attack, ghostface killah, vampire weekend

Serious props go out to Leonard Nimoy for his book, The Full Body Project: Photographs by Leonard Nimoy. He is promoting a healthier vision of what makes a woman sexy. It’s a photography book that focuses on the larger sized woman.

He even had the cajones to go onto the Colbert Report and defend his book:

I love how he explains the importance of such a book to Stephen Colbert:

“There really has been a standard established and the standard is presented to us by the women who model the clothes. The issue is this: the average woman in this country weighs 25% more than those models do and they will never attain that body shape, so they have been sold on the idea that they don’t look right. You have been told that there is something wrong with you and you have to buy our pills, or buy our diet, or buy our surgery, or whatever…”

Stephen Colbert said that he wouldn’t call Mr. Nimoy a pornographer and then goes ahead and calls him a pornographer. He defended himself beautifully:

“This book would be appropriate on the coffee table of every home in the United States, particularly where there are young ladies involved and I’ll tell you why. Because young girls are standing in front of mirrors as a result of what they’ve been sold as being the standard and say, ‘I hate my body.'”

Thanks, Leonard Nimoy, for showing us that you can be fat and sexy.

Via: February 14 Colbert Report: Leonard Nimoy (Video) | TV Crunch

Ubisoft creates fun learning games for the Nintendo DS, such as My Word Coach, My Spanish Coach and My French Coach. Now, they are turning their eye to health and fitness with My Weight Loss Coach.

• Ubisoft – Ubisoft ANNOUNCES MY WEIGHT LOSS COACH

My Weight Loss Coach features include:

• Personal Profiles: Create your personal profile and evaluate your improvement potential, then set up your objectives following the recommendations based on your personal profile.

• Input Reward System: Log your progress on a daily or weekly basis, tracking your physical activity and nutrition habits.

• The Pedometer: A peripheral device that comes with the game and can be easily updated through your DS, it’s the best way to control your daily physical effort, challenge yourself and balance your food intake.

• Real-Life Landmark Checkpoints: As a reward, all the physical activities you achieve and good nutrition habits you acquire are converted into measurable distances based on real examples.

To see more screen shots, click on over to DS Fanboy’s gallery:

• DS Fanboy – My Weight Loss Coach Gallery

Sadly, we have to wait until summer to get a closer look at this game. Maybe by then we’ll be to our goal weight.

Via: Littlest, Yellowest, Differentest – DS Fit: Ubisoft announces My Weight Loss Coach

Over the last couple of years, I’ve written a few entries about Valentine’s Day that I feel still apply today. You can see them here:

• Starling Fitness » Have a Healthy Valentine’s Day

• Starling Fitness » Valentine’s Breakfast In Bed

• Starling Fitness » Choose a Healthy Valentine’s Dinner

Valentine’s Day isn’t about the candy or the fancy dinner. It’s about the greeting cards. Focus on the greeting cards and forget about everything else. Here are some fun tips for creating your own Valentines Cards:

• Flickr: Retro Valentine’s Cards from valart2008

• Craftzine.com blog: ROUNDUP: Indie Valentine Cards

• yoonie-at-home: Say it sweet! Cute Valentines Cards to download

Instead of thinking about who is giving you attention, focus on giving cards to all the special people in your life. This holiday is about telling those you love that you love them. Do it today!