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

Remember those? I bet you had some weight loss or healthy living resolutions back in January. What did you do with them? Did you write them down? Did you leave a comment on a forum, a message board, or maybe even here at Starling Fitness? Were they just a passing thought?

Whatever they were, either find what you wrote down or try to remember what went through your head.

How are you doing?

Have you met any of your New Year’s Resolutions? If you did, which ones?

If you haven’t met your New Year’s Resolutions, how close are you? Did you backslide or are you pretty near your goal?

You’re lucky. You still have two months until that clock strikes midnight again. You have two months to get to that goal and really feel good about yourself. Don’t waste another second and get working on last year’s New Year’s Resolutions NOW!

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

I always have two voices in my head. One that comments on my weight and how I need to be leaner and stronger. The other one that says that I never want to get an eating disorder like my friends in high school did. Somehow, the second voice never realizes that bingeing WITHOUT purging is still an eating disorder. All she remembers are her thin friends vomiting in the toilet.

This article by Ariel M. Stallings also deals with two voices in the author’s head. One voice wants to avoid doing anything that strengthens the patriarchy and another noticed that her frame was holding a little too much bulk. It’s a great read.

• AlterNet: Is Dieting Anti-Feminist? by Ariel M. Stallings

She also dealt with friends with eating disorders in her teen years:

“I felt like it was my job to be the one who held down the fort of healthy eating, setting a good example for women who were crushed under the thumb of eating disorders and weight issues.

“In my mind, the only way to fight eating disorders and the all-too-common feminine weight neurosis was not to think about food or weight at all … I ate HEALTHY food, but the thought “maybe I should eat less” always felt like it was just around the corner from some sort of Karen Carpenter nightmare, where I suddenly became a neurotic starving skeleton with amenorrhea. But still, I desperately wanted to loose the extra poundage, at least so I’d feel as healthy as I was supposedly being.”

In the end, she lost the weight and realized that it’s possible to be a feminist AND eat healthy.

“Women and food are big issues in this culture. I’ve tried to tip-toe through the minefield as carefully as possible, and I’ve had some great help from my mother and the women around me who’ve done everything to help me love my body … and it’s been my goal to deal with the process of losing weight in a positive, self-affirming, self-loving way. No deprivation or punishment but a pro-active approach toward my own health. It’s been good.”

What voices are talking in your head? What are they saying about weight loss, feminism and eating disorders? If you listen to your own thoughts and take the time to write them down, you just may make your road to eating healthy a little easier.

Via: Big Fat Blog: Dieting and Feminism

Laura,

I find your informations to be informative but I must ask, How do I stop the cravings for fatty foods and quick meat that has been processed. I live on a budget and do not have alot to choose from. It appears that prices are not fixed when it comes to fresh foods at my grocery store. I am wheelchair bound and it is difficult for me to cook meals constantly,not to mention that I am the worst cook ever. Can you tell me what is the best foods that I can afford and stay healthy doing it?

Ed

Ed,

You’re right fresh veggies and fruit are more expensive in the winter than they are in the summer, but compared to a frozen dinner, they are pretty inexpensive. You don’t have to be a good cook to cut up fresh veggies and eat them raw. That is what I do for most of my snacks throughout the day. Fresh apples, nectarines, pears, oranges, green peppers, carrots and celery are the best to choose from during the winter. I would avoid cucumbers and zuchinni. They tend to be small, shriveled and expensive this time of year.

As far as stoping cravings for fatty foods, I don’t really know what to tell you. I’ve found that my cravings have NOTHING to do with food and everything to do with my emotions. My binges are spurred by what I am feeling. Getting to the bottom of my feelings really helps, so I end up writing in my journal when I feel like eating food that I know isn’t healthy for me.

Choosing healthy options might not be the easiest thing to do. If it was easy, we all would be bastions of health. Choose to go to the extra effort. Choose life.

Good luck,
Laura Moncur

What is your favorite Thanksgiving food? Is it the pumpkin pie? The turkey? The stuffing? The mashed potatoes? That weird green bean casserole with the french fried onions on top?

Whatever it is, start eating it NOW.

If your mouth is watering at the thought of turkey and stuffing, make a turkey with stuffing this week. The fact that you even have a favorite Thanksgiving food may be the reason that you end up going overboard on Thanksgiving. The idea that food is scarce has caused some of my worst binges. Food that you can only have once a year is the definition of scarcity.

So, give yourself permission to have Thanksgiving food now, in April and even in July. Cooking a turkey several times a year will prevent the gorging that is typical on Thanksgiving. Suddenly, it’s just another meal instead of a once a year event.

Whatever your favorite Thanksgiving food is, your homework assignment this week is to have it now.

Now that we have entered the dark months, it is imperative that you prevent The Invisible Pedestrian Syndrome when you are out walking or running for your exercise. There have been so many times that the only reason I was able to see the pedestrian jaywalking across the street is because their dark clothes blocked out the headlights of the oncoming traffic.

Wendy has some gear for keeping yourself very visible this season:

• About.com – Night Walking Fun Gear – by Wendy Bumgardner

Here are some tips that don’t cost much:

• Wear light colored clothing: I know that black sweat suit is much more fashionable than white or powder blue, but it makes you INVISIBLE in the dark.

• Try reflective tape: You can buy reflective tape at the hardware store and tape a few bars across your back, down your arms and across your chest. It won’t wash well, but if you only wash your coat once a year, it should last the season.

• Carry a flashlight: Carry it in the hand that is closest to the street, so that the cars can see you from further away. It isn’t so you can see so much as to make you more visible.

Be safe during these dark months. No one wants to get hit by a car during their workout. Just taking a few precautions can keep you from getting injured.

Even though you know that you live in a neighborhood that doesn’t get many trick-or-treaters, you bought a few bags of candy. Not just normal candy, but your favorites. Now, you are sitting in a house full of individual servings of your favorite candy still sitting in a bowl, enticing you. I’m going to tell you what no other person would tell you.

Don’t throw it away.

Yep, don’t throw it away. If it was just candy that you didn’t like, I would happily tell you to take it to work and leave it in the breakroom for the people who don’t need to watch their weight, but because you bought your favorites “for the kids,” I’m telling you to keep it.

You bought that candy for a reason and you need to figure out what that reason is.

Have you been restricting your diet so much that tiny bars of your favorite candy were irresistible?

If you have been, KEEP the candy. Figure out the calorie counts for a couple of servings a day and make sure you include them in your diet. Plan for 150-200 calories a day of your favorite candy. If you keep restricting this food from your diet, you’ll end up with a HUGE binge that could end your dedication to eating healthy. Allowing yourself a small bit of your favorite candy every day is how to avoid the real binge.

Has it gone too far? Do you want to binge?

If you do, it’s NOT about the candy. Find out what spurred this desire to binge. What are you avoiding? What have you been sweeping under the rug of your consciousness? Get it out and suddenly that candy won’t have as much power over you.

Leftover Halloween candy is an amazing opportunity.

You have the chance to learn more about your own eating habits. Find out what you have been avoiding or make sure your diet hasn’t become lifeless. Whatever the temptation, you can master it, either by allowing a small portion every day or working through the problems that make you turn to food.

The thought of just getting on the treadmill and running without a television, mp3 player or other distraction sounds like an exercise in meditation to me, and quite frankly it is. If you find that you have been dying of boredom on the treadmill lately, here are some ideas to keep things interesting.

• Meditation: Many runners say that running is more important than religion to them. They achieve a sense of peace while running that they have never felt anywhere else. I’m not one of those runners, but trying meditation techniques while running on the treadmill is something that runners have been using for years. Click here for some examples of meditations: Beliefnet.com Meditations

• Work Out Your To-Do List: Other runners say that the hour they spend running saves them hours during the rest of the day because they are able to put together a to-do list. Keep a pad of paper and pencil near the treadmill so you can write down the important things that come to your mind while you’re running. It’s just something that you can’t do when you’re running outside.

• Music: Playing music while I’m running is one of my favorite distractions. The beat of the music is very helpful to keep my running at a good pace. Right now, I run with an iPod Nano, but over the years I have run with skip-free CD players, radios and tape players. Music has kept my feet moving for years.

• Television: Television has gotten Mike on the treadmill every weekday for months on end. We tape our favorite television shows and only watch them when we are exercising. This particular setup was very easy. The shelf and shelf brackets are premade and bought at a hardware store for less than 20 bucks. The television/DVD player was more expensive because it’s so small. It cost us about $250 when it was new a year and a half ago. For under 300 bucks, you can have a personal viewing studio right in front of your treadmill.

Between these few techniques, I am rarely bored when I’m running on my treadmill. When the weather is nice, I love to run outside, but when I’m trapped inside, I have lots to keep me from dying of boredom.

I’ve given my ideas on how to keep a workout on the treadmill challenging. What are your ideas?

What do you do on the treadmill to keep things challenging?

Do you try different things or do you do the same workout every day?

If you see a different idea, do you try it or does it get lost in the shuffle of those “I should do that”s? Why?

What would it be like to do something completely different for your workout?

If you could do something completely different, what would you do?

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

When I got my first treadmill, I had been walking and running outside. It was a cold and wet winter, so we bought the treadmill to avoid the snowy mornings. I immediately noticed that it was easier for me to run on the treadmill than to run outside. Here’s what I do to keep the treadmill workout challenging.

• Increase The Incline: Back then, I put the incline on 2% and it felt about the same as running outside. It’s a guide that I usually follow to this day. I usually assume that my treadmill on a 2% incline is about the same as running outside. The beauty of the treadmill, however, is that I can put the incline up to 12% and have an uphill climb the entire time. Try doing THAT outside.

• Increase The Speed: When I run outside, I slow down when I get tired. It’s not something I do consciously. It just happens and I look down at my Nike+iPod and realize that I’m running slower. On a treadmill, I can ruthlessly set the speed and stick to my interval schedule without mercy. It’s one reason that I like the treadmill better than walking outside because I can stick to my plans much easier.

• Mix It Up: I can walk backwards on my treadmill, which works my muscles in a whole different way. I can also do side jumps, long lunges and skip on my treadmill. All these techniques work my muscles entirely differently. Sure, I can skip around my neighborhood, but even I am too embarrassed to do that.

• Wear A Heart Rate Monitor: The most important thing is that you get a cardiovascular workout. If you wear a heart rate monitor and have your heart rate in the proper zone, then it doesn’t matter if you’re outside or on a treadmill. It’s good advice for both sorts of exercise.

The truth of the matter is that you’ll get a better workout walking 4.0 mph outside than walking the same speed on a treadmill, but that isn’t what you should focus on. The biggest danger with treadmill workouts is BOREDOM. When you are running or walking outside, there are lots of things to look at and watch out for. When you are on the treadmill, your workout can feel like a never ending walk to nowhere.

Stay tuned on Tuesday to find out how to spice up your treadmill workouts.

Wendy compares walking on the treadmill to walking outside and noticed that she gets a better workout when she is outside.

• About.com – Walking Outside vs. Treadmill – by Wendy Bumgardner

That may be true, so you have to really mix it up when you are walking on a treadmill to get as good of a workout as you would outside.

Stay tuned tomorrow for ideas on how to create a treadmill workout that makes a walk outside seem like just a walk in the park.