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

The Halloween aisle is a long black and orange enticement at the grocery store. What are you going to do about it this year?

When do you buy Halloween candy?

Are you really buying it for the kids or is the “first wave” for you and you don’t want to admit it?

What are your favorite Halloween candy flavors?

Are those the flavors that you buy “for the kids”?

Are there good uses for Halloween candy?

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.

Jason Kottke said it better than I could I’m just passing this on to you:

• The democratization of the marathon (kottke.org)

Jason noticed that Gabriel Sherman wrote an article called, “How sluggish newbies ruined the marathon“. He is sick of slow runners in “his” races. With searing wit, Kottke has the best reply:

“Why should the almighty institution of The Marathonâ„¢ be more important than the people running in it? And why doesn’t he want more people to enjoy a sport that he loves? Should we implore Mr. Sherman to stop writing because he’s ruining journalism with his shallow, insubstantial articles? Hell no! Keep writing, Mr. Sherman…we’ll keep reading in the hopes that you’ll one day improve and recognize the importance of, every once in awhile, doing something for which you’re not ideally suited because you want to.”

It seems like so many people join sports (or religions or country clubs or whatever) in order to feel better than other people. If anyone can run a marathon, then the marathon isn’t special anymore, is it? WRONG! No matter who does it, if they finish a marathon, they have completed a great thing. For one shining moment, they were able to conquer the distance and any clamorings their body had to stop.

Bad form, Gabriel. Bad form.

Don’t let any elitist athlete tell you what you can and cannot do. If you have qualified and trained for the race, don’t let anyone stop you from running it. Sorry, Gabriel, you’re going to have to let a few more people into your “exclusive” club.

Hewlett Packard has added a feature to its cameras that allows you to make a centered subject appear thinner.

• Slimming photos with HP digital cameras – HP Digital Photography Center

This isn’t new. It’s something that Photoshop experts have been doing for a long time. I thought I would try it out myself and see if I could create a slimmer version of my Before Pictures.

Using Photoshop, I created the “after” photo by changing the image size without constraining the proportions. You can tell because the fish above my head is much “thinner” than it was before. The photo makes my before photo look a little thinner, but it does nothing for my lumpy parts. I think that’s why HP used models that didn’t really need slimming in their example pages. Sure, it can make you look a little less wide, but it can’t shave off the soft and bumpy bits.

In the end, there is no software that can make you look better. You have to do the work to look better. I have never had a better photo taken of me than the quick clicks of friends when I am healthy and strong. This picture was taken by Betsy the Devine at SXSW last March and it’s the best I’ve looked EVER. Don’t waste your money on cameras that say they will make you look thinner. Getting thin is free, all you have to do is put in the effort.

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…

It’s sexy, no? Maybe you can barely see it? Is all you’re seeing is the shoe? Look on the shoelaces, there is a tiny black square. That is what I’m talking about. The almost invisible Marware Sensor+. It holds your Nike+ iPod sensor on your shoes in its tiny and compact pocket. Plus, it’s only 13 bucks.

I have to admit that this is mighty tempting, even though I already have something that works with my Nike+. I have had a couple of people ask about “that thing on my shoe,” but this sensor pocket is so small that I don’t think anyone would even notice it.

Still can’t see it? Here is a bigger picture:

It feels like I’ve been talking about the Nike+ alot lately, and I have. It has been the only thing keeping me exercising lately. I don’t know why it has been so motivating to me, but I have been really happy with it.

Hi Laura:

I’m not a runner, but the idea of syncing my tunes up to how hard I’m working sounds excellent. Would I get any use out of the Sport kit even though I don’t run? (I mostly do treadmill or ArcTrainer, sometimes the bike, infrequently the Stairmill.)

Thanks!
Eh… not so much

Eh… not so much,

The Nike+ Sport Kit tracks your workouts with a little sensor that you put in your expensive Nike shoes or a Shoe Pocket (like I did). That little pod is an accelerometer, which means that it tracks how quickly your foot is moving. That’s how it registers how far you’ve run.

If you use the Nike+ on the treadmill (like I do for about half my workouts), you’ll notice that it will give you a little different mileage than the treadmill says you’ve run. I’m okay with that difference because it’s all just an estimate anyway. I like the Nike+ on the treadmill because it tracks my workouts. They show up on the Nike+ website and I can see my progress. I’m all about the external validation, so when I see the little trophy for exercising three times a week, I feel motivated to earn another one.

The Nike+ might register something when you use a stair climber or elliptical trainer, but I don’t know how accurately it will rate your workout. Considering that you can turn the intensity up really high on those machines and your foot fall would be the same as if you had low intensity, it’s not as accurate of a measurement. I’ve never tried using the Nike+ with those machines, but I’m pretty sure it will measure something. And again, remember, it’s all just an estimate anyway.

If you already have an iPod Nano, then the SportKit is only a $20 investment, so it might be worth your while. If you’re thinking of investing in a Nano just so you can use the Nike+, then you would probably be better served by a Polar Running Computer like this one here.

This unit costs $199 and comes with a heart rate monitor, watch, foot pod (accelerometer) and computer software to track your workouts. The reviews of the watch are very positive and technically, this will give you MORE information than the Nike+. Additionally, the calorie estimate will be more accurate because it’s based on your heart rate instead of the number of times your foot moves. It won’t talk in your ear like the Nike+ will. It won’t log your information on the Nike+ website and give you trophies for achieving your goals, but it might be a better option if you don’t already own a Nano.

Remember, tools such as the Polar and the Nike+ are just that: tools. They can’t force you to get to the gym, out of the house or on the treadmill. These things might be inspiring and motivating, but in the end, you can’t buy fitness.

Good Luck,
Laura

It looks like some people have had some troubles with the new Nano and the Nike+. Here are some responses from the Apple Support Board:

• Apple – Support – Discussions – Does anyone know if the Nike+iPod kit …

“I just got mine today….. the nano keeps freezing up with the nike sports kit….. according to all literature, you need a 1.2 nano update, but the 2Gen nanos come with 1.0.1 I’m not sure if that is why….but like I said, mine keeps freezing right before I start a workout and have to reset(using hold, menu + center) to get out the screen. There are no further updates available for the 2gen. Either I got a bad nano, or their are glitches.”

“My sport kit worked fine with my old Nano. I received my second gen Nano yesterday, and the Nano cannot connect with the sensor. My Nano doesn’t freeze; it just won’t connect with the sensor. I am also using firmware 1.0.1, which, according to Itune 7.0, is the latest for the new Nano. Any ideas? A new firmware, perhaps?”

It looks like some people have no troubles, though.

“I have nike+ipod, and new nano, nike+ shoes as well. they all work. don’t worry. only difference is if you connect adapter with new nano, nike+ipod menu appears. but if you remove it, it will be disappeared unlikely old nano which is stayed on.”

It looks like the problems are hit and miss right now, which is enough to make me wait to see what Apple does about them. Apple has a strange way of getting rid of affiliated companies that they don’t like (Motorola iPod Phone, anyone?). It may be that the Nike thing isn’t working out the best it could and Apple is subtly phasing them out of the picture.

I guess I’ll keep exercising with my borrowed Nano for now…

Sometimes I wonder what is going on in the heads of people who find this kind of stuff inspirational.

This video shows Julie Moss crawling across the finish line to take second place in the Ironman competition. She keeps falling and none of her coaches or anyone else with her has the sense to just tell her that she needs a doctor. No race is worth injury. What is the matter with runners when they find performances like this inspiring?

Guess what, you don’t have to kill yourself to win in the game of life.

So many of us see productions like this from ABC Sports and think that we have to go overboard just to live a healthy life. We don’t need to crawl across the finish line. We need to make the small and healthy decisions every day. Life isn’t a race. It’s a journey. If your body is shutting down from the competition, you shouldn’t keep crawling across the finish line. You get help. Julie Moss shouldn’t be held up as a hero for crawling in second. Kathy McCartney should have been held up as the hero for pacing herself well enough to finish strong.

Via: Via YouTube: Julie Moss Competing in the 1982 Hawaii Ironman Triathlon » Complete Running Network

So many of our successes and failures can be attributed to our thoughts. What we think is so powerful and make or break us.

Who is your hero?

Describe that person, the good AND bad qualities that they have.

How do their good qualities help you?

How does emulating their bad qualities hinder you?

Our heroes are real people. We chose them as our heroes because they have done things that are important to us, but we need to remember that they are humans just like us.

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.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects workers from being discriminated against because of their disabilites. Employers are required to list any specific requirements of a position (i.e. must be able to lift 50 pounds) in order to prevent arbitrary discrimination. If you are morbidly obese, should the ADA protect you from being fired?

According to a recent ruling, you must be able to prove that the obesity is caused by a physiological disorder in order for you to get protection under ADA.

What do I think about this?

On one hand, I’ve experienced discrimination in the workplace when I was fat. I was continually accused of being lazy despite high production rates.

On the other hand, too many people go running to the law courts when they run into troubles. I don’t think the government or law suits are the answer.

For me, I left the job. I didn’t want to work for a company so blind that they couldn’t see what a good employee I was. If all they could see was my fat, then I was going to take my fat and highly productive self to a company that appreciated me. Sometimes, I think that’s the answer. When companies discriminate, they end up limiting their supply of good employees. The people who won’t put up with discrimination leave. They die a death of their own making because they can’t keep good employees.

Should the ADA protect fat workers? I don’t know. I think it’s more important to protect ourselves.

Via: Big Fat Blog: Fat Not Covered Under ADA