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

How would it feel to get a 30-minute exercise break every day at work? What if your employer not only paid you to exercise, but provided you with a gym and personal trainer? That’s exactly what Clif Bar does for their employees.

• Treatment Online – Companies Get Creative to Cut Healthcare Premiums

So many companies have made the connection between exercise and good health that they are actually providing their employees with easy ways to exercise in an effort to cut healthcare costs. I would like to see more of this happening.

I actually worked at a company that paid us to exercise three times a week and provided a gym downstairs. Ironically, very few people took advantage of the facilities or benefits. The ones that did took advantage of the extra 30 minutes by walking to a local restaurant instead of driving. While I sweated away on my treadmill in the basement, I thought it wasn’t quite fair that walking to a restaurant counted. I guess it was better than driving.

This article says that companies that invest in health maintenance like providing a gym for its employees will save money on healthcare costs, but I would like to see some hard numbers. I didn’t really see people sweating it out during those extra 30 minutes at my former employer’s company. I wonder if policies like this are actually helpful or if they are just a bandaid on the problem.

Still, it was nice being paid to exercise three times a week…

When I exercised on my exercise bike last week, I put the camera in front of my face and just started talking. This video is 3:04 minutes and I am talking about hitting rock bottom and getting inspired to eat healthy again.

I really feel that staying healthy and keeping my bingeing in check is like a roller coaster ride. If I can keep the valleys from going too low, then I’m succeeding. Someday, maybe I’ll be able to get off the roller coaster and eat healthy for the rest of my life without relapses. Until then, I’m just learning to ride that roller coaster.

It looks like both Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso are out of the Tour de France this year because of doping allegations. Both are contesting that they haven’t done anything wrong.

• BBC SPORT | Other Sport… | Cycling | Ullrich, Basso forced out of Tour

There are so many things that can tip off a drug test that the two of them might actually believe that they haven’t done anything wrong, yet some of their “supplements” might have caused this problem as it did with Kicker Vencill before the 2004 Olympics.

Remember, if a product is promising “performance” or weight loss without diet and exercise, they are either doping you up, or selling you sugar pills. There is no such thing as a magic pill that can make your fat go away or make you faster on your bike. Depend on yourself and healthy food.

Via: kottke.org

Over at Big Fat Blog, they rant about the fat hatred that runs rampant in the techie industry.

• Big Fat Blog: Tired of High-Tech Fat Hatred

“I read a lot of techie blogs. I’m a techie. I love the web, I love keeping tabs on memes, I love me some open source software. I’m a total geek, and I’m not ashamed of it. But I have had it with the tech blogs out there posting anti-fat entries, and/or allowing anti-fat comments to run rampant.”

A unkind entry on the 37 Signals website was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The worst thing to realize is that David Heinemeier Hansson, the author of that particular entry at 37 signals, is a high power executive who is making these comments.

Do you think he’ll hire an overweight programmer?

Fat discrimination is REAL. Someone who is overweight can be just as good a programmer as a thin one, but the fat person isn’t going to get the job.

That’s why I believe in Fat Acceptance.

Food is involved in so much of our lives that when we are learning to eat healthier, it can get in the way of so many things. Terry, at I See Invisible People, talks about her relationships, alcohol and food.

• I See Invisible People » Food as bonding

I love her thoughts here:

“When I was younger, my friends and I bonded through alcohol. Drive-in movies, dance parties, cutting school, just hanging, out all involved booze. If we were together, we drank. As much as our shared tattered backgrounds, liquor was the glue that held us together. It was the lowest common denominator between scarred kids with serious trust issues. Looking back on it, we had little in common besides our Underclass pasts and our reliance on alcohol. Perhaps this is why most of those friendships didn’t survive into adulthood.”

Is food the glue that is holding your relationships together? If so, how are you going to change that dynamic so you can live a healthier life?

Every once and a while I come across these stories. They talk about sideshow carnivals and people who made their living just by being fat. This is the story of Dolly Dimples.

• The Human Marvels: Dolly Dimples – The Dainty Fat Lady

She was 4’11” tall and weighed 555 pounds, enjoying the carnival life. Then she survived a heart attack.

Her doctors told her to alter her diet or she would die. Dolly was frightened by the prospect of death, she enjoyed live greatly, and so she paid attention to the advice in a most astounding fashion.

In fourteen months Dolly Dimples was gone, and in her place stood Celesta Geyer at a svelte 112 pounds. She had lost over 443 pound by limiting her diet to baby food. The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes this achievement as the greatest weight loss in the shortest period of time.

She spent the rest of her life promoting her diet as a method of losing weight. She profited from being fat and she profited from slimming down. We all like to watch as the celebrities perform stunts of amazement like Janet Jackson’s weight loss. This has been going on for so long that it makes me believe that we are programmed to want to watch others on this journey.

This article is an excellent argument for walking more and driving less:

• Get Rich Slowly » How to Walk for Fun and Profit

I love this great list of reasons to walk:

• The average cost of operating a vehicle is 52.2 cents. Walking is free.

• A regular walking regimen can take less time than going to the gym. And there are no membership fees.

• When I walk to the grocery store, I buy much less. A car effectively gives me unlimited carrying capacity. When I have to haul each item home by hand, I’m much more particular about what I purchase.

• Walking helps you become more aware of your surroundings. I see a lot more of my neighborhood when I walk.

• The only pollutant you produce when walking is sweat.

The next time you’re tempted to jump in the car for a quick trip to the grocery store, remember to strap on your tennis shoes instead. You might just find a source of exercise that feels much more useful than walking on the treadmill.

I have been planning my meals using this spreadsheet. I originally got it from the Microsoft Templates Library, but it was a simple sheet meant to be printed out and written on instead of used to the full capabilities of a spreadsheet. I altered it substantially. If you would like to try it, you can download it here:

• Weekly Meal Planning Spreadsheet

This uses Microsoft Excel, so you need to have that software to play with it. If you want more details on how to use this, click here:

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I’m still eating healthy. I haven’t binged for a week now. The only thing I can credit to staying on track is planning my meals. Mike and I sat down a week ago and planned three days worth of meals for me. We wrote down breakfast and lunch and then planned the evenings that we were going to go out to eat dinner. For the first time in months, I was able to keep myself from bingeing by following that plan. Friday evening, we sat down and planned an entire week for me and I’ve been able to keep from abusing myself.

I was always reluctant to plan my meals ahead of time. I didn’t want to lose my spontaneity. I have always wanted to be the kind of person that eats what she wants when she wants. I was never willing to write out a plan for the next day, much less a week.

The only problem with that is I end up obsessing about food all day long.

As soon as I finish a meal, I need to think about what I’m going to eat next. I had no idea that giving up spontaneity would give me such freedom. Now, instead of worrying about my next meal, I already know what my next meal is going to be. It’s something that I was excited about when I planned it, and I know it’s going to fit into my program.

Since I’ve planned my meals, I actually obsess about food less, not more. If I follow the plan perfectly, I don’t need to journal a thing. I don’t need to write down one word because it’s already there. Planning makes eating healthy so much easier.

I know I’ve heard that before. It’s said so many times that it’s a cliche. Planning makes eating healthy easier. I would nod and I thought that I was doing enough planning by buying enough healthy veggies and fruits for the week. I didn’t want to have to plan every morsel of food that went into my mouth. Where’s the fun in that?

None. I have to be honest. There is very little fun in planning your meals for the week. Last Friday, it took Mike and I an hour to do it. There was a little bit of excitement when we chose which recipes we were going to cook on the eating at home dinners, but basically, it was an hour of boring planning. No fun.

The truth is, I feel such a sense of peace about food. I had gotten to the point that I wasn’t journaling because I was sick of writing down every bite of food I put into my mouth. Now, if I follow the plan, I don’t need to write. I just eat the meal on the schedule.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll share the spreadsheet that makes planning so much easier.

Terry has made the choice to live a healthier life. She smartly realizes that shaming someone doesn’t help make them thin, so she is being gentle with herself during this time.

• I See Invisible People » Being postive in the now

What’s her plan?

“What I’ve been trying to do is be positive about myself right now. I’m only wearing clothes that I feel look good on me. I’m putting on make-up in the morning.”

Next time you think that you have to put a picture of yourself when you were fat on the refrigerator to stop yourself from eating, remember Terry’s advice.

“I’ve read diet books advocating taking a fat picture of yourself and hanging it on the refrigerator to keep you from eating. Sorry, but humiliation just doesn’t work for me. Self-loathing is a terrible thing and comes frighteningly easy to me. It makes me depressed in a way that drugs don’t help. Depression makes me desperate and I stop eating completely, which isn’t a good thing long term.”

Being loving and positive with yourself is really the only way to health.

Via: love and hope and sex and dreams: Some People You Should Meet If You Haven’t Already