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

I was reading “9 Steps to Effective Dieting” on eDiets. Just like all the articles that have a number in the title, there is a list of good ideas and advice. Step number two, however, was different than the normal “Eat Less, Move More” philosophy.

• Realize everything is connected! Jonny believes there is a solid connection between your weight and the rest of your life. Taking off those extra pounds is not as simple as eating less food. One of Jonny’s mottos is: “Change your life, change your weight.”

I have instinctively known this for a while, but to have it said to me so clearly was kind of a smack in the face. For me, there is a definitive connection between my weight and how I feel. If I let the rest of my life get out of order, my weight starts to creep up. If I am consciously working at making my life better, my body reflects that.

It is said that we wear our grief. That is true on many levels. When I don’t deal with my emotions, food is the only narcotic that works to hide from them. It’s part of the reason that I write in my journal. It’s part of the reason that I write for this weblog. The only way to keep my emotions in check is to constantly confront them every day. There is no room for hiding because I want to live a healthy life.

Via: Really Useful Fitness Blog

Back when they introduced the Core Plan, Weight Watchers added the recommendation that we eat two teaspoons of healthy oil every day. There are even boxes to check off on the Quicktrack form. I keep my journal on my Palm, so there are no healthy oil boxes for me to check on it, but I make sure I get them in every day. I’m a rule follower, so I’m following the rules.

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Is that the best title for an article about weight loss or what? Prevention’s success stories are one of the best reasons to buy their magazine.

• Prevention.com – How I Got an ‘A’ in Weight Loss – by Professor Lynne Logan

She chronicles her story of knowing absolutely nothing about health, nutrition and fitness to hitting the books and finally finishing with her at her goal weight. I love to read stories like this because it inspires me to keep going just like she did.

Lynne’s Good Advice:

• Burn more calories than you eat.
• Protien will make you feel fuller and more satisfied.
• Sugary sodas are high in calories. Limit them to cut your intake.
• After you’ve lost some weight, you may plateau. Kick it up by increasing your exercise or adding strength training.

I struggle with planning. I know that planning what I’m going to eat is the most effective way to prevent overeating, yet I still resist it. I don’t mind having options. If I have a list of healthy meals that I can make with ingredients that are in the house that all have similar calorie and fat content, I’m happy. That’s about as far into planning as I have been able to muster.

I guess some people love planning. They love to get menus and set the course for their week. I’ve never really met a person that really loves to plan out their food and snacks for a week or month ahead. I see those menus in the magazines and sometimes Weight Watchers gives us a one month menu planner, but I just carefully file them away in the folder in the hopes that one day I’ll get on board with this planning stuff.

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With everything in the news lately, I have an important question: What Would The Pope Eat?

• Food Museum Blog – Papal Diets

• Buon Appetito, Your Holiness : The Secret of the Papal Table – by Mariangela Vicini, Mariangela Rinaldi

• Cookbook Review – Buon Appetito – by Nancy Hurley for Good Cooking

Since gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, I would imagine that the Pope would have a light diet of bland and healthy food. According to this book, it doesn’t seem that way. Cream of Chicken Soup, Paprika Oysters and Eel just don’t seem simple to me. Maybe it’s only a sin if you eat too much.

We’ve been innudated with books about the French way of eating. These books claim that French women don’t get fat. They say that the French have an innovative way to eat that allows them to enjoy bread, cheese, chocolate and wine.

• French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating For Pleasure – by Mireille Guiliano

• The Fat Fallacy : The French Diet Secrets to Permanent Weight Loss – by Will Clower

• The French Diet: Why French Women Don’t Get Fat – by Michel Montignac

I really haven’t known what to say about these diets. I’ve found the way to lose weight and enjoy bread, cheese, chocolate and wine. Don’t eat so much. Do these books really have anything to offer me besides eating smaller portions?

Not according to the authors of four French Food bloggers:

• Roundtable: The French Paradox

Read this very informative interview with lots of “trucs” (tricks) to keep you slim. Try it out.

There is so much that I don’t understand when I read the running magazines and books. I’ve tried to fathom what they are talking about, but it all sounds like gibberish and numbers to me. It’s not like I’m scared of numbers. I was a math major. If I can wrap my head around Multi-Variate Calculus, I should be able to understand a running magazine, right? Not yet…

• The Washington Post – Hire a Running Coach – by Matthew Graham

My sister suggested that I hire a personal trainer from the gym. I shied away from the idea, mostly because I don’t like the idea of having a personal trainer. A running coach, on the other hand, sounds like someone I could work with. Of course, this article gives some local information on finding a running coach, but only if “local” means Washington D. C. It’s too late for a running coach to make any major improvements on my time for the SLC Marathon on April 23rd, but for my next race, it might be a good idea. Until then, I’ll keep working with my Treadmill Spreadsheet.

I’ve always thought of Raw Food Vegans to be a wayward branch of vegetarianism. They eat only food that is plant-derived that is uncooked. Corn flakes are out. Canned spinach is out. Meat and cheese? WAY OUT. I just couldn’t believe that one could be healthy and eat under such restrictions. This study begs to differ.

• Reuters.com – Raw Food Vegans Thin But Healthy, Study Finds

Now, you have to remember that this study looked at the health of only eighteen Raw Food Vegans, which isn’t a statistically valid number. Humans are such slipperly test subjects, however, it’s hard to do long term studies on these sorts of things. You just can’t lock them up in cages and only feed them what you want to test like you can with mice and rabbits. Until we are able to see the results of a larger group (double blind, please…) we’ll have to accept that raw fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts are a healthy way to eat.

I’ve heard them called a lot of things: trigger foods, red-light foods, but I tend to think of them as my Vulnerability Foods. They are foods that I like to binge with. They are friends when I’m feeling vulnerable. Some of them are old friends (Mother’s brand chocolate cookies or bite size Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups). Others are new additions to my binging vulnerability (pretzels dipped in Nutella). They are foods that I search out when I don’t want to deal with my emotions. They are foods that allow me to consume a huge number of calories within a short amount of time.

Need to know how to deal with your personal vulnerability foods? Here’s a list of strategies, starting with the ones that don’t work for me and moving on to the ones that do work.

Advice That Doesn’t Work:

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This series from About.com talks about the benefits that can be had from a daily walking regimen.

• About.com – Walking For Your Mind and Spirit – by Wendy Bumgardner

This article gets a little metaphysical, but it opens up your mind to an entirely different way to look at your daily exercise.