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

This in depth article from Newsweek talks about Oprah and her dubious and sometimes conflicting health advice.

• Live Your Best Life Ever! | Newsweek.com

This is Oprah’s special brilliance. She is a gifted entertainer, but she makes it seem as though that is beside the point. Oprah is not here to amuse you, she is here to help you. To help you understand your feelings; drop those unwanted pounds; look and feel younger; get your thyroid under control; to smooth your thighs, nip and tuck your wrinkles, awaken your senses and achieve spiritual tranquility so that you can at last be free to “Live Your Best Life.”

This is where things get tricky. Because the truth is, some of what Oprah promotes isn’t good, and a lot of the advice her guests dispense on the show is just bad. Some of the many experts who cross her stage offer interesting and useful information (props to you, Dr. Oz). Others gush nonsense. Oprah, who holds up her guests as prophets, can’t seem to tell the difference. She has the power to summon the most learned authorities on any subject; who would refuse her? Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous.

I’m glad that someone is willing to mention that sometimes Oprah doesn’t give the best advice. She is so beloved by so many that it’s hard to suggest that she might not be an authority. She’s not a doctor and MORE importantly, she’s not YOUR doctor. She is a talk show host. She is producing a television show for ENTERTAINMENT. Don’t get your medical advice from a talk show.

I truly believe that Oprah wants to help people, but she is easily fooled by the many people out there just eager to make a quick dollar. All it takes is a MENTION of something on the Oprah show to make it immediately sell out. I believe Oprah has raised the bar of daytime television so high that we have forgotten that in the end, she’s just a talk show host, not some infallible goddess.

Via: Consumer Health Digest, June 4, 2009

I found this question on the Diet Blog and I wanted to say WAY more than I should in a comment, so I posted my answer here.

• Is Gary Taubes Onto Something?

I just watched Gary Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Calories lecture in Berkeley, and he seems so convinced and convincing about what he believes.

So, is there a flaw in his argument? And if “yes” what is it?

I’ve been on Weight Watchers in the past, and I know it works. But they preach the complete opposite of what Taubes quotes as scientifically proven.

So, how is it that you can lose weight while eating less fat, and as much pasta as you like, but on the other hand you can eat as much fat as you like, but no pasta – and this also works?

I’m just confused…

If you look at the Weight Watchers pamphlets closely, you can see that they don’t conflict with Gary Taubes’ views on carbohydrates. They recommend that IF you eat carbohydrates, to choose whole grains. They recommend that you limit your intake of processed sugars. Carbohydrates from fruit, vegetables and legumes are highly recommended by both Taubes and Weight Watchers.

Weight Watchers will probably never say that a low carbohydrate diet is what they recommend, but they make it very easy to follow one while on the Weight Watchers program.

The risk with making certain foods “bad” like Taubes has done is that restricted foods can have a mystical element to them. Once a food is deemed as “bad” it can seem FAR more appealing than it did before. I think that’s why Weight Watchers allows you to eat whatever foods you want as long as you stay within your Daily Points Allowance. Removing the judgment from food is the first step toward eating healthier.

Gary Taubes has focused on the health aspect of food, but has completely ignored the emotional aspects of it. Weight Watchers is taking BOTH into account by allowing you to eat whatever you want, but gently steering you toward healthier choices. It’s entirely possible to eat a low carb diet while on Weight Watchers as long as you can handle the idea of “bad” foods without spiraling into a binge.

Good Luck!

I received this comment on a post last week:

• Starling Fitness » My Symbiont Part 3 of 3

Nicky Says: June 3rd, 2009 at 9:08 pm

Hi Laura! Your 2006 video made me sad – I felt so bad for you. I hope every day today is not as much of a struggle.

I noticed that you actually use food as a reward for when you exercise…do you think that perhaps a non-food reward would help decrease your obsessional thoughts about food more effectively?

I’m also very concerned about your statement, “If I have a perfect day, I spend some time with a good friend either on the phone or in person.” Two issues – first, the focus on having a “perfect day”. You should feel good even if you have a “pretty good day.” Perfectionism is the route to self-hatred. Second issue – you need to reward yourself with positive social interaction WHETHER OR NOT you had a good or “perfect” day. Positive social interaction may be even MORE important after a “horrible” day – it can help you take better care of yourself the next day!

Good luck – and be good to yourself!

Nicky,

Thanks for the comments and email. Honestly, I still struggle, even after all these years.

As far as using food for a reward, the beast inside us is an animal and not even one that’s as smart as a dog. Food is an incredible reward for it and has helped me have less obsessed thoughts. I make sure the food is healthy, but it’s a great bribe.

For me, a perfect day includes eating all the things I’m supposed to eat:

• Five servings of fruits or vegetables
• Two servings of dairy
• Two servings of protein
• Two servings of healthy oils
• Whole grains
• Six glasses of water
• A multi-vitamin

It doesn’t mean that I have to stay within a caloric limitation or even stop a binge. I just have to feed myself a minimum of healthy food every day. It’s a pretty liberal definition of “perfect,” so there is plenty of wiggle room for me. It’s a little easier to achieve and less likely to cause self-hatred.

Thank you for all the positive comments. I really appreciate it!

Laura

I’ve talked a lot about retraining the beast within me. If you haven’t read the entries, here they are:

• Starling Fitness » My Symbiont Part 1 of 3
• Starling Fitness » My Symbiont Part 2 of 3
• Starling Fitness » My Symbiont Part 3 of 3

Sometimes it’s like I’m having a conversation with myself and it’s a war within me. Having a year of perfect days is harder than I thought it would be and easier than I thought it would be. Just when I think I’ve got it down, it gets hard again and I have no idea why. This commercial from Nike is JUST what I needed right now.

Next time you find yourself face to face with the beast within you, remember this commercial and those fateful words:

I’m done with you!

Leave your old self behind.

This applies to keeping on running when I want to stop and it applies to eating when I’m not hungry or eating food that I KNOW is going to start a binge. I’m ready to retrain that beast inside of me to do what I want, not what is easy or gratifying.

Via: Twitter / Sue B: Great post on overcoming t …

Every once and a while, I need to indulge in something decadent. Eating healthy is best done in moderation as are indulgences. This month, I want to try bacon pancakes.

Kathy at Merriment Design has the recipe she tried for bacon pancakes with wonderful results.

• Merriment Design » Bacon Pancakes

The next time you need to have an indulgent meal, try bacon pancakes!

Via: Craftzine.com blog : Recipe: Bacon Pancakes

The ever wonderful Braidwood has written a couple of great entries about eating healthy and listening to your body when it comes to eating:

• Every weight issue is really a power issue | Authentic Threads

What impacted me the most when I saw this was hearing that, “The root of the problem is giving away your power.” ! What? That’s the root of the problem? … Hey, that is the root of the problem!

I said that phrase to myself a few times and then turned it around. If that’s the root of the problem, then: The root of the solution is accepting my power.

• Thintuition | Authentic Threads

She recommended this video:

I understand the feeling of not wanting to diet again. Somehow, Weight Watchers works for me because communicating with my body was really hard at first. Weight Watchers gave me a good idea of what to eat to stay healthy. Eventually, I’ll develop enough Thintuition to eat healthy without guidelines, but for now, I WANT to follow a program that helps me make healthier choices.

Yesterday I talked about cupcakes and how the easiest way for me to eat them is to not eat them. If that is confusing, take a moment and read yesterday’s entry:

• Starling Fitness » How To Eat A Cupcake: DON’T

What if I really WANT a cupcake, however?

If I really want a cupcake, I can eat one whenever I want. That is the most powerful reason why it was so easy for me NOT to eat those delicious cupcakes a couple of weeks ago. I knew that I could have one if I wanted, but the thought of eating them stressed me out so much that I didn’t, even though I had plenty of calories left that day to afford one.

Every time I read a diet book that goes into scolding mode about what foods I can and cannot eat, it sends me into a binge. Even if I’m not planning on following that diet, I will start to WANT to eat foods that I never wanted to eat before. If I read a book that told me pickles were bad, I would suddenly want all sorts of pickles: dill, bread and butter, kosher, and sweet. You call it a pickle and I’d want it.

Won’t eat it is VERY different than CAN’T eat it. One is control imposed on me by another person. The other is a CHOICE. We all prefer to have choices. A prison is a prison, no matter how gilded the cage.

For me, eating healthy is about having infinite choices and fulfilling them. The minute I start limiting my choices, the animal within me rebels and craves only those foods I am denied. Ironically, I don’t need to eat foods to consider them one of my choices. I just need to give myself permission to eat them. All of this makes very little sense to me, but learning how to deal with the way my mind works will eventually set me free.

Photo via: Nicole Lee

You are looking at some of the most delicious cupcakes in Salt Lake City. They were provided by The Sweet Tooth Fairy at a geek event I went to a couple of weeks ago.

They were beautiful and lovely, but I had absolutely NO desire to eat them.

Surprising, really, considering my eating patterns, but they didn’t appeal to me at all.

That was the day that I realized that I don’t actually like cupcakes. It has taken me forty years to finally come to that conclusion. Sure, I like the flavor. I like the frosting. I like the cake.

It’s the cup that I don’t like.

Cupcakes are top heavy and awkward. I have to get frosting on my fingers while I try to take off the cupcake liner or I have to risk a bite of paper if I don’t remove it. The frosting is usually piled too high at the top to eat appropriately with the rest of the cake, so I end up with some bites with too much frosting and others without any. They are simply impossible to eat neatly.

When I attended that geek event in Salt Lake City, the delightful catering included platters and platters of gorgeous cupcakes. I looked at the table of food, and all I could do was stress out about how to eat one of those cupcakes. I was in a room full of people that I barely knew peppered with people who I knew really well who were desperate to introduce me to all of their friends and I was stressed out about a CUPCAKE!

In desperation, I decided not to eat.

Suddenly, the weight of all that beautiful catered food was lifted from my shoulders. All those people I was introduced to asked me if I had tried a cupcake and I said, “I’m not eating cupcakes today.” They accepted my words and most replied, “I shouldn’t be either.”

I watched them struggle with the cupcake liners and the frosting and the top heavy creaminess of it all and I breathed a sigh of relief instead of feeling left out.

This is AMAZING for me. It’s like one of those breakthroughs or A-Ha moments everybody talks about. Food stresses me out and sometimes it’s just easier to NOT EAT IT! If you had asked me that morning how to deal with the mess of eating a cupcake, I would have written you a bullet list on how to eat a cupcake without splurging too much or making your hands too messy. I wouldn’t have even considered not eating it. It just wasn’t an option

So, the answer to the question of how to eat a cupcake is: DON’T.

The simplicity of it all could just knock me over with a feather.

Photo via: Crystalyn Life Images

I dare you to watch this video without wanting to get up and do something active.

There are a few particularly cool scenes:

• When he jumps into a moving car and gets into the driver’s seat.
• When he does a back flip off the back of a moving car.
• When he climbs up the light post just like the Cirque du Soleil people do in their show.
• When he jumps onto the car going right for him, bounces off it onto the wall and bounds past it to continue running.

The description of the video is humbly listed as:

Playing around with some new moves for 2009.

My description would have been.

Super-human feats of gymnastics! Do not try at home!

Next time you’re feeling a little down and not wanting to workout out, watch this quick video and get inspired to MOVE!!

I watched a couple of videos last week that really inspired me to eat healthy and exercise right now.

The first video is a talk by Alan Russell about medicine and the upcoming methods of making our bodies healthy again with regenerative medicine.

He said:

The richer we are, the longer we live. The older our population, the more expensive the diseases are to treat.

Diabetes is a debilitating disease. Why can’t we inject the pancreas with something that regenerates the pancreas and cures Diabetes?

We are learning how to switch on feature that our bodies could do when we were a fetus. A mammalian fetus, if it loses a limb in the first trimester of pregnancy, will regrow that limb. Our DNA has the capacity to do these sort of wound healing mechanisms.

In the future, medicine will be able to regenerate our bodies. This talk from Aubrey de Grey about how medicine could eventually get to the point where we could actually live forever.

It’s VERY important that we take the BEST care of our bodies now so that we can be the people who are able to take advantage of these technologies when they finally become available to all of us.