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

A few months ago, Weight Watchers ran these commercials with the Hungry Monster:

Ever since I talked about that commercial, people have been emailing me asking where they could buy one. For example:

CAN WE PURCHASE THE LITTLE STUFFED CREATURE IN YOUR COMMERCIALD?

I was wondering if you would be marketing the little orange Hunger character in your commercials as a stuffed animal or something? I just think the commercials are really motivating and eye-catching and I would LOVE to have a little Hunger stuffed animal of my own..

Thank you,
Donnina

This week at Weight Watchers, I noticed that they are actually selling the little Hungry Monsters.

Seeing hunger personified reminds me that it’s just a little beast inside of me controlling what I eat. I need to retrain it to eat healthy food.

Update 02-03-10: The hungry monster used to be sold at Weight Watchers locations, but it has since been pulled from the market. Sorry, but you can’t buy them at present.

I love this old ad from 1943:

It reads:

War-Winning Nourishment
Appetite-Winning Flavor
Uncle Sam says: “Eat a green or yellow vegetable each day.” And Stokley’s Finest Honey Pod Peas fill the bill more ways than one. Peas supply minerals, protein, vitamins A, B1, C and G. And these Honey Pods have a flavor all their own – sweet as honey, garden-fresh. Mixed sizes – just as they come from their crisp green pods. Tested recipes for delicious, thrifty dishes on the back of every label of Stokely’s Finest Honey Pod Peas.

Whether it was Uncle Sam who recommended that you eat green or yellow vegetables every day or just the marketing director, he was right. Including five servings of vegetables and fruit in your diet every day is essential to keeping you feeling full and giving you the nutrients you need.

Next time you are thinking of a snack to eat when you’re hungry, remember your Uncle Sam…

Ad via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1943 ad for Stokely’s canned peas with WW II message

If my digestive tract is a symbiont inside of me, how do I communicate with it? If there is a dumb animal inside of me that controls how much I eat, how do I tell it what I want? If there is a beast within me that makes me overeat, how do I retrain it?

It all made me think back to my dog, Sid. We adopted Sid as an adult dog from a rescue shelter. He came knowing a few tricks, but he didn’t know the most important three: sit, come and stay. How did we teach him those tricks?

• Positive Reinforcement: We gave him treats when he did things right. He usually did them right by accident, but when he did, we gave him a treat and LOTS of praise.
• Negative Reinforcement: We scolded him when he did things wrong. We withheld the treat when he didn’t do the trick correctly.
• Repetition: We spent HOURS and HOURS working with him. There were some days when we put his food in a bowl and doled it out a few kibbles at a time as treats to teach him what he needed to know.
• Mimicry: I’ve heard that some dogs learn tricks from other dogs. We’ve never been able to do that with Sid because he’s an only dog, but I’ve seen that happen with others.

The problem is, my symbiont isn’t a dog. Most importantly, it’s a lot dumber than my dog. How do I retrain the beast within me?

Animals want a lot of things. You can reward them with food, but there are a lot of things that the beast inside of me may be appeased with:

• Sex
• Food
• Praise
• Play
• Comfort
• Safety
• Community / Pack / Herd

Whenever I’m thinking about how to reward the beast within me, I look at this list.

I think it’s very important that I give the reward immediately after the healthy act. So, if I exercise, I eat some healthy food immediately afterward. If I choose a healthy dish, I immediately praise myself. If I refrain from eating dessert, I grab my Nintendo DS and play a fun game as a reward. If I have a perfect day, I spend some time with a good friend either on the phone or in person.

I realize that this is not a quick process. It took us MONTHS to train Sid how to sit, come and stay and he was only a two year old dog. My symbiont has had forty years of controlling my actions, so retraining it to do things that are healthy for me will take some time.

Thinking of my body as a joined species with my intellect as one and my digestive tract as the other has really helped me. There are times when I call Sid and he STILL doesn’t come. He’s just a dumb animal and needs a little more training. The same is true for my symbiont. I’m in the process of retraining the beast inside of me.

I have always felt like there was something else controlling me when it came to eating. I could always get the motivation to exercise consistently, but eating healthy has been a struggle for me my whole life.

I always chalked it up to lack of self-control, but honestly it was more than that. When I filmed this video back in 2006, I was struggling with a beast:

It was like there was a beast inside of me that wanted to eat as much as I could because Mike was out of the house. To be completely honest, that beast won that war. Not that day, but over the last three years, I have been unable to control it.

Yesterday, I talked about my digestive tract being a symbiont within me. An animal that lives within my body that controls how much I eat. It might be an incredibly DUMB animal with only one hundred million neurons in its “brain,” but it is a STRONG animal. It can take control of me when I least expect it.

How can I retrain the beast within me? How can I make it understand that I want to be thin? It’s not like I can just sit down and have a little conversation with the animal inside of me. I have to train it like a dog to do what I want instead of what it wants.

Tune in tomorrow for some ideas on how to retrain the beast within all of us.

• Going on a walk with @nakedjen and her dogs this morning. They were in Santa Cruz all last week, so I’m happy to have them back! #
• RT @motivation: “Laughter is by definition healthy.” – Doris Lessing http://tqpage.com/1718 #
• @steifon To get an iPod cheap, go to a pawn shop. You can get a 1st gen Nano for less than fifty bucks. Makes for a great workout! #
• RT @tinapearson: Enjoyed a early a.m. Walk/jog… Why do people not say good morning to each other? Say good morning to 5 strangers today! #
• It took me 1h 23 min to walk 2.86 miles. Sometimes I think I should run after the dogs to chase the ball on these walks. #

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Back in February, I had a nasty case of food poisoning. It was like my digestive tract was at war with the rest of my body. I was hungry, but anything I ate was immediately expelled (from both sides). I could feel my entire digestive tract complain in pain from my throat to my colon.

In my fevered state, I imagined my digestive tract to be a completely other being inside of me just like the Trill in Star Trek. This portion of the episode, The Host, explains very quickly about the Trill:

The Trill are a joined species with a host and a symbiont. When Odon’s host body was injured in an attack, Dr. Crusher must implant the symbiont into Commander Riker. The symbiont controls Riker’s body and both consciousnesses live in the body together. Odon makes Riker do things that he normally wouldn’t do, like kiss Beverly Crusher.

In my fevered state, I realized that I have a symbiont: my digestive tract.

According to Wikipedia, my digestive system has a huge array of nerves that control it called the enteric nervous plexus. It has as many as 100,000,000 neurons. Now, that’s only a thousandth of the neurons that we have in our brains, but still, that’s a lot of brain matter for stomach.

So, my symbiont is like an animal inside of me. For all I know, long ago, we used to be two animals and now we exist as one, just like the Trill in Star Trek. With only one hundred million neurons, it’s a pretty DUMB animal, though.

After a couple of months of considering myself a joined species, I’ve had a few revelations. Tune in tomorrow to read all about them.

Here is a closeup of an old advertisement for Ayds Weight Loss Candy:

You can see the full ad here: Ayds Ad Jean Hunter: Click to see full size ad

The ad goes through the same story as every testimonial for any weight loss product I’ve ever read:

• A before and after photo with derogatory remarks about the before.
• A profession that the person had ALWAYS been fat.
• A series of confessions about the pain of being a fat person.
• More confessions about all the other plans, pills, and products that the person has tried.
• The incredible shame of being fat, especially in regard to family members: i.e. “My poor husband!”
• The gratitude of finding the miraculous product that made her slim.
• The joy of being slimmer than a past rival (sister, brother, friend, etc.).
• The act of trying on old clothes that used to fit.

It seems like ALL testimonials have most (if not all) of these ingredients. This advertisement is from 1969, but I remember reading testimonial ads like this in Seventeen Magazine when I was a teenager in the 80’s. I’ve even seen similar ads from the 1800’s. This is a formula that has been used to deceive us for a LONG time.

Ad via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Vintage campign for Ayds weight loss candy

You can read the full ad here: (more…)

Acai berries are in EVERYTHING lately, even Vitamin Water. I get at least fifty spam emails in my box every day for acai and weight loss. Acai berries are supposed to be chock-full of antioxidants, but do they help you lose weight? Not according to the Connecticut Attorney General.

• Consumers Warned of Web-Based Acai Scams

Acai began attracting attention in 2005 on the belief that its juice was especially high in antioxidants. In truth, acai juice has only middling levels of antioxidants less than that of Concord grape, blueberry, and black cherry juices, but more than cranberry, orange, and apple juices. Even so, the extent to which antioxidants by themselves promote health is a matter of some debate. No credible evidence suggests antioxidants promote weight loss.

Here is a list they gave of some of the questionable websites that promote acai:

• Oprah-best-acai.com
• OprahsAmazingDiet.com
• DrOzMiracle.com
• rachaelray.drozdiet-acaiberry.com

Oprah Winfrey, Mehmet Oz, and Rachael Ray have NOTHING to do with these sites and have all stated that they are not affiliated with them.

Worse still, they say that some of these companies lure you in with a “free” trial, take your credit card number and charge you monthly for pills that you no longer want to receive.

“There are no magical berries from the Brazilian rainforest that cure obesity only painfully real credit card charges and empty weight loss promises,” said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. “Aggressive Acai berry pitches on the Internet entice countless consumers into free trials promising weight loss, energy and detoxification. These claims are based on folklore, traditional remedies and outright fabrications unproven by real scientific evidence. In reality, consumers lose more money than weight after free trials transition into inescapable charges.”

Any company promising weight loss is suspect. Acai berries are no magic solution to lose weight and any company that says they are doesn’t have the medical data to support those claims right now, so stay away from them.

I found this question in the entry about Weight Watchers:

• Starling Fitness » Why I Don’t Trust Weight Watchers Points System

Laura,

Does anyone have ideas on how to get daily oils? Not sure how to sneak the oils in…ideas on what foods or supplements to take to get the daily oils?

Heidi

Heidi,

I talked about some ideas for getting your healthy oils here:

• Starling Fitness » Ask Laura: Why do we have to eat two tsp. of healthy oil?

Here are some of the recommendations I’ve heard:

• Cooking food in the oil
• Using it on toast instead of butter (canola is good for this one)
• Adding it to smoothies (I prefer flaxseed oil in my smoothies because of the interesting taste)
• Choosing oil on your sandwich at Subway (they use olive oil)
• Eating it straight from a spoon like medicine

I don’t recommend taking a spoonful of oil like medicine. It’s yummy fat! ENJOY it!!

Here are some recipes that I eat regularly where I add one of the healthy oils:

• Starling Fitness » Frozen Grapes: Healthy Diet Staple
• Starling Fitness » Easy Meals: Italian Beans: I add 1 teaspoon of olive oil in the bowl. It adds one WW Point to the total.
• Starling Fitness » Easy Meals: Mexi-Beans
• Starling Fitness » Toad in the Hole: I use 1 teaspoon of canola oil instead of the non-stick spray. It adds one WW Point to the meal.

As far as Weight Watchers is concerned, I’ve heard my leader say MANY times that oil supplements are NOT considered a replacement for the healthy oil requirement, so you can’t take a few flaxseed oil capsules and be done with it.

Why would you?

Adding healthy oil to your food makes it TASTE GOOD. Let yourself enjoy an egg fried in canola oil. Let yourself sop up every drop of that oil out of the pan with a piece of whole wheat bread. Let the artichokes bask in the glory of a teaspoon of olive oil. Enjoy the rich creaminess of a teaspoon of flaxseed oil in your smoothie.

Weight Watchers is all about eating healthy food. FOOD, not pills. Let yourself enjoy the additional fat in your diet. Your body needs it and so do your taste buds!

I found this advertisement from the 1920’s for The Weil Reducing Belt.

It reads:

Fat Men!
This new self-massaging belt not only makes you look thinner INSTANTLY – but quickly takes off rolls of excess fat.

Diet is weakening – drugs are dangerous – strenuous reducing exercises are liable to strain your heart. The only safe method of reducing is massage. This method sets up a vigorous circulation that seems to melt away the surplus fat. The Weil Reducing Belt made of special reducing rubber, produces exactly the same results as a skilled masseur, only quicker and cheaper. Every move you make causes the Weil Belt to gently massage your abdomen. Results are rapid because this belt works for you every second.

Fat Replaced by Normal Tissue

From 4 to 6 inches of flabby fat usually vanish in just a few weeks. Only solid, normal tissue remains. The Weil Reducing Belt is endorsed by physicians because it not only takes off fat, but helps correct stomach disorders, constipation, backache, shortness of breath and puts sagging internal organs back into place.

This ad might seem ludicrous and silly over eighty years later, but there are companies that are still selling this idea to this day:

• Starling Fitness » The Electric Corset: 1883 Is Very Similar to 2008

• Starling Fitness » Curves and Avon Embrace Quackery

Just like in 1920, you are unlikely to see any long term effects from a reducing belt, or trimming belt, or abs belt or anything that you put on your body. The only thing that will be lighter is your wallet.

Photo via: Found in Mom’s Basement: 1920s ad for “fat men”