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

Over the many years, the idea of weight loss has fascinated writers. If you have ever wanted to lose weight quickly, all you need to do is look to fiction for fantastical stories about easy weight loss. The problem is, each of these stories is a morality play, warning you against quick fixes.

• The Truth About Pyecraft by HG Wells: Mr. Pyecraft is named the fattest clubman in London. When Mr. Formalyn comes back from India, he offers him a special dish from that exotic land that is supposed to help you lose weight. Mr. Pyecraft DOES lose weight, but not mass. He finds his baloonish body floating to the ceiling and ends up wearing lead underwear to prevent himself from flying off into the sky.

• The Iron Chancellor by Robert Silverberg: In Robert Silverberg’s classic 1958 story, the family’s robot, the roboservitor, prepares your diet and prevents you from cheating. Unfortunately, the robot keeps you on this limited diet, even if you’re starving to death. It is a typical “robots are bad” story that filled science fiction in the fifties, but it also is a morality play to those who are willing to relinquish control over to others when they can’t control themselves.

• Doctor Who “Partners in Crime” 2008: The new miracle diet pill, Adipose, promises to cause weight loss without exercise or change in diet. Very much like Alli, there is a frightening side effect. Instead of intense gastrointestinal distress, the fat literally pops off your body, creating little sentient fat creatures. Unfortunately, your entire body can be reduced, leaving nothing but your clothes.

• Thinner by Stephen King: Billy is a high powered lawyer who accidentally caused the death of an old gypsy woman. Instead of serving his time for vehicular manslaughter, his skills in the court room got him off with not even a slap on the wrist. The old gypsy man touches him and utters the word, “Thinner.” From that moment onward, Billy drops weight. He eventually becomes a skeleton of a man, eating as much as he can to just stay alive while he searches for the gypsy to reverse the curse, losing everything he loves in the process.

• Tales from the Darkside “Love Hungry”: In a twist of irony, Betsy, a telemarketer, becomes a marketing victim by “Your Weight Is Over” for weight loss, they send her a special ear plug and glasses. When she wears them, all her food looks as if it’s alive and sentient. Every bite becomes murder and eating is a lesson in sadism. Just watching the Mexican Restaurant scene was enough to put me off enchiladas for a long time.

• Star Trek’s Food Replicators: They were created to provide the perfect nutrition for those traveling on Federation starships. No matter how unhealthy the food that you request, the replicator will make it out of healthy nutrients. Of course, there is some disagreement about whether the taste is the same as “real” food. Considering how fulfilling fake food is right now, the Federation has a lot of inventing to do to create replicated food that is healthy AND tastes good. Oh, and the food is created using the waste products from the ship and energy.

In the end, all of these fictional weight loss options are just warnings in disguise. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you lose weight without diet and exercise, then you have to pay the price. The price may be your life, your sanity or merely your enjoyment of food. There is only one true way to get fit and healthy and that’s to eat less and move more. In the future, they may invent an easier way, but I don’t want to be first in line to try it, do you?

Via: io9 Triviagasm: Fantastical Ways to Lose Weight in the New Year

I’ve talked about treadmill desks before, but here is an awesome video that shows them in action:

There is a blog that talks about treadmill desks here:

• Treadmill Desk Blog

I have some entries about them here:

• Starling Fitness » A Whole Website About Treadputers!

• Starling Fitness » The Walking Desk Blog

• Starling Fitness » The Walkstation from Steelcase

A couple of years ago, I thought that I would encourage myself to be more active by having a standing desk, where I could type at my computer by standing up. The funny thing is, I avoided that desk and started working on my laptop on the couch instead. After months of this, Mike finally said, “Let’s face it, the standing desk is a failure.” He was right and I immediately reorganized my desk space to be more comfortable. Walking all day long might be healthy, but if I have any choice in the matter, I’m pretty sure I’d just avoid doing work at my treadmill desk and take the laptop to the kitchen table if I had to.

Video via: Coming Here Soon :: cowork utah

Treadmill Desk Blog via: The Treadmill Desk Blog

It’s a new year and I’m sure you’re all fired up to be healthy. Last year, I wrote a weekly plan to get you on track for a healthy and active life. You can get started here:

• Starling Fitness » New Year’s Resolutions: Week One

If you are ready to get going with your fitness and eating plan, start there and get started RIGHT!

If you just want the short version, here it is:

• DO NOT change your eating regime at all, but write down EVERYTHING you eat.
• You are allowed to ADD a serving or two of vegetables every day, but you are not allowed to restrict anything in your diet.
• Start exercise slowly. SLOW, SHORT and EASY. Whatever you were thinking of doing, cut it in half. Recommended exercise: Walk 0.5 miles five days this week.
• Check with your doctor.

There are a lot of ways to keep track of the food you eat, but one of the simplest ideas is to use Twitter as a food journal. Since you can send a tweet from a computer or your cell phone, Twitter is with you WHEREVER you go. It’s pure genius.

For those of you not familiar with Twitter, it’s a social network site that asks the simple question, “What are you doing?” You have 140 characters to state what you are doing all day long. One of the most simple ways to keep track of your food is to use Twitter.

If you already have a Twitter account, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/lauramoncur/.

For a tutorial on how to set up an account, please read more: (more…)

I’m sure the fashion industry considers this model a “plus” size, but honestly she’s a NORMAL sized woman and she looks freakin’ fantastic!

Hooray for Curvation for this spectacular advertisement. I can’t believe this ad showed up in the November edition of In Style magazine without being put right next to an article about exercise or diet. It was adjacent to Eva Mendes in an ad for The Spirit.

Next time you feel bad because you think you can never look as good as the women in the fashion magazines, remember this curvy beauty and know that you can do it!

For those of us who have been watching the covers of O Magazine, we know that Oprah had gained some weight. It happened slowly, but one day at the checkout counter a few months ago, I saw an O Magazine right next to a tabloid announcing that she had gained weight. I looked at Oprah’s magazine and realized, “Yes, she HAS gained some weight.”

Then, the January 2009 O Magazine hit the stands and Oprah is so open about it all:

• Oprah’s Battle with Weight Gain – O January 2009 Cover

I can’t believe that after all these years, all the things I know how to do, I’m still talking about my weight. I look at my thinner self and think, “How did I let this happen again?”

Weight gain can happen for many reasons. In Oprah’s case, she was having some physical problems. When she was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism, she felt defeated.

It seemed as if the struggle I’d had with weight my entire adult life was now officially over. I felt completely defeated. I thought, “I give up. I give up. Fat wins.” All these years I’d had only myself to blame for lack of willpower. Now I had an official, documented excuse.

She is back on the road to recovery and has the kahunas to admit that she has a problem. Next time you feel like you just can’t do this, remember how brave Oprah is to show herself on her magazine next to her past self. It’s a before and after picture that is rarely shown, and Oprah deserves a pat on the back for her honesty.

Via: Oprah’s Weight Gain

People say the best workout partner is a dog. A big, energy-filled dog that needs a couple of walks a day is a good workout partner, but when it’s snowy and icy outside, your workout partner can pull you onto your butt.

I’ve been walking outside every day with NakedJen and her dogs, Stella and Buddha. They are huge black labs and when Buddha sees a cat, he could pull my arm right out of its socket trying to get it. Earlier this month, Jen started using the Halti Head Collars on both of the dogs and suddenly, I’m not so worried about getting pulled over. I could lead both Stella and Buddha with one hand if I had to. Now, when we walk over icy roads, I only have to worry about keeping myself stable instead of the double worry of slipping and/or being pulled over by the dog.

If you walk your dogs in the winter, a Halti might be the best exercise equipment you’ve ever bought. It will help keep you injury free and your walks with your dog will be MUCH easier.

The Vasa Trainers range in price from $900 to nearly $2000. That was the first strike against them. They look like a glorified Total Gym, but cost over three times as much.

The Vasa Trainer is supposed to be an exercise machine that can give you the same workout as swimming, but if you notice, you only exercise your arms or legs, you can’t do them both, so a workout with the Vasa machine would take twice the time that laps in a pool could do for you. If you have a coach checking your technique, then YES, maybe the Vasa is helpful, but if you want to get your workout done, you’re better to just go to the community pool during lap hours to get your workout done.

• Vasa Ergometer Swim Bench, Canoe and Kayak paddling machine, Vasa Trainer total gym

The more I watched this video, the more their trainers felt like a big waste of money.

If you want the workout of swimming, GO SWIMMING! Community pools and gyms have inexpensive options for keeping you fit. If you want weight training, buy a weight training bench. For about $170, you can get this Apex Weight Bench. Add a few weights and you have a BETTER home gym for less than $300.

Don’t let fancy gadgets fool you into thinking that you are getting a better workout than good old fashioned swimming.

Via: Healthacker.com » Blog Archive » Vasa Ergometer Swim Bench: Rowing Machine for Swimmers

Zen Habits had a great article last month:

• The 7 Keys to Turning Bad Habits Into Good Habits | Zen Habits

For each habit, identify your triggers. Whenever you are tempted to eat when you shouldn’t or skip a workout routine, find out what is going on right before those thoughts.

For every single trigger, identify a positive habit you’re going to do instead. If you like to eat while you’re watching TV, what can you do instead? Knitting? Origami? Skipping TV altogether?

For at least one month, focus entirely on being as consistent with your triggers as possible. Every time you are tempted to eat when you’re not really hungry, do the new activity instead. It’s very important to do it every time to imprint the new habit.

Avoid tempting situations. Sometimes it’s easier to avoid situations in which you overeat completely. Parties? Skip them for a month. Buffet Dinners? Insist on a different restaurant until you’re stronger.

Realize that your urges will be strong, but they will go away after a few minutes. These sorts of desires tend to come and go. If you can hold out for a while, then the urge to eat will go away and you can get back to life as normal.

Ask for help. This one is the hardest for me because I’ve failed so many times that my family just rolls their eyes when I ask for help. You need to be as SPECIFIC as possible, such as, “If you see me eating healthy, I need you to praise me. If I’m eating poorly, don’t say anything at all or I’ll bite your freakin’ head off.” Knowing exactly what you need will help them help you, but you have to figure out what you need first.

Staying positive is key! You can do this without keeping a positive attitude, but it’s a helluva lot harder that way. Every time you hear your inner voice give you permission to break your new habit, remember to tell yourself that you can do this!

If you fail (and many of you will, at least once), don’t give up. The only difference between the people who lose the weight and keep it off and the people who don’t is that the successful people didn’t quit. Never, never, never give up.

The next time you think that eating poorly or skipping your workouts is “just how you are” remember that you CAN change yourself. You can eat healthy and ENJOY exercise. Do it one habit at a time and you’ll find that you suddenly have all GOOD habits and no bad ones.

As you’re enjoying the holiday today, remember to:

• Keep the meals light: No matter what is served at Christmas you can keep your meals light by choosing small portions. Don’t deny yourself the traditional foods that you only get once a year, but keep the portion size SMALL and you’ll give yourself a present this year.

• Put away the food after the meal: Leaving the food out is an invitation to graze all day long. After the meal is over, put the food away.

• Take a walk with your family after Christmas Dinner: You’ll burn off some of the calories and prevent food coma.

• Play in the snow with the kids: Christmas is the one time of the year when parents actually PLAY with their children. Make it an active time and throw some snowballs or built a snow fort in the backyard.

• Remember it’s a holiDAY, not a holiWEEK: Christmas is ONE day. Don’t continue celebrating with food after today is over.

As always, have a happy holiday and be here bright and early tomorrow morning for more inspiration!