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

I never was able to do the purging after binges. I think that might have prevented me from eating as much. This postcard from PostSecret gives me a glimpse of what it would feel like if I had been able to make myself throw up.

I think this is a picture of a pregnant woman, but I am familiar with the feeling after a binge that makes your stomach feel bloated. There were times when all I could do was lay down after the binge. I am able to complete so much more in my life now that I’m not as obsessed with food. I wasted so much time lying on the bed when I could have been writing. I almost resent those bingeing years from stealing my life away from me.

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

When I was sick last week, I spent a lot of time watching VH-1 and saw a commercial for a “metabolism breakthrough” called Fahrenheit a few times. The woman shown in their commercial was not just thin, she was cut with muscles in the exact proportion to be appealing.

This is the actual transcription of the commercial:

“Announcing a metabolism breakthrough for women, Fahrenheit. Two years in development and government patent pending. A formula so powerful it literally makes Ephedra obsolete. Turn up the metabolic heat with Fahrenheit. A breakthrough for women so advanced it has to be experienced to be believed. Fahrenheit – Let it burn.”

If you notice, the wording of the commercial, it is very careful not to promise weight loss. It just says that it makes Ephedra obsolete. Their website is just as careful not to make any promises. In fact, if you read fully, their recommendations are pretty sound.

The Fahrenheit Metabolism Repair Plan:

• Take Fahrenheit tablets
• Don’t let yourself get hungry. Eat every 3-4 hours.
• Avoid processed foods.
• Combine protein with your carbohydrates and fat, but don’t combine fat and carbohydrates.
• Use portion control instead of counting calories.
• Eat as many vegetables as you want with any meal.
• Eat healthy fats, those found in fish, avacados, nuts, flaxseed oil and olive oil.
• Keep a food journal.
• Add activity to your day, but avoid overdoing it.
• Build muscle with weight training.

All of these steps should sound familiar. They are the sorts of things recommended by nutritionists everywhere. In fact, if you follow the steps 2-9, you won’t need step one. The Fahrenheit tablets are unnecessary if you follow the program that they list out.

They have a Metobolic Calculator that will give you the recommended daily calories. If you follow their program and eat the number of calories they provide on the calculator, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT. You don’t need to take the pills for it to happen. The formula that makes Ephedra obsolete is the program that they recommend and you can follow that for free.

Remember when I warned you to Steer Clear of the Free Diet Pills? The FTC has finally been able to crack down on one of the companies pulling that scam.

• Telemarketers Settle FTC Charges of Costly “Free” Samples, Do Not Call Violations, and Worthless Weight-Loss Patches

The fact that the FTC has ruled that the Pounds Off and the Carbs Off patches don’t work is secondary to all the other shady practices that this company has been dealing in. Your best bet is to just stay away from any company that promises weight loss without changes in diet and exercise. You can change your diet and start exercising without shelling out money for expensive products that don’t work.

For a couple hundred dollars, PR Newswire will print whatever you want them to. That explains this bit of propaganda from the National Dairy Council.

• Happy News – Study shows benefits of dairy products – PR Newswire

All this reporting would be great news, if it were true. However, the study that they were referring to is available for all of us to read. No matter how much they get it wrong, the findings of the scientists at Purdue University were the exact opposite of what was reported:

• Dairy products do not lead to alterations in body weight or fat mass in young women in a 1-y intervention — Gunther et al. 81 (4): 751 — American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

This study took 155 women and placed them on various diets for one year: low dairy, medium dairy and high dairy consumption. Despite the varying levels of dairy, there was no change in body weight or fat percentage.

No matter what the National Dairy Council tells you, milk doesn’t magically make you skinnier. No matter how many times they misquote the research, we finally have the ability to find out the truth about nutrition. Dairy may be an important part of a healthy diet, but it isn’t a magic diet drink any more than any other diet hype you might see.

Here is the first sentence of the linked article:

U.S. life expectancy has hit another all-time high (77.6 years) and deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke continue to drop, the government reported Thursday.

Here is the second paragraph:

Still, the march of medical progress has taken a worrisome turn: Half of Americans in the 55-to-64 age group (including the oldest of the baby boomers) have high blood pressure, and two in five are obese. That means they are in worse shape in some respects than Americans born a decade earlier were when they were that age.

You can read the full article here:

• Happy News – U.S. life expectancy hits all-time high

I find it fascinating that these two sentences sit alongside each other in one article, from the Associated Press, no less. Despite the fact that deaths from diseases are dropping, the article still spews the propaganda that obesity is an epidemic that will kill us all. Our life expectancy just increased, yet they are still screaming that obesity is a disease that must be stopped. Don’t let them fool you.

The insurance companies, Social Security and Medicare are all worried about the large group of baby boomers that deserve the benefits that they have been paying for their entire lives. They are trying to find any loophole they can to exclude people and obesity is the one they are touting as the scurge of the health care industry.

Getting healthy and strong is important, but BMI isn’t the most accurate measure of health and strength. Don’t let the propaganda get you down. Make healthy decisions and live a strong life. Fight obesity prejudice wherever you find it.

This is a study that tracked toddlers and their parents’ perception of their eating behaviors.

• Body Image Anxiety… But Whose?

Parents of children as young as three years old subconsciously pressure their girls to eat less:

Researchers found that parents of 3-year-olds worried that their sons but not their daughters were underweight—even though the weights and body mass index of the boys and girls in the study were nearly identical. They also said that their daughters ate enough food, but their sons did not.

I KNOW this is true. I actually remember my grandma worrying about whether I was fat or not when I was four years old. It’s a vivid memory and sometimes I believe that my personality came into being on that day that I overheard my grandma badgering my mother about my weight. I look at those pictures from when I was four and I was NOT fat (see picture above).

My grandmother had my entire family convinced that we were all fat. My dad is still struggling with those issues today. When you look at this picture, how could she have told any of us that we were fat?

Body image is a much more complicated thing than the number on the scale or the size of clothing that we wear. It can come from the most unexpected places and the perceptions of our parents can actually cause us to become what they think we are. I was not fat when I was four years old and my grandmother was so concerned about me, but I DID become fat later in life because I considered myself a fat girl for so long.

My grandma was just doing the best she could with the knowledge she had way back in 1973, but parents today have so much more at their disposal. Don’t let the worries that you have today become a fact in your child’s life years down the road. If you are concerned about your child’s weight, here’s the best advice I can give you.

• Starling Fitness » Childhood Obesity

Most of the time, I tell you to steer clear of diet pills because they don’t work. Anytime a product predicts that they can make you lose weight without changes in exercise and diet, they are lying.

What if they don’t make those claims, though. What if they offer to let you try the diet pills for free and see for yourself? Should you try it? According to the fine print, NO.

• Free Diet Pills: The Fine Print You Must Read

You might get that 14 days supply for free, but after that, you will automatically be billed for the diet pills until you close that bank account. Getting out of the autoship plan is difficult and you have to wade through the red tape. It’s better not to try them at all.

Remember, all you need to lose weight is within you right now. You don’t need any diet pills, fancy equipment or books. You can do this and you can do it for free.

The FTC is working hard to keep companies from lying to you. They have required that Bio Trim stop advertising using fantastic claims about being able to lose weight without curbing your diet.

• Federal Trade Commission – FTC Stops Bogus Ads for “Bio Trim” and Other Weight-loss Products

The truth of the matter is for every company the FTC is able to shut down, there are hundreds more jumping up to take their place. Keep this bit of advice in mind next time you’re tempted to spend your money on a diet pill.

“If you see an ad for a weight-loss product making fantastic claims, keep your money in your pocket,” said Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “It’s just that – a fantasy. The claims made for Bio Trim were simply not possible. There is no pill that lets you eat all you want and still lose weight.”

All that you need to lose weight is within you right now. You don’t need a diet pill, a fancy gym membership or even a diet magazine. All you need is to decide to live a healthy life and never, never give up on yourself. You can do this and you can do it for free.

Via: Consumer Health Digest, November 8, 2005

The Food Museum weblog had a shocking discovery over the Thanksgiving Holiday. She was looking for whipping cream and could not find one in the grocery store that wasn’t loaded with extra ingredients.

• food museum blog: Eat Well and Be Well–Happy Thanksgiving!

The last few times I purchased cream, I never even thought about looking at the ingredients. Now, I’ll be checking them. If I’m going to spend the calories and fat on whipping cream, I want to have the real stuff, not some fake cream filled with emulsifiers and seaweed.

“Foodie held a small carton of something labeled whipping cream but when she scanned the list of ingredients “cream” was not high among them. The “food gum,” carrageenan, a seaweedish item once only from Ireland but evidently now more likely to come from the Philippines or Chile, was on the list–along with gelatin and diclycerides and so on. Stabilizers and emulsifiers rule in mass produced cream and other milk products.”

Part of eating healthy is knowing what is worth the calories. Once I’ve decided that “real” whipped cream is worth it for this dessert or occasion, I don’t want to have a huge list of alternate ingredients in my cream. I want the real thing.

These pictures are not a hoax. They are very real. Cathie Jung started corset training after giving natural birth to her three children. She whittled her 26 inch waist down to 15 inches. She has been listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the Smallest Waist on a Living Person. She has been unable to get down to Ethel Granger’s 13 inch waist, but she is far taller than Ethel Granger was.

• Cathie Jung Website

I remember in fifth grade, the Guiness Book of World Records was the cool book to read. I found everything except the human body section incredibly boring. I remember being fascinated by the fat, the tall, the small, the conjoined and the boy with flippers for hands. It was like an eighteenth century sideshow in a book. The capacity for variation within the human species is so vast that we all fit in there somewhere.

Comparing yourself to anyone else is as silly as comparing yourself to the extremes of our species. We are all unique creatures. Wishing your butt looked like Jessica Simpson’s is just as harmful to your psyche as wearing a corset every day of your life in order to whittle your waist down to 15 inches. Yes, you can do it, but you are never the same afterward. Enjoy the beauty of your body as it is now and do your best to treat it with respect and loving kindness.

Via: Museum of Hoaxes – 15-Inch Waist