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

Over the last couple of years, I’ve written a few entries about Valentine’s Day that I feel still apply today. You can see them here:

• Starling Fitness » Have a Healthy Valentine’s Day

• Starling Fitness » Valentine’s Breakfast In Bed

• Starling Fitness » Choose a Healthy Valentine’s Dinner

This year, I’d like to hear from YOU.

What do you do to keep your Valentine’s Day healthy and still enjoy it?

What do you do with the treats? Do you eat them? Do you you save them? Do you toss them? Do you give them away?

What about dinner? How do you handle eating out?

What about depression? If you don’t have a Valentine in your life, what do you do to prevent wallowing?

I would love to hear everything you have to say about Valentine’s Day. Please tell me all about it in the comments section!

Just in case you missed it, Starling Fitness has a new walking DVD available. This one is of a nature preserve in Moab, Utah. Moab is known for its orange landscape and you will see those famous structures in this video, but it’s mostly a walk around the wetlands.

Here is a glimpse of what the video is like:

This is the third of a series of walking videos. The others are Swami’s Beach and Sugarhouse Walk. I also have two more videos that are in the editing phase right now, so keep a watch out for them!

Estimated Distance: 2.0 Miles
Estimated Speed: 2.3 mph
Time: 52:00 Minutes

I’m offering this workout DVD for $5 plus shipping.

Order Starling Fitness Walking Videos Here

You can see the route I walked here. The video goes around the loop twice. I tried to be crafty when I was filming it so you wouldn’t notice, but just now I realized that I have to tell you that I walked the circuit twice, so that you would know the accurate mileage.

Video Description:

It was a hot day and the signs all over Moab said, “Did you remember your water?” I brought a bottle of water, but I was filming, so I couldn’t just take a swig of it. Halfway through the walk I could hear every swish it made in my backpack, wishing I could take a drink. The dry heat seemed to suck all the moisture out of my body, but the Scott Matheson Wetland Preserve was shady.

The trees protected me from the blistering sun. As I walked along the trail, I filmed wildflowers and I could even hear birds. I wanted to hide in the shade of the house at the end of the trail and watch the birds from its quiet solitude, but I was intent on walking. Investigating the little-known paths was a bonus because I found my way to Kane Creek. I turned around and walked it all over again. When I was finished, I enjoyed the red rocks and watched the off-roaders drive by.

Then I turned off my camera and gulped down all my water in one fail swoop. Should have brought two bottles…

Order Starling Fitness Walking Videos Here

For More Information about the wetlands preserve:
The Nature Conservancy in Utah – Scott M. Matheson Wetlands Preserve

The more I live a healthy lifestyle, the more I realize that my harsh judgment of myself is what made me fat in the first place. In fact, I still find myself doing it on a regular basis. My incident with black toenail was caused by my judging myself. I decided that I had been running for so long that I should easily be doing six mile runs every day. I jumped up from two and three miles a day to six miles a day (with a good long 10 mile run thrown in there for good measure). What happened from this sudden increase in mileage? An injury that has kept me from running to this day. I still have my toenails, but they are hanging on my a thread. I don’t want to lose them, so it’s the stationary bike for me.

The big question is:

What if it doesn’t matter?

What if how much you weigh is much less important than how you treat yourself?

What if you treated yourself like a cherished child?

What would you tell that child if you noticed he/she was overweight?

Would you berate her/him like you have been yourself?

Next time you weigh yourself and start feeling angry because you didn’t lose as much as you wanted, STOP IT! Think of that hurt little child inside of you and just give him/her a freakin’ break. Take moment to be with that child and cherish her/him. That abused and damaged child within you has put up with many episodes of you starving and exercising beyond logic and health. Apologize for all you’ve done and just be nice to yourself.

The celebrity tabloids are filled with pictures from Fashion Week. They show the Olsen Twins, Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie on the front rows of fashion designers. All of this talk about Fashion Week and not a peep about the new health guidelines that the American Fashion Industry announced:

• SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Health — U.S fashion designers suggest healthy lifestyle to models, but choose not to force it

• American Fashion Industry Issues, Fails to Enforce Health Guidelines

The guidelines mentioned nothing of BMI like Spain’s did. Instead they just suggested that healthy snacks be made available. Here are a few of their suggestions:

“There should be no models under 16 and no work after midnight for models 18 and younger; the consumption of cigarettes and alcohol on location should be forbidden; statements on the early signs of eating disorders should be officially issued to those in the industry; models identified as suffering from eating disorders should be required to receive professional help; the industry should develop workshops designed to address the impact of eating disorders and the negative effects of smoking; organizers should provide “healthy” snacks backstage during shows.”

When the American Fashion Industry is so lax about eating disorders, it’s no wonder that we end up with starlets, models and the girls who want to be like them plagued by anorexia and bulimia. When are they going to start putting normal sized women on the runway?

Bad form, Fashion Week, bad form…

Last week, a reduced strength of Xenical was approved for sale without a prescription. You can find out about it here:

• ABC News: FDA Approves Non-Prescription Diet Pill

Xenical is supposed to prevent the body from absorbing about 150 to 200 calories worth of fat. It is released in the bowel, which can cause lower intestinal pain and “oily, fatty stools.” It was the drug that Kevin Smith tried to lose weight. Sadly, Xenical was not the answer, and he has since started another attempt at losing weight. I talked about his story here:

• Starling Fitness » Silent Bob Speaks

Here’s an interesting concept: don’t spend $25 a week on OTC Xenical. Just cut out 200 calories a day. Start small and only cut out 100 calories a day for a week and then ramp up to 150 calories a day and finish out with 200 calories a day. Don’t do anything big, just skip one Starbucks coffee a day. Only eat half of what you were served at the restaurant at lunch. Maybe get on the treadmill for 30 minutes instead. 200 calories is small and you can take care of it yourself without Xenical… and without oily, fatty stools.

This article from Wired Magazine made me think about binge eating. It’s about Natsuko Sone, a “food fighter” who regularly competes in eating competitions and out eats sumo wrestlers.

• Wired News: Petite Food Fighter Pigs Out

So many “food fighters” or “competitive eaters” are very thin, which has made me consider that overeating may be the way to being thin. Maybe regularly overeating once a month or so and eating healthy the rest of the month trains the body that there will be no famines in the future. Maybe it somehow convinces our bodies that they don’t need to hold on to fat.

I wonder if this has been researched…

Via: Boing Boing: Japan’s tiny food-fighting woman out-eats Sumos

This comment showed up on my Treadmill Workout Spreadsheet entry:

I tried the very first of nine programs…since I’m new at this I apologize if I ask things that seem obvious….but is each workout done for a week, for a total of 9 weeks of training? and is the whole idea of varying between hills, intervals etc to simulate outdoor terrain even if the 5k I plan on running is flat land?

Any advice would be extrememly helpful.

Francesca

Francesca,

Interval and hill training make you stronger and faster overall. Here is an entry about it:

Starling Fitness » How To Run Faster

So, even if the 5K is on flat land, you should do one hill training a week and one interval training a week. And don’t forget to taper before the race.

Good luck on your race!

Laura

Running outside in Salt Lake City has become impossible for me because we are experiencing an inversion and the air quality is worse than L.A. on a hot summer’s day, but if you are able to run outdoors, I’m sure you would appreciate these Ear Warmer Headphones from 180s. They look nice and warm and also let you listen to your tunes. I actually like them better than the Walkman Beanies that I saw at CES last month.

My only question is that if this is a “behind the ear” design, how does it stay on your ears? If I run, will it fall off? This is one reason why I hate shopping for headphones. You really can’t know how they’ll work when you exercise unless you take a run with them and get them all sweaty.

Gadgets like these can’t make you thin, but they might make the difference between going for your walk outside and skipping your exercise for the day.

Via: 180s Tec Stretch headphones – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Hi All,

I joined WW on January 1, 2007. I lost 7lbs the first three weeks and now (my 4th week) I only lost 1lb. (weighed in today) I am so discouraged! I do a brisk 2 mile walk 5 days a week and stay within my point range. So, why the 1 lb loss?

Bridget

Bridget,

Go back to Weight Watchers right now and talk to a teacher there. Any time you feel discouraged about your weight loss, you should talk to the teachers at Weight Watchers. That’s what you’re paying for is that individual attention when you need it.

A one pound loss is amazing for the fourth week of Weight Watchers. The program is designed for a loss of 1/2 to 1 pound a week. If you lost a pound this week, you are doing everything exactly right.

Have the Weight Watchers teacher show you what one pound of fat looks like. She should have a model of how big one pound of fat really is. Just think of one pound of butter. Go to the grocery store and look at one pound of butter. You lost that much in only a week. From now on, one pound a week is the most you should be losing. If you’re losing more than that, you need to up your daily points allowance.

Good luck,
Laura Moncur

Via: My Pet Fat

This is about the time people stop working on their New’s Year’s Resolutions. It’s usually because they run into a problem or they have a week where weight loss is slow. It’s very important to have clear criteria to judge whether your week is a success or failure. If you have unclear or unrealistic expectations, it might mean the end of trying altogether.

When you are trying to lose weight, how do you judge success?

How much weight do you have to lose in a week for you to consider it a success?

What if you don’t lose any weight?

How else can you judge your week’s success or failure?

Start thinking about your healthy lifestyle in terms of things you can do. You can monitor your water or vegetable intake, but you can’t necessarily guarantee that you will lose weight every week. Instead of judging your week’s success by the scale, what are you going to judge yourself by?

P.S. I’d like to tell you that you shouldn’t be judging yourself harshly at all, but based on the email I’m getting, I know you are out there doing it right now, so we need to address that issue and find a way to give yourself more positive feedback. Next week, start thinking about how you could stop judging yourself at all.