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

For a while now, cupcakes has been the new food fad. Specialty shops in New York and Los Angeles create elaborate cupcakes that are more a work of art than a treat. The cupcake fad hasn’t hit Salt Lake City yet. I’m sure in a year or two, it will be the “new” thing to hit our town and all the local bakeries will start specializing in designer cupcakes.

Part of me is torn when I see beautiful food like this. It’s so pretty and all the food weblogs are talking about “amazing” cupcakes from Bristol Farms. It makes me feel left out in a way. People are experiencing something that I would have to travel to just see. I want to eat this pink cupcake just because I can’t eat this pink cupcake.

This has nothing to do with sustenance and EVERYTHING to do with hunger. My desire for this cupcake isn’t about a tasty treat. It’s about wanting to fit in. It’s about wanting to be cool. It’s about getting what is denied me.

How much of eating is about feeding my body? I’m beginning to learn that I eat for almost every reason EXCEPT to feed my body.

Terry has been finding other ways to give herself comfort instead of food.

• I See Invisible People » Food as comfort

She has thought of some things that never occurred to me.

“I’m trying to find things that make me feel good but which don’t involve food. Strawberry-scented Glade candles, extended exercise for the endorphine rush and my rocking chair are my current favorites. I re-read beloved novels. I put lotion on my legs and arms.”

I love the thought of putting on lotion when I need comfort. So many times I need a hug, not food. What better way to give myself comfort than to take care of my skin?

Another star in the red-hot spotlight right now is Carson Daly. He has lost a substantial amount of weight and the gossip rags are making fun of him using the word “Manorexia.” Not too long ago, they made fun of him saying that he was too fat and now they rail on him for being too thin.

This is how life is if you decide to lose weight to please others. There is no such thing as a happy medium when someone else is obsessed with your weight. If you are dealing with someone who says disparaging comments about your weight, remember what Carson Daly is dealing with. No matter what he does, the gossip mongers will say something bad about his body. There is no pleasing people like that.

Deciding to lose weight to stop the disrespectful comments from negative people around you is the WRONG reason to start eating healthy. Concentrate on surrounding yourself with positive people who make you feel good about your body. Trying to please the negative people will only end up in the “now you’re TOO skinny” backlash.

Via: A Socialite’s Life: Carson Daly and Carson Daly Gallery

The gossip blogs are all a’twitter about Kelly Clarkson. Vitamin Water was in negotiations with her for her own flavor and promotion deal. The catch was she needed to lose some weight in order to seal the deal. This is one of the pictures held up as “proof” that she needs to lose weight.

Does anyone outside of the crazy entertainment industry think that Kelly Clarkson is fat?!

From this point, I REFUSE to drink Vitamin Water and I suggest a similar boycott anyone who is sick of the skeletal standards of beauty that the entertainment industry is so fond of.

Via: Thin or Else By Richard Johnson, Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson – New York Post

Sometimes when I walk into the gym, I feel like I don’t belong. I feel like everyone deserves to be there except me. Sometimes I even feel that everyone there is looking at me wondering what the “fat girl” is doing at a gym. Who does she think she’s fooling?

All these thoughts were detrimental to me. Even now, I avoid the gym because of these negative thoughts.

What things have you been thinking that might be interfering with your progress?

Where have you felt intimidated? The gym? The athletic clothing store? The health food store?

What positive thoughts can you tell yourself instead of the negative ones you’ve been feeding your head with?

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

I have been repeating this phrase over and over to myself lately:

I Easily Eat Healthy Every Day.

Just like biting my fingernails, there HAS to be a way for me to learn how to eat healthy. I KNOW that I will eventually get to the point where eating healthy is second nature.

Until then, I repeat that affirmation to myself whenever I am alone.

Of course, affirmations don’t work if I don’t.

I would visualize things coming to me. It would just make me feel better. Visualization works if you work hard. That’s the thing. You can’t just visualize and go eat a sandwich.
Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey Show, 1997

It seems like scientific studies about weight loss—especially the ones that make it into mainstream news—are mostly just a complicated way of confirming what most people already know. Here’s the latest:

• Fruit and fiber the key to weight management (AP)

The study found, not surprisingly, that normal-weight people eat significantly more fruit and fiber than overweight people, and that the overweight consume more fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.

While all of this is obvious to anyone who’s tried a diet plan or two, it suggests that even non-dieters like me could benefit by adding fruit and fiber to their diets. Low-carb dieters take note: the study also found that normal-weight people consumed 43% more complex carbohydrates (starches and grains) than their overweight counterparts.

Mike Moon, from Moon Echoes, has this great little video about walking in the mall in the early morning to get a little exercise.

MOON ECHOES: I’m a Wall Mocker

I’ve heard people talking about walking in malls for exercise. I’ve seen people doing it during the cold days of winter and opressively hot days of the summer.

This video is a great introduction to mall walking.

“I think this is good. It gives you an opportunity to meet other people. It gives them a way to meetup and get some good exercise.”

He says that many of the early morning mall walkers are retired folks, but obviously not everyone is retired, because Mike does it before work in the mornings.

This postcard from PostSecret feels vaguely sinister to me. There have been times when I’ve contemplated suicide because of my weight and eating issues. Looking back at those times, it seems ludicrous that I would even think about offing myself just because of fat, but when I was in those dark times, it made perfect sense.

Just seeing this postcard reminds me that there are other people out there who are so desperate to get thin that they would be willing to take harmful drugs, indulge in purging, or even resort to suicide because of the simple shape of their bodies. I KNOW that they are out there because I remember feeling that way myself.

What can I tell you?

Do I have a perfect body now? Nope. Have I ever had that perfect little body? I don’t think so. Do I still want to die because of it?

Hell, no.

What would I tell that Laura from so long ago to keep her from killing herself because she’s not as thin as her popular friends?

Hold on. Don’t do it. Wait a few years and see if you feel better. Plus, if you try to kill yourself and you fail, you might end up horribly scarred, brain damaged or in a position where you won’t have another chance to kill yourself. It’s safer just to muscle through this.

I promise, there will come a day in which you are infinitely grateful you decided that you’d rather be fat than dead.

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.

I found this video on YouTube the other day. This unnamed girl has an online journal. She’s talking to the webcam on the top of her monitor about her day. She is trying to decide whether to take the diet pills, stay up all night and try to burn off the food she ate today.

“I wish there was a magic cure that would make me happy with who I am.”

She talks about wanting to be a photographer, but after looking at the pictures she took, she feels like the pictures were unacceptable. She doubts her photography abilities and it affects her body image.

“So, I’m doubting my ability… I feel fat. I AM fat… I’m ugly. I have no talent…”

How many times have I said this to myself? Because of these feelings, she contemplates taking diet pills. She’s frustrated.

“They don’t do anything. I don’t know why I keep taking them. And then I feel worse because I’m taking them and I don’t lose weight. Then I go bingeing, then I starve myself for a bit, and then I binge again, and then I take diet pills. It just goes ’round and ’round in a circle, and I just want to break out of the circle, and just be better… be happier…”

“Surely it would be better to be thin and not happy than fat and not happy.”

“I just wish that I could do something to make myself feel better. Normally, that thing is taking photos and editing photos, but I can’t even do that…”

In the end, we never find out whether she took the pills or not.

“So, do I take diet pills? Do I not take diet pills? Pros and cons… our choice…”

I just feel like reaching my arms out to her and giving her a huge hug. I want to tell her that it’s okay to feel like crap and that it passes. We all doubt our abilities. We all face the idea that we have no talent, but if we keep on working, we feel better. We still feel like fat and talentless hacks, but our talents grow despite our emotions.

Next time you’re feeling like indulging in destructive behavior, whether it’s taking diet pills, bingeing, starving yourself or purging, remember this girl from Leicester.