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

My most pleasureable experience with flow is when I’m writing. It feels like the words come out of my fingers instead of out of my head. It almost feels like writing is a physical activity like roller skating or riding a bike. Sometimes I feel like I am not even part of the writing process and it all has to do with my body. I usually lose track of time when I’m writing and Mike will come into the room asking if I’m ever going to go to bed. I look at the clock on my screen and hours have gone by.

Writing can be difficult sometimes, so I like to read a lot to get better skills. I also do a lot of writing that never sees the light of day just to practice. Just when I think I’ve got this writing thing down, I learn something new that tells me that I have just begun on this writing journey.

Writing feels so good that I wish I could do it all day long. Some days, I’m actually able to write all day long, but others, I’m barely able to write a sentence. I tend to go in spurts, but when I get going, it feels so good that I don’t want to stop. I’m happiest when I’m writing.

The last time I ate food for just pleasure instead of hunger was about a week or so ago. I had a hard time when I came back from SXSW. I had met so many amazing people there that SLC felt lonely. I felt so isolated here and I longed to talk to all those interesting people I met a week earlier. I had a hard time keeping my eating under control the first week back from SXSW.

Eating for pleasure feels good. I’m not going to lie about that. It DOES make me feel better to binge on high calorie food. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have trouble with eating. Comparing bingeing to being in flow, however, is something completely different. I would trade a thousand binges in order to get into flow every day. It wouldn’t have to be with writing, either. I could be in flow with crocheting or taking pictures or even with exercise.

Bingeing just doesn’t compare to those times when the words are flowing out of my fingers at such a fast pace that I don’t even realize that I am typing them.

Flow is an emotional state of “optimal experience”, a state of concentration so focused that it amounts to absolute absortion in an activity.

When are the times when you have experienced “flow”?

What were you doing and what did it feel like?

When was the last time you ate food for pleasure instead of hunger?

How did that feel compared to being in “flow”?

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.

What does flow have to do with healthy eating? What does flow have to do with exercise?

While reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, I realized that the more food I eat, the more time I need to spend exercising to burn off the calories and the LESS time I have to get into flow with writing, crochet or any other activity that I enjoy. I remembered so many saints who became ascetics. They were so concerned with God, nature, art or beauty that they neglected to eat. Some of them became painfully thin because they became so involved with their fields of study.

I’m not advocating “painfully thin,” but I realized with crystal clarity that I would much rather be in flow writing or crocheting than spending two hours a day exercising. If I could just eat less food, I would be able to stay at a healthy weight without having to spend so much time exercising.

I had been “starving” when I picked up the book to read. I was reading in an effort not to overeat that evening, but when I realized that I could have more time in my life for the things that I REALLY wanted if I just ate less, my hunger evaporated. I literally felt it leave me when I made that realization.

But how can flow deal with exercise? Tune in on Tuesday to find out.

I’ve been reading an excellent book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. It’s not a diet book. It’s a book about those times in your life when you are really in the groove. It might be when you’re reading a book and you look up and find out that it has been two hours since you last looked at the clock, but it feels like it was only fifteen minutes. Or maybe those times when you are doing something really complicated and you lose yourself completely in the experience. Those times are called flow.

There are two ways to feel good in life: pleasure and flow. Pleasure is usually short-lived and entirely external, such as watching television, having sex or eating. Flow can happen with almost any activity, but requires some skill and difficulty.

I’ve experienced flow when reading, while writing, while taking pictures (and manipulating them on Photoshop), when I crochet, while playing Dance Dance Revolution and even when running. If you sat down right now and made a list, I’m sure you have had several instances of flow with various activities.

I even remember being in flow when I worked at K-Mart. There were busy times, such as during the Christmas season or right before Mother’s Day, when working at K-Mart required all my concentration. Getting those customers out the door happy was something that I was able to excel at and during those times when the lines were long, I actually enjoyed working at K-Mart.

The author of the book says that flow is the main element of true happiness and the more time we can spend in that state of mind, the happier we will be.

What does this have to do with eating healthy? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

I just finished watching the online episode of Dying to be Thin from PBS. You can view it here:

• NOVA Online | Dying to be Thin | Watch the Program

The show is packed with interesting quotes:

“Everyone wants to know the secret to being thin because that… that’s success… that’s love, that’s glory, that’s power – that’s a crock.”

“Sometimes they make it look so glamorous to have an eating disorder.”

“In some ways we all have distorted views of what is beautiful. And the repeated exposure to a particular image teaches you to like that particular image. And we have become so used to seeing extremely thin women that we have learned to think that this is what is beautiful.”

“The whole society is involved in the perfection game; that we can all fix our bodies, make our bodies over. “

“I see the common theme in all of this is that women are using the appetite as a voice and they’re using the appetite to express different things depending on their situation.”

“When I was heavy, I was ignored instead of nurtured. And when I was really thin all of a sudden I was nurtured and taken care of and the teachers loved me and they cared about me. Gaining weight was the worst thing. I was just so ashamed of my body. I felt like I was the biggest failure.”

“The scale becomes your altar. It becomes the site where you pray every morning. You pray that it will be down another pound or another ounce or anything to show that the work that you’re doing – and the work is starving – is working, because other things in your life aren’t working.”

“I believe that very few women escape a battle with their bodies.”

“During a binge people will typically report something changes. At least they feel numb – they’re not thinking about whatever it is that they were worrying about. So there is a reward there. They don’t feel good, but they feel different and they feel some relief.”

“Plus size is no different than being skinny. It’s just another way of being beautiful.”

It was a little glurgy at the end with the “cured” girl writing a letter to the hospital that treated her. but it had a lot of good things to say also.

The most interesting portion of the show for me was the section about bulimia. I don’t have purging problems, but I have dealt with bingeing ever since childhood. I was surprised to learn that it takes about three months of staying away from bingeing before the body recovers and starts acting like a normal digestive system. The signal of fullness isn’t as strong with someone who has regularly binged as with a normal person, and it takes three months of not bingeing to start getting back to normal.

I’ve never gone three months without bingeing my entire life.

That’s probably why weight loss is still a struggle for me, so my new goal is to refrain from bingeing for over three months. That is what I’m striving for to get my body back to normalcy. This was a very helpful documentary for me, even though it focused on anorexia nervosa instead of binge eating.

Via: Online Documentary Illustrates Devastation of Anorexia

The original recipe for this treat is relatively low in calories except for one ingredient: marscarpone, which is a creamy cheese that is usually a little sweet.

A Blithe PALATE: Strawberry Basil “Bruschetta”

A simple substitution can create a beautiful and healthy treat that will make you feel like you’re eating decadently for less calories than a Twinkie.

2 slices cinnamon raisin bread
1/4 cup sugar free and fat free yogurt (instead of the marscapone)
1 T honey (because the yogurt is sweetened, use less honey)
4 large strawberries, rinsed and hulled, cut in half
1 T fresh basil leaves, chopped into a fine chiffonade

Follow their directions:

“Toast the slices of bread, then cut diagonally for four toast “points.” (Alternatively, you can use a round cookie cutter and cut out toast rounds; cutting diagonally simply prevents waste).”

“Mix together mascarpone and honey. Pipe or spread honey mascarpone mixture onto bread. Sprinkle with basil chiffonade. Top with strawberries and remaining basil.”

Depending on the brand of cinnamon raisin bread, the calorie count will range between 150-300 calories. If you are careful when you buy your bread, you can have a low-calorie treat that makes you feel like a pampered aristocrat.

Via: Food Porn: Strawberry Basil Bruschetta – Slashfood

Margaret Cho has floored me again. A radio DJ asked her, “What if you woke up tomorrow, and you were beautiful? I mean really beautiful. You were 19, blonde, weighed 110 pounds, 5’11” and beautiful. What would you do?” This is her response:

• Margaret Cho’s Weblog – Beautiful

These are my favorite quotations from her answer:

“Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn’t mean it does not exist.”

“I have to believe that I am beautiful because if I don’t I will die. How I lived when I was convinced I was ugly: I starved myself, and fucking fucked as many people as possible.”

“I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. And the great divide between the beautiful and the ugly will cease to be. Because we are all what we choose.”

Bookmark this epistle from Margaret and every time you start to compare yourself to the model on the cover of SELF magazine, go back and read it.

In the science fiction books of Lois McMaster Bujold, the more “civilized” planets produce “vat grown meat”, which is genetically produced meat tissue. All of the flavor, vitamins and fat with none of the cruelty. It looks like there is a patent registered with the United States for this process.

• Method for Producing Tissue Engineered Meat for Consumption – United States Patent: 6,835,390

If this is process can be refined and made feasibly available, I would be a very happy camper. I enjoy eating meat, even though I also feel a responsiblity to animals. It’s hard for me to even consider giving up meat, even though I know that our planet’s resources could be put to better use if we weren’t feeding so many cows grain that could be used to feed humans. If they invented vat grown meat, I would choose it over conventionally grown meat every time, even if it cost twice the money.

I’ve been waiting for this invention for about ten years. Get it on the market already!

Via: Patently Silly :: Method for Producing Tissue Engineered Meat for Consumption

While I was at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Conference, I met an amazing woman, Tish Grier. I have been enjoying her personal weblog, so imagine my surprise when she writes an entry about the gym that hits home with me.

• love and hope and sex and dreams: Weighty Matters

If I had known all this was lurking under the surface of her skin, I would have given her a great big hug when I had the chance in Austin.

“It begins to bother me even more about my weight, that I can’t be happy just the way I am because there are all these messages around me, all this pressure, that guilts me into thinking that I should do my best to try to have that body I had when I was in my late 20’s…that great-looking un-traumatized body that only comes, quite truthfully, once in a lifetime…”

The truth is, the media IS trying to make us feel inadequate because it’s so much easier to sell us stuff when we are. If you have been feeling like you need to live up to anyone’s expectations but your own, take a break and write it out just like Tish did. You might not be able to get to the bottom of the issue in one sitting, but you should be able to find a nugget of truth that makes you feel better.

Whole Foods has been using a lot of marketing surrounding their organic produce and foods. Some of this marketing is hype according to this Slate article by Field Maloney.

• Is Whole Foods Wholesome? – The dark secrets of the organic-food movement. By Field Maloney

Here are a few of their marketing statements that are misleading:

• “Save energy” is misleading because it takes far more energy to transport “organically grown” tomatoes from Chile than to transport conventionally grown tomatoes from New Jersey.

• “Help the Small Farmer” is misleading because most of the organic food grown in the United States comes from a few large California farms. Although many small, family-run organic farms exist, their market share and representation at Whole Foods are minuscule.

• “Our Commitment to the Local Farmer” is misleading because few products are obtained locally and “grower profiles” depict organic farmers whose products are not on the shelves.

I tend to buy organic produce when it is readily available. I have convinced myself that it tastes better, but I have never tested myself in a blind taste test, so I think it’s just an excuse I’ve made in my mind. I don’t believe organic is inherently better than food grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, but I tend to buy it if I have the choice.

“Credo quia consolans.” (I believe because it consoles me.)

Via: Consumer Health Digest, March 21, 2006