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

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.

The article linked below is called “The Science of Yoga.” It’s a misnomer, because I expected it to go into detail about scientific experiments that try to explain the benefits of the practice. It didn’t.

• Happy News – The science of yoga

It did talk about the benefits of the practice, however:

In physical yoga, the major actions are forward bends, back bends, lateral bends, inversions (with the head below the heart) and twists. There are poses that work on building strength, flexibility or balance; some poses work on all three.

The muscles at the core of the body—in the abdomen and pelvis—are worked and strengthened in yoga, allowing movements to be more graceful and centered because they are supported by the deepest muscles in the body. In addition, yoga focuses on creating a strong and supple spine, enhancing range of motion and quality of life.

I know researchers are studying yoga to find out the reason yoga poses affect human emotions as much as they do. Practioners cite immediate emotional responses to some of the yoga poses that benefit them. Is it the placebo effect or can the position of our bodies affect our mental states? Scientists are still researching this. For now, all we can do is follow along and see if it works for us.

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

I’m taking a couple days off writing, so I’ll see you after the holidays. May you have a healthy holiday this year.

Happy Chrismahanuhkwanzakah!

Whatever you do or don’t celebrate this season, may it be a joyful one!

If you work in an office, I’m sure you will understand this dilemma. Since last Monday, the breakroom has been filled with treats. The nice lady who says hello in that sweet voice brought each employee an individually wrapped gift of her famous gingerbread. A huge plate of various treats was abandoned at the front desk. That skinny wench who always has a candy dish on her desk has added a never-empty platter of chocolate chip cookies. Plus, on Friday, there’s the potluck.

How can you hope to keep eating healthy when all of this is surrounding you?

How To Survive Christmas in the Office:

• Plan, Plan, Plan: If you eat a healthy breakfast, bring a healthy lunch and plan for a light dinner, you can easily allocate approximately 300 calories for treats. That gives you the freedom to try the yummy things that come your way.

• Imagine The Office As a Huge Garbage Can: Remember when I said that you should regift or throw away any treats that you cannot have in your house? You can also bring them to the office. The 20-somethings in the mail room alone could wipe out all the treats that have been haunting you in your house. Plus, if the office is a huge garbage can, you don’t want to eat anything that was left in the breakroom, right? It would be like eating out of the garbage.

• Treat Potluck Differently: The last two years, I treated the potluck Christmas lunch a little differently. I brought a vegetable platter and another healthy dish that I enjoy eating. I only ate what I brought. No one even noticed that I didn’t eat any of their food. They were all too interested in their own plates. I just sat down and ate what I would have normally eaten for lunch and no one was any the wiser. If someone asked if I tried the best of the treats, I replied truthfully, “I didn’t get any of that. I’ll have to go back for some.” I never went back, but by then, the casual banter had moved onto the latest office gossip.

• Avoid The Temptation: When the breakroom is filled with treats and goodies, sometimes it’s easier to avoid the room than to keep from indulging. Throw on your coat and take a walk outside for your break. The cold air is invigorating and the exercise will remind you why you eat healthy in the first place.

• Exercise A Little More: If your plan allows for 300 calories for goodies, think about how many extra treats you could eat if you did an extra half hour on the bike. I don’t recommend this as an all-year practice, but a little more exercise at this time of the year can mean the difference between enjoying the holiday or feeling deprived.

Sometimes I felt like the entire office was trying to get me to “fall off the wagon.” That’s not really the case. So much of our celebrations revolve around food that some people don’t know how to have a good time without it. All they are trying to do is bring a little cheer into the office. It’s your responsibility to accept the cheer without eating the food. You can do it!

You see them almost every day. Maybe they wave at you when you get into your car in the morning. Maybe you talk over the latest on those warm summer evenings. You know their first names and they offer to take care of your dog when you go on vacation. And… they bring huge plates of yummy treats to you for Christmas.

How To Handle Neighbor Treats:

• Accept Them Graciously: They are just trying to say thank you for being a good neighbor. They don’t need to know that you haven’t eaten chocolate for three months. Graciously thank them for the present and be glad that they spelled your name right.

• Decide What You Want: Do they look good? Do you even want to keep them? If you do, separate out your portion from the rest of the family’s portion.

• Regift Them: If you don’t want them, send them to someone else. There is no shame in regifting. When they ask if you baked them, tell them no, but you hope they like them.

• Freeze Your Portion and Ration Them Out: Decide how many calories a day you can spend on treats and separate them into daily servings. Freeze any servings that will take you longer than a week to eat. This way, you can enjoy your Christmas present well into January.

• Worst Case Scenario – Throw Them Away: If you can’t regift them and you seem to be unable to ration your portion out, then throw them away. It’s better for them to go to waste than to go to your waist.

Because I have been eating healthy for so long, we rarely get neighbor treats anymore, but when we do, I look forward to giving myself a rare gift every once and a while. I have finally learned how to live with tempting foods and deal with them in a healthy manner. You can do it too!

When I talk about an exercise that makes you excited about exercise, this is what I’m talking about. Look at that guy’s face. He’s so excited to be out today! Next time you get on the treadmill feeling drugery, pretend that the most fun thing is right in front of you. If you could only run fast enough, you could catch it.

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.

There has been some press about barefoot running recently. In response, Nike has released some shoes that are supposed to mimic the act of running barefoot. Mark, The Running Blogfather, is a barefoot runner and has something to say about Nike’s new shoe.

• A Passion for Running » oprah winfrey misinformed?

My biggest fear of running barefoot is injury. I mostly run on a treadmill, so it’s not likely that I’ll step on a pinecone or into some glass. I’m worried about running on my feet and hurting myself just by running on bare feet. Am I so brain washed by the running shoe industry that I don’t trust my own feet?

I know that man ran without shoes for years, but they were always short sprints getting away from predators or after prey. Plus, shoes were invented about 5000 B.C., so we’ve had cover and support for a LONG time. There are some people who believe that modern running shoes are responsible for the abilities of humans to break the four minute mile and be able to run over ten miles every day. We didn’t evolve from cavemen running that many miles every day. Sure, the hunters and gatherers WALKED a lot, but actual running was reserved for desperate situations.

I guess if it was good enough for King Tut, footwear is good enough for me. I think I’ll stick with my running shoes now that I finally found some that feel good.

When I was in gym class in high school, I would have liked to learn the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercising. Both were presented as “good for you” with little differentiation between running and weight training. I would have liked some more detail.

Aerobic exercises tend to be the kind of things that workout videos concentrate on. Jumping around, walking, running, riding your bike, working out on an elliptical trainer and dancing. They are exercises that can be performed continuously for a long duration, usually at moderate intensity. Aerobic exercise builds endurance and is said to be helpful for strengthening the heart. When most people are saying they’re going to start exercising, they usually mean some form of aerobic exercise.

For a more detailed article about aerobic exercise, see this Wikipedia entry:

• Wikipedia – Aerobic exercise

Anaerobic exercise is something that usually can’t be maintained for more than a minute or two. The act of lifting weights is considered anaerobic exercise. For more detailed information, here are a couple of Wikipedia articles:

• Wikipedia – Anaerobic exercise

• Wikipedia – Weight training

When we talk about losing weight, aerobic activity is usually suggested far more than anaerobic activity, but both are important. Weight training can increase your muscle mass, making you burn more calories naturally. Aerobic exercise burns more calories than the same amount of time weight training. I’ve seen people lose weight with both activities and it really depends on what you enjoy and are willing to do on a regular basis.