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

I learned more about my body and muscles from Denise Austin than I did in gym class. Why is that? I took a weight training class in high school. Why didn’t I learn the difference between my hamstrings and quads there?

What should I have been learning in gym class? To this day, I’m a little unclear? Was I supposed to be learning the rules to the games that we were forced to play? They didn’t really give us any instruction on that. They just had us choose teams and everyone assumed that we knew the rules. Were we supposed to gaining strength, endurance and balance? If that were the case, why weren’t we tested on that. Even in the weight training class, all we had to do to get an A was attend every day and do one more repetition on our Max Test than we did when we started the class. Even I got an A in Weight Training.

Here’s what I would have liked to learn in gym class:

• Why physical fitness is just as important as intellectual training.

• The difference between strength, endurance and balance and why each one is important.

• All the major muscle groups: the technical names and the abbreviated or nicknames.

• How to stretch every muscle group in a variety of ways to prevent injury and ease muscle soreness.

• How to exercise every muscle group to increase strength.

• The difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise and why each is important.

• How to find an exercise that you will enjoy and fits in with your lifestyle.

It would probably take several years to teach all this stuff and the class would never have to choose teams. I used to feel angry that I had to take gym class. I was a straight A student and I felt that sports had no place in our schools. I thought they siphoned off money away from academic pursuits. I had to sell advertisements and candy bars to help fund the Literary Magazine, but the football team was treated to pizza lunches all the time.

Looking at my own mortality and knowing that all the 100% on tests will not give me one more year of life has shown me that physical fitness IS just as important as intellectual pursuits. Now I’m even angrier that I got such poor training in gym classes. It’s a sorry state of education when a straight A student learns the major muscle groups from a television show about aerobics.

I have been using writing as a way to alleviate stress in my life for years, but it’s nice to know that researchers are trying to understand why it works.

• Treatment Online – Cut Stress–Write!

If you are feeling out of control in your life, give yourself an hour and write non-stop. It doesn’t matter if it’s on paper or on the computer. I usually have a goal of writing continuously until I stop feeling like bingeing. If I have to write, “I have nothing to say” over and over, that’s fine, but I usually only have to write it a couple of times before what’s really bugging me comes out on paper. Just giving myself the time and privacy to get my words down on paper is enough to help calm the urges to eat or binge my way through the hard times in life.

According to this PR Newswire article, chewing gum can help prevent holiday weight gain.

• Happy News – Chewing gum can help with holiday weight gain – PR Newswire

This article sites a survey sponsored by Wrigley, a major manufacturer of… yep, gum. You can learn even more benefits of gum chewing here.

• Benefits of Gum :: Wrigley

There are so many companies out there wanting to sell you their product, promising that it will help you lose weight. The truth of the matter is, that for some people gum DOES help them lose weight. It reminds them that they are not supposed to be eating right now or it satisfies their craving for sweetness. For others, it has no effect.

The connection between weight loss and gum has more to do with the commitment level of the person chewing the gum. The same is true for people who have had success with diet pills, exercise videos or gadgets. Deciding to live a healthy life and to take care of yourself before anyone else is all you need to do. And that’s free.

Of all the sports I’ve heard of this is the one that gives me claustrophobia:

• Happy News – Which would you choose – score or breathe? – Associated Press

Underwater Hockey, where a puck is scuttled across the bottom of the pool and you have to resurface to breathe. The kids who play don’t seem to be affected by the whole “lack of air” thing at the bottom of the pool.

“It’s really easy once you get the hang of it,” said Rademacher, a junior who plays on Roger Bacon High School’s club team.

I feel like slapping this kid on the back:

“I didn’t do sports at all,” said Rademacher, who plays clarinet in the school band. “I tried this out, and it was amazing.”

For me, I think I’ll stick with running, biking and DDR. I’m so competitive that I might just die there at the bottom of the pool rather than let someone else get a goal.

I was early to my Weight Watchers meeting and two week-one people were talking to the instructor. She wasn’t my normal leader and I was a little disappointed that I was going to be getting my class from a different instructor. I waited patiently for my class to start and I pulled out my Treo to record my weight for this week. I heard the woman ask the question:

“Is Pasta Fattening?”

I almost laughed. That phrase means nothing to me now. Fattening? What does that mean? I had heard that word so many times in my childhood, and I accepted it as law. Certain foods were “fattening” and others were “okay.” Certain food were “bad” and others were “good.” I believed every judgment my grandma made on foods. If that lady had asked me that question five years ago, I would have nodded my head at her gravely, but now I’m stifling a laugh.

How would I answer that question now?

(more…)

This secret was posted on PostSecret last Sunday. I could have written it six years ago if you replaced the Reese’s Pieces with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. There was a time when I had decided to be fat and I didn’t want to deal with any of my emotional issues. I used to spend all day at work just wishing that I could go home, watch TV and eat Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Some days, I would stay home from work just so I could binge.

Ironically, the decision to just be fat and love myself anyway was the first step toward getting a healthy life. If I had known that I was only a few months away from dragging myself out of the depression, I don’t think I would have binged on the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups as much. Deciding to love myself and be fabulous, even though I was fat helped drag me out of the pit of depression, but it didn’t happen immediately. It takes a while to learn how to love yourself, but I didn’t know that.

It took even longer for me to join Weight Watchers because I wanted to be healthy. I had decided that I was joining to learn how to eat healthy since I was so confused by all the fad diets out there. I enjoyed it when the pounds slowly melted, but that wasn’t my focus. All I wanted was to be able to live a few extra years on this planet. That didn’t mean that I was finished with bingeing. I was just learning to incorporate my bingeing into a healthy diet.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that I finally learned to kick my bingeing. It took pages and pages of writing out my feelings before I was finally able to realize why I was bingeing and what I needed to give myself to replace it. Now, I could actually imagine a life without Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups without feeling deprived.

This is not a quick fix and it was far from easy for me to give up the bingeing that had served me so well during my childhood. Don’t forget that the first step is deciding to love yourself no matter what. If you do that, then you will be on the road to healing.

For more help on this issue:

• Starling Fitness » Vulnerability Foods

• Starling Fitness » Losing Motivation

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.

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

Laura,

Are you recommending the Timex Triathlon Digital HRM? If so, how do you like it? I might be in the market for a new one.

Thanks!
Eh… not so much

Eh… not so much,

I’ve had my Timex Ironman Heart Rate Monitor for over six years. It is really accurate and the velcro strap makes it really easy to attach, even though it sticks to my clothes sometimes. I’ve replaced the batteries, but I haven’t had a bit of trouble with it giving me weird readings, now that I learned the KY Jelly trick (see Starling Fitness » How To Get The Most Out of Your Heart Rate Monitor). I bought it because it was cheaper than the Polar heart rate monitors that were around back then. Now, I think Polar makes a bottom of the line monitor that’s close to the Timex in price. I can’t compare because I’ve never used Polar.

I think some exercise machines at my gym will work with Polar Heart Rate Monitors and let me use their cardio programs, but I’ve never tried anything like that. If you go to a gym, that might be a consideration. Talk to the people at your gym and see if they have any recommendations.

I think if I had to buy another heart rate monitor, I would go with the women’s Timex Ironman just because the one I had was so easy to use and it lasted so long. Plus, I have all that 1970’s marketing in my head.

“We buried this watch in the ground for two years. Do you think it will still work? It does! Timex, takes a licking and keeps on ticking!”

How can I escape that?

Seriously, though, heart rate monitors are just tools and they won’t make us any fitter if we don’t use them.

Good Luck, Laura

I was perusing the Weight Watchers website and I found this article about using your heart rate monitor to measure your Exercise Intensity Levels.

• WeightWatchers.com – Exercise Intensity Levels

The levels are surprisingly low. They use the typical calculation for Maximum Heart Rate:

Maximum Heart Rate = 220 – Age

They state you can calculate your activity levels based on the following:

• Light is about 40-54% Maximum Heart Rate.
• Moderate is 55-69% Maximum Heart Rate.
• Heavy is equal to or greater than 70% Maximum Heart Rate.

I used much more vigorous percentages in my estimates, so this bit of news has made things much easier for me.

For more information on the Weight Watchers Flex Points Program, please read the following entry:

• Starling Fitness » What You Need To Know About Weight Watchers

As I was reading this restaurant review, imagine my surprise that the national news was doing a review of a restaurant in my hometown of Salt Lake City. I was even more surprised when I found out that the cafe in question was just down the street from my house.

• Happy News – Raw food and a new life – by Lisa Canape

Of course, Mike and I ate at the restaurant the next day. Mike ordered the Hummus on Romaine Lettuce Leaves and I ordered the Falafel Salad. I was curious to find out how they were going to manage making Falafel without frying it. It turns out that they dehydrate the Falafel until they are like thin crumbly chips. The food was excellent.

The story was repeated within our presence. Mike and I waited at the table for our order and listened to Omar tell the mystical story of his conversion to Raw Food. He made it sound like a religion. He was visited in a dream by a woman he had never known before. In the dream, the woman handed him a book. Later, Omar realized that the woman from his dream was a real live woman. At this point, all of this sounds like an elaborate pick-up line. It went wrong for Omar, however, because the woman was married. She DID hand him a pamphlet on Raw Food, though. That was the moment that changed his life.

He gave up on his geophysicist training and ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah, opening the Living Cuisine, Raw Food Bar. As far as the food goes, it tasted really good, but we didn’t see Omar prepare it. There were two employees in the back making the food. Omar seemed to be the “personality” of the cafe, talking up the customers and telling his story.

Our trip to Living Cuisine was an interesting one. I always find it fascinating when food and religion become so intertwined that they become one jumbled mess. It’s like dinner theater and the Gospel Brunch all mixed in one.

Living Cuisine
Located inside Herbs For Health
2144 South Highland Dr (1100 East)
Salt Lake City, Utah 84106
Phone 801-466-0332