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

I was driving to work and feeling guilty for not waking up early enough to ride my bike. I was stopped at the corner of 2100 South and 700 East when I saw her. She was about my height and looked like she weighed as much as I did when I started exercising. She ran for about ten steps and then walked. Then she ran again for about ten more steps and then walked. She was breathing heavily and my mind flew back to when I first started running.

The light changed. She turned the corner, running ten steps and then falling back into a walk. I drove through the intersection, filled with the memories of running. I remembered looking ahead of me and thinking, “I’ll run to that tree.” I would push as far as I could. Sometimes I would make it to the tree, sometimes it was just too much for me and I had to walk before I reached it. I felt so horrible because I couldn’t just run the entire time.

I couldn’t run every minute of every day, so I spent more time reading about running than actually running. Most of the articles in Runner’s World made no sense to me. They talked about splits and other runner’s jargon. Sometimes I found helpful things, other times I just turned the pages and looked at the pictures of the pretty runners. “That’s what I’ll look like when I run,” I thought to myself.

I remember reading a beginner’s guide to running book that said to run slow. It said to run even slower than that. I tried that on a run. It was one of the few times where I was able to run most of the way. I was working just as hard, but I felt so much better about myself because I was able to run more than I ever had before.

The first time I was able to run without walking was during my first 5K race. My goal was to keep running for the entire race. That was my only goal. I had no time goal. I had no other expectations except to run the entire race. I was able to do it and I felt such a joy at the end. It didn’t matter that a couple of people in the Walker division beat me. All that mattered was that I ran the whole way.

Now, I can run throughout my entire workout. When I’m tired, I run slower. When I’m energized, I run faster. I just feel good that I don’t have to walk. I don’t have to say to myself, “I’ll run as far as that bright yellow fire hydrant.” I can just run.

I felt like screaming, “Run slower,” out my car window at the girl running on 2100 South. I wanted to take her under my wing and tell her that she can do this. She can run every day and someday she will be able to run the entire route. I wanted to tell her to slow down and if she thinks that she is running slow, to run even slower than that. I wanted to tell her the key, but I just drove on past. There’s a whole big world out there waiting for her. I hope she is persistent enough to see it.

“Lose Weight Now, Ask Me How” The first time I saw that phrase, it was printed on a button on my store manager’s lapel. He was eager to talk about the patch that he was wearing on his inner wrist. He said that he had lost 10 pounds, but I couldn’t see any difference in his appearance. The year was 1986.

• Diet Blog – Herbalife: What’s The Deal?

Now, the phrase, “Lose Weight Now, Ask Me How” only haunts us from tattered bumper stickers on old cars. They may have ditched their slogan, but Herbalife, the diet product multi-level marketing scheme, has just celebrated its 25^th anniversary. I have a hard time celebrating twenty-five years of questionable marketing techniques and unproven efficacy.

My personal eating demon is bingeing, but the experts say that Anorexia has very similar patterns. This postcard showed up at PostSecret. We will only get better when we love ourselves so much that we want to make sure our bodies are healthy. If this postcard sounds familiar to you, make an appointment with a therapist to work through this issue. It’s worth it.

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 professional quality on this StrengthCast is the worst of any that I have listened to, but the inspirational quality is the BEST.

• Strengthcast – Live from Central Park

Jason White, who is usually interviewing other participants, spends most of this StrengthCast talking on his own. At the end of this interview, I found myself wondering why he’s wasting his time interviewing chiropractic quacks when he has the ability to be an awesome motivational speaker.

There is a small interview with Matt Ceglie of Fitness Together in San Diego, but what Jason says is far more important than what Matt said.

Here are some good quotes from this podcast:

“What you need is a crystal clear image and that image has to awesome. You have to see that image gigantic in your mind every day, before your workout, during your workout, when you get up in the morning, when you eat… It has to be personal and powerful because that image does two things: One, it provides you with information you need to make good decisions. It guides your life toward that image. Two, it’s an analgesic. It’s a pain reliever. Working out is hard. It hurts, but if you focus on that image it relieves the pain of that hurt.”

“Get a very clear image in your mind of what it is you want to look like.”

Reinforcing the image of you achieving your goal is one of the best things you can do to keep on track. Take some time this week and really take the time to write down what you want and how you want to look. If you need some help, go to the Visualize a Different You entry and contemplate the questions there.

Whenever I think of Los Angeles, I think of beautiful, thin people rollerblading by the beach. The idea of being able to go outdoors to exercise whenever I want sounds appealing to me. That’s why I’m floored by the finding that people in states such as mine exercise more than those in tropical climates.

• SportsGeezer: People in Cool Dry Climates Do More Exercise

• The American Journal of Health Behavior – Climate Conditions and Physical Activity in the United States

Ironically, Utah made the top five along with Montana, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Vermont. The least active states: Hawaii, Puerto Rico, North Carolina, Kentucky and Mississippi are all tropical climates. Of course, California didn’t make that list. Probably because of all those bikini-clad rollerbladers on the boardwalk.

Everyone is all a-flutter about trans fat since New York City health officials asked their city’s restaurants to remove them from their foods:

• Yahoo! News – New York urges restaurants to trim trans fat off the menu

• SportsGeezer – Trans Fats: Bad, But How Bad?

• New York Times – The Panic Du Jour: Trans Fats in Foods

• Diet Blog – Trans Fat Troubles

Whether or not you want to include trans fat in your diet is still your decision right now. The FDA hasn’t made it illegal to use. Here are their thoughts on the ingredient:

• FDA – What Every Consumer Should Know About Trans Fatty Acids

I have talked about my fears about trans fat many times:

• Starling Fitness – Trans-Fats Could Make You Stupid

• Starling Fitness – More on Trans-Fatty Acids

• Starling Fitness – Kidney Stones and Cancer

• Starling Fitness – Hydrogenated Oil vs. Partially Hydrogenated Oil

Just the threat of stupidity was enough to get me looking at the labels. What you want to do is up to you. At least for now…

This is a really long post from Steve Pavlina that gives you some good recommendations on motivational tapes that have helped him.

• Steve Pavlina – Overcoming Negative Emotions and Boosting Motivation

He talks about the things that haven’t really worked for him, like NLP, neuro-linquistic programming, and funny movies. In the end, he finds that he really feels a long-lasting boost from motivational tapes by the greats like Zig Ziglar, Earl Nightingale, Brian Tracy, and Denis Waitley.

I am only personally familiar with Zig Ziglar and Earl Nightingale. Both of their motivational tapes seem so sales-oriented that I don’t know how motivating they would be for people who are working on getting fit. I suggest that you create your own motivational tapes, then it’s not only focused on what you want to accomplish, but it’s also in your voice.

• Visualize a Different You – Write your motivational thoughts, meditation or affirmations.

• How to Record Your Own Meditation MP3 with MusicMatch – Record it as an MP3

Before I started writing for Starling Fitness, I wrote about a lot of health and fitness items on my personal weblog, Pick Me!. This entry has ruffled a lot of feathers and I am still receiving comments on it, even though it’s almost a year old.

• Pick Me! – Weight Watchers Core Food List

Check out the angry and supportive comments from all the people on this entry. I orginally wrote this entry because I kept getting emails asking for the Weight Watcher’s Core Food List. It seemed crazy to me because the list (or the Points program) isn’t what helped me lose the weight. The classes and my excellent leader helped me far more than the nutritional information that Weight Watchers gave me.

I love mastering a new sport. This Trikke thing looks like it would be hard to ride at first, but fun to use once you got the hang of it.

• Trikke: Innovative Three Wheeled Vehicle

I’m surprised I haven’t seen any of these around the Salt Lake Valley. Summer is hard for all the skiers who live here, and they are always looking for something new and different to try to keep active during the warm months.

Via: SportsGeezer – The Latest Not-Necessarily-Cheap Thrills for British Adrenaline Junkies

The Museum of Hoaxes takes on Skinny Water, a new product from a European food conglomerate:

• The Museum of Hoaxes – Skinny Water

I checked out the website for Jana Skinny Water. There is a 3 minute commercial for Jana and its line of waters. There is also a section describing the clinical trials that supposedly supports the claims that Jana Skinny Water aids in weight loss. The clinical trial, however, was done on a product called CitriMax, which are capsules. CitriMax contains HCA, which has been promoted to aid in weight loss. The capsules were given to the study participants before each meal in 500 mg doses. There is no explanation about how this relates to Jana Skinny Water and there is a small message at the bottom of the section of clinical trials:

“These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to cure, mitigate, treat or prevent any disease.”

The website is also quick to mention the “American Epidemic” of obesity. There are so many companies out there eager to jump on the bandwagon of weight loss. Don’t let them take your money. Magic water from Croatian artesian wells is less likely to help you than determining once and for all that you are going to make it through this. You are far more powerful than anything you can buy in a store.