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

Remember: The first step toward healthy weight loss is loving yourself so much that you want to keep your body healthy and strong for a long time.

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. As of June 26^th, over $3,000.00 has been raised.

Paige Waehner has a great article on About.com about Body Image:

• About.com – What’s Your Body Image? Are you punishing yourself for being imperfect? – by Paige Waehner

In the second half of this article, she has a fantastic list of imperatives to improve your body image:

• Stop nitpicking
• Eat
• Get real
• If you can’t say anything nice…
• Find the perfect jeans
• Exercise
• Lighten Up
• Take it with a grain of salt
• Get a life
• Get a clue

You’ll have to read her entire article to get the details. Take these imperatives to heart and you will be well on the road to loving your body so much that you want to keep it around for a long time.

We are smack dab in the middle of “Swimsuit Season.” The weather is hot and the natural instinct is to shed clothing in an effort to cool down. Being able to wear tank tops and shorts without cringing in public is not just a luxury reserved for the slender. Getting comfortable with your body now will actually help you get to your ideal weight.

This week, I’m posting entries about body image and how it can affect us.

When I first started trying to lose weight on my own, I was trying to follow the food pyramid and keep my calories under 1200 a day. I would look online for caloric information and it was hard to find anything. Now, there are so many companies trying to compete for the nutrition facts top listing on Google, that it’s hard to wade through the slime. Fortunately, the site that is on the top of Google’s list seems to be the best for accurate information.

• NutritionData’s Nutrition Facts Calorie Counter

I like that you can change the size of the serving. It’s not perfect, but I’m not stuck with knowing the nutrition facts for a cup of peanut butter and having to calculate the amount for a two tablespoon serving (or vice versa). Additionally, the nutrition facts are displayed in the goverment sanctioned nutrition facts format. It makes it so easy for me to read because I know exactly where the fat, calories and fiber will be listed each time.

There is so much good stuff to read on this site. Each food is rated on the Caloric Ratio Pyramid, which provides a visual evaluation of the food. I have no idea where the “perfect food” would reside on that pyramid, but it shows the percentages of fat, carbohydrates and protein in a very visually pleasing format.

Next time you are unsure of the nutritional information of certain foods, give NutritionData a try. I’ve found it to be very helpful.

I’ve been reading Mary’s Fitness Blog for a long time. She talks about what it’s really like to keep fit. She has had trouble with her back, was grateful that she didn’t have to have surgery, and she knows which exercises aggravate her problem. I enjoy reading her ideas because she has kept a calm head about her.

I was kind of surprised when she posted this entry:

• Mary’s Fitness Blog – I love creatine

I have categorized all health supplements as “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.” That means, the companies that sell them, tend to make promises that they haven’t backed up with scientific proof. They haven’t bothered to pay for the clinical trials, so I’m not going to bother to pay for their product. It’s a simple equation for me.

This time, my philosophy has protected me from wasting my money on creatine. Quackwatch has a detailed article on the failed promises of creatine.

• Quackwatch – Creatine Supplementation – by Beth Lulinski, M.S., R.D.

There are thousands of companies out there trying to convince you that you can’t grow muscle on your own without the benefits of their products. Don’t let them get you. Humans were growing muscles long before creatine was ever conceived of. Don’t spend money on a product that hasn’t been proven to do anything beneficial. With persistence and dedication, you will grow stronger on your own.

I talked about my devotion to The Cult of the Convenience Store on my weblog, Pick Me! July 11th was always considered a religious holiday for the cult. In honor of it, I send you to this:

• Hungry Girl – 7-11 Girl’s Bite Out

I find myself at 7-11 (and other convenience stores) quite often, so finding something healthy that feels like a treat is a difficulty for me. This guide is pretty good at warning you about the pitfalls of convenience store devotion.

More companies are coming under the gun from the FTC for making false claims.

FTC slams more phony diet pill marketers – Consumer Health Digest, July 5, 2005

Products and Companies to Avoid based on past advertising:

• FiberThin
• Propolene
• Obesity Research Institute
• AVS Marketing
• Himalayan Diet Breakthrough
• Any diet product that says that you can lose weight without changing your diet or activity level.

There are so many companies out there that are trying to take your money. Don’t let them get you.

This entry from About.com gives you the science and the formulas to calculate how many calories you should eat in order to maintain weight and then tells you how many to cut out in order to lose weight.

• About.com – How Many Calories Should I Eat – How to Calculate Caloric Intake – Count Calories to Lose Weight – Losing Weight by Cutting Calories

The new food pyramid will calculate those calories for you. Of course, it is only an estimate based on your age, sex and activity level with a huge caveat, “This calorie level is only an estimate of your needs. Monitor your body weight to see if you need to adjust your calorie intake.”

• MyPyramid.gov – United States Department of Agriculture – Home

Nutritionists tell us that weight loss is just a science. It’s physics:
Calories In < Calories Out= Weight Loss
Calories In > Calories Out= Weight Gain
I would like to believe it’s as simple as that, but I’ve found that weight loss has more to do with what’s in my head than what’s in my lunch box.

It took me a long time to get past my anger at the Atkins Diet for betraying me. Protein took the brunt of that resentment. After years of healthy eating, I’ve found that protein provides me with the benefit of satiety. It’s the reason some people lost weight on the Atkins Diet.

It doesn’t take much. Only about 4-8 grams of protein are enough to make me feel full. That’s one tablespoon of peanut butter. That’s 12 pistachios. That’s less than one ounce of beef. Protein has a lot of calories packed into a compact package. It’s the reason a lot of people had trouble losing weight on the Atkins Diet.

I make sure that I have a miniscule amount of protein with my breakfast, lunch, and snacks (dinner always takes care of itself). There are tons of ways to add a little bit of protein into your diet. I try to limit my protein intake to approximately 50 calories for a snack and 100 calories for a meal. That makes for tiny servings, but I don’t need a lot to get that feeling of fullness.

Protein that has helped me feel full:

• Peanut Butter

• Tuna fish

• Nuts and Seeds (My favorites are almonds, pistachios, pine nuts and pumpkin seeds)

• Beef

• Chicken

• Eggs

• Refried Beans

Protein that I haven’t had good luck with:

• Dairy Products: I know they have protein in them, but I’m hungry a couple hours after eating them, unlike other protein sources. I don’t understand it, but I’ve noticed the effect.

• Egg Whites (like Egg Beaters, etc.): I know they have 10 grams of protein for those 47 calories, but I feel hungry very quickly after a serving of Egg Beaters. I don’t have the same effect with whole eggs.

• Protein Fortified Cereals: I like the taste of Kashi cereal and Quaker Oatmeal Squares. I love the high fiber content, but the protein that they add to their cereal doesn’t get me as full. Their cereals say they have anywhere between 3-9 grams of protein, but I haven’t noticed any additional fullness.

• Protein Shakes or Powders: I’m hungry within an hour of drinking these, especially if the shake is really sugary. I know a lot of people swear by this stuff, but they just don’t last for me.

• Protein Bars: I might as well eat a candy bar. I get the same rebound sugar effect from these as a chocolate bar.

Be careful! It’s easy to overdo it on the protein. Make sure you measure consistently because I noticed that my portion sizes were creeping up, but I was still counting them as 100 calories. Make sure you weigh, count out or measure these items because they are so calorie-dense that a small miscalculation could result in large number of unexpected calories. If you accidentally eat a whole bag of carrots, the extra calories are negligible, but a whole bag of almonds can blow your allotment for the day.

If you’re planning a walk or bike ride around your neighborhood, you might find this useful. Gmaps Pedometer uses Google Maps to measure a route you enter on the map.

It defaults to Hoboken, New Jersey, so you’ll need to start with the “if you don’t live in Hoboken” link, or just start here. Use the zoom control and drag and drop to find your location—for example, here’s Salt Lake City. Click Start Recording and double-click several points along the route, and the total mileage of the entire route is displayed.

With a bit of practice you can get a pretty complicated route onto the map. Use the Permalink feature to save your route to your favorites or email it to someone. There is other software out there for this purpose, but this one’s free, and you can’t beat the accuracy of Google Maps.