The Cupcake Dilemma Flowchart

So... you can hear the siren call of the cupcakes calling your name. What do you do?

What would Pinocchio do?

Seriously? You're hesitating over this decision? Then let me take this opportunity to salute you. You're good.

We have provided a handy flowchart that might help you resolve this dilemma. (Warning: do not give the flowchart a half-truth. It gets cranky when you do that.)



Should you eat that cupcake? Click on the flowchart to determine the answer:

Obligatory disclaimers:


There are 181 calories in the average Hostess cupcake.

An adult who weighs 150 pounds with an average metabolism would need to exercise for half an hour jumping rope, kick boxing, or cross country skiing, to burn off two average cupcakes.



More serious disclaimer stuff:


The flowchart is directed toward people who, like St. Augustine, want to be good --- but not just yet . It does not apply to people with serious eating disorders, who might find one of the following sites a lot more helpful:

A couple of great blogs:

The Great Fitness Experiment

Scale Junkie

And some professional organizations:

NEDA (National Eating Disorders Assn)

ANAD (Assoc. of Anorexia Nervosa and other Asssociated Disorders)

Something Fishy: a great resource for everything ED. Forums, treatment finder, etc.

USF Hope House for Eating Disorders

(Thanks to Charlotte and Diana for their link recommendations.)

Children and Body Image: Uh Oh.

Image courtesy of: chicks57

Since I don't have kids myself, I am sometimes naive about how things have changed since I was a little tyke.

I was gobsmacked to find out, via Sagan of Living Healthy in the Real World, that doctors are discovering that not just adolescents, but children as young as five, are binging and purging.

I hope this is just one of those "get people all riled up" articles, like the reports about little girls taking pole dancing classes. You know, where rare cases are made to seem like a shocking new trend we need to worry about, so that experts can get their names in the paper and we bloggers can all climb up on our soapboxes and scream: "How Terrible!"

Sadly though, it sounds like it's more than a few isolated kids. The researchers are only just starting to look into how prevalent the problem is. But it blew me away that this was even happening in Canada, where I always imagined things were more sane and reasonable than in the United States.

Little Canadian kids are gorging themselves on french fries and doughnuts poutine and timbits and then barfing it back up so they won't be seen as fat?

Holy hell, things are worse than I thought.

Not freaked out yet? Well, another recent study of kids and eating disorders followed kids 9-15 years old and found that more than ten percent of the girls were binging or purging at least weekly. And purging was more common than binging.


Is it just me, or is anyone else shocked by this?

Part of my naivete has to do with my own upbringing. I don't think I even had a "body image" as a kid. Okay, I knew I was short. But it didn't bother me.

I got lots of exercise, because when I was little it was called "playing" and it was fun and there was plenty of time for it. (I went on an extended rant about this, in full turbo-charged Grumpy Old Fart mode, when writing about Elliptical Trainers for kids.)

There was no obesity epidemic yet, and getting fat was a fate that befell an unlucky few. It wasn't on the radar for "normal" kids. As far as I remember, it wasn't until high school that some girls started dieting.

So for me, it seems shocking that children in elementary school are already worried about what their bodies look like enough to have actual eating disorders. But I'm sure some of you who struggled early with your own weight--who grew up in a different climate, or with a genetic propensity to put on pounds easily--are not nearly as shocked.

And I suspect that many of you parents, particularly parents of girls, are saddened but not that surprised. You're in the trenches with your kids and are hip to what they see and hear and read. Accck! I don't know how you grapple with this, and am hoping some of you will share what you've learned in the comments.

So I could go off on another rant about the media images we see constantly of impossibly skinny women, right next to ads for triple-bacon-cheeseburgers and Blizzards and Double-stuffed Oreos. But you guys already know that we live in a profoundly screwed-up culture when it comes to food and fat and fitness and body image. And it's not a surprise that kids soak up all that poison just like we do.

Instead, I want to ask: how do we fight this?

There's a Web MD article on children and body image that has some basic advice for parents (of girls), for what it's worth:


Look for signs of an unhealthy body image:

• Does your child view herself only in terms of her physical appearance?
• What language does she use to describe herself and her physical development and attractiveness?
• Is there excessive dieting?
• Are there frequent comments about the weight of other girls?
• Does she worry about sexual attractiveness?
• Does she suffer depression or low self-esteem?

Help boost a poor body image by:

• Helping children understand that their bodies will change and grow and that there is not one "ideal" body shape;
• Watching what they say about their own bodies or other people's bodies;
• Avoiding stereotypes, prejudices, and words like "ugly" or "fat";
• Helping children focus on their abilities and personalities rather than physical appearance;
• Promoting physical activity and exercise;
• Discouraging children from weighing themselves.

Watch for symptoms of anorexia which may include:

• Losing lots of weight;
• Denying feeling hungry;
• Exercising excessively;
• Saying that she "feels fat";
• Withdrawing from social activities;

Or symptoms of bulimia which may include:

• Making excuses to go to the bathroom immediately after meals;
• Eating huge amounts of food without weight gain;
• Using laxatives or diuretics;
• Withdrawing from social activities.

But How Do You Encourage Healthy Behavior?

So how do you remain sensitive to a kid's body image while still encouraging healthy eating and exercise?

I can't imagine how modern parents manage to balance this. In my day, these weren't such loaded concepts. A parent could say "Go outside and play!" or, "No cookies for dessert until you finish your cauliflower!" There wasn't quite the same danger it would be construed as: "whatever you do, don't get fat or no one will ever love you!"

Some Hope for Eating Disorders: A recent study of eating disorders and psychotherapy showed that a specific, more enhanced version of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be extremely helpful in working with eating disorders. (Though the study was of adults, not kids). In any event, if your child is showing signs of an eating disorder, seeking help seems a much better strategy than pretending it isn't happening.



So what do you parents do to try to keep your kids from hating their bodies while at the same time encouraging healthy habits? What can the rest of us do to help? And was anyone else as shocked as I was to see how early these problems start?

Guilt: it's not just for mothers anymore

[By Merry]

Photo courtesy of flickr

I have a cold.

Earth-shattering news, right? Okay, maybe not, but the reason behind the cold is interesting.

I got a cold because I went to a family reunion and there encountered a teenage relation who insisted on giving everyone hugs seven to eight times a day. I pointed out that she had a rather nasty cold and that perhaps sharing wasn't always a good idea, but she got hurt feelings and apparently the only way to make her feel better was to let her go around giving more hugs.

So now I'm sitting here sniffling and cursing my inability to draw lines, define boundaries, and say "look, I know you're needy emotionally, but enough already!" The neat trick is that I'm managing to feel guilty both about being a wimp (for getting the cold) and being a bitch (for hurting her feelings) at the same time.

Guilt works

Not only can guilt be used for pointless feel-bad episodes such as the one above, guilt can be effective for making sure you exercise.

I trained for a 60 mile bicycle ride once. I'd never cycled more than 15 miles at a time up to that point, but a friend and I made a pact to get up early every weekend for 10 weeks and train. Left to myself, I probably would have skipped more than a few training sessions. Didn't really feel like getting up... it's too cold out... it won't hurt to skip just this once ... pretty much any excuse I could think up would have been used. Some mornings I would look at the phone and think "you know, I should call her and cancel... but I don't want her to think I'm a wimp. She's depending on me."

When I got to the meeting place for the ride, she would show up and say "you know, I really thought about calling you to cancel, but I couldn't face the guilt."

We used that fear quite effectively to become fit. Then I moved away, lost my guilt-partner, and slid into slothful ways.

Can guilt get you off the couch?

Usually when I miss a workout, it's down to one of the following causes:

1 - Dithering. "Oh, I'll go work out as soon as I've started a load of laundry, raked the lawn, watered the plants, regrouted the bathroom and cleaned out the attic. Oops, ran out of time. Oh well."

2 - Getting distracted. Similar to #1, except that there is no intention of eventually getting up and working out. I'll think about it, agree that it's a good idea and I should do it, then remember that it's almost time for House and I have to take out the trash and check my email, oh look at those nice shoes in that commercial maybe I should go shopping after work tomorrow?

I figure if I can add guilt to dithering or distraction, it will act as the memory-equivalent of a sticky note. If I can keep the idea of exercise somewhere near the front of my brain, I am more likely to get it done.

So guilt works. How can I use it?

I thought there might be some study out there in Research Land that would give me some more hints on how to use guilt as an exercise motivator. But I didn't have much luck.

[ Warning: the following paragraph contains potentially hazardous levels of whining. Nursing mothers and women who are pregnant or may become pregnant are advised that the following may resemble their children's behavior and proceed accordingly.*]


Why aren't there more studies about slugs who know what they should do but don't almost always go out and do it? Why, in short, aren't there more studies about people like me? :(

[*Not sure what 'accordingly' means exactly, in this context, but it sounded impressive.]

Closest thing I could find was a phone study ("A phone study!" I can hear the jeers already) which basically summed up a successful strategy as 'stop talking about it and exercise already.'

Yeah, that was a big help, thank you so much...

No doubt it's true, but not what I was looking for. What I was hoping for was something along the lines of ways to trick, tempt, taunt or tantalize my lazy-ass self into getting off the couch. (Once I'm actually working out, it's fine. It's getting to that point that is the problem.)


Guilt has nothing to do with Viagra

Interestingly, what I did find is that there are a lot of studies about guilt and exercise in regards toward people with eating disorders. (Sorry, but I can't abbreviate that phrase. When I see "ED" I always think "Erectile Dysfunction" and get confused, since that condition almost never applies to the excellent bloggers who've written about this subject.)

It seems that people who suffer from an eating disorder apparently also tend to overdo the guilt about exercising.

One study of 230 women, aged 18-45, found that women "who always felt guilty after they missed a regular exercise session were the ones most likely to rate highly on measures for eating disorders." About 12 percent of the regular exercisers fell into this category.

I can't comment intelligently on this disorder since it's one that I seem to have escaped. (I have lots of other disorders so I suppose it balances out.)

All I can think is that guilt is a useful but potentially dangerous weapon. If you're one of the 88 percent who don't rate highly on eating disorder issues, if you suffer from low-motivation, have trouble getting moving, or in general spend too much time listening to your inner slug, guilt can be hella useful to get you off that couch and into those running shoes.

But if you're one of the people who need to watch out for eating disorders, you might want to go easy on the guilt, lest it trigger other issues.

I don't suppose anyone out there -- in the 88 percentile -- has any good guilt-inducing tricks I can use to get motivated again?

Blogging the Hard Truth: Stephanie Quilao Interview

[By Crabby]



Here at Cranky Fitness, we tend to talk about health and nutrition and exercise generally rather than personally. Which means you are more likely to read advice on what we think everyone should do (eat your vegetables!) and less likely to hear reports about what we actually do ourselves. (Well, popcorn is technically a vegetable, isn't it?)

How much do we weigh? Did we do our cardio this morning? Do we plan to cut down on our cupcake consumption? Unless we've been in a unusually confessional mood, it's anyone's guess... 'cause we're not saying.

Other bloggers out there are much more forthcoming. Many of you who have blogs share the details of your struggles and goals and accomplishments with your readers. It's brave and inspiring! But being personal and honest comes with challenges, doesn't it?


One such blogger, Stephanie Quilao, found herself confronting difficult questions about the "personal" versus the "public" on her blog Back in Skinny Jeans.

For those of us who are not lucky enough to be hearing her speak at the BlogHer Conference in San Francisco (July 18-20) Stephanie offered to share some of her experiences "Coming Out" on her blog about some very personal issues.

CF: The title of panel you're speaking at is called “Who We Are: Coming Out Via Blog”... Some people might jump to the conclusion that you broke the surprising news to your readers that you were a debutante lesbian. But they'd be wrong! What were you actually referring to?

I was thrilled to get the invite to speak at BlogHer08 but the request came with a “But…” {cringe…wait for it…here it comes Steph}

Coming Out? My initially reaction (in my head) was, “But I’m not Lesbian. Yeah I’m single, over 40, and have no kids so to some of my relatives I surely must be a Lesbian, because well, if this were “My Big Fat Filipino Wedding” you’d get the picture. In “Coming Out” they meant about something highly personal and the “but” part was, “We want you to talk about how you came out about your bulimia relapse this past January. It’s really personal I know but would ya?”

I have never spoken about the bulimia in front of a live audience before that wasn’t some anonymous healing program so part of me is really nervous to be honest. Coming out online is one thing but talking about this in front of hundreds of eyeballs focused on you is very different. I’m doing this not only as an opportunity for personal growth, but also as a way to help my fellow women bloggers in their own healing journeys.

CF: What did you think might happen once you "came clean?" And how was the response similar or different to what you were anticipating?

The fact that I had suffered from bulimia was not a secret, but the fact that I had an active reoccurrence while being one of the top bloggers in the holistic weight management/body image category was a huge conflict of interest, so, you can imagine the guilt and sense of hypocrisy I was feeling behind the scenes.

I was just going to shut down the blog because that would have been the easiest thing to do, just close the doors, but something inside wouldn’t let me do that, at least not yet. So, I chose to share the “messy middle of the success story.”

I read lots of autobiographies because I want to know more about the middle part, the hard part, the part where real life happens. I am inspired reading about where people fall down, screw up, fail, feel defeated, and want to give up, and then how they got back up again, grew, and kept moving forward. I like to read about their tenacity, focus, commitment, and most importantly hope.

In my personal experience, the only thing that gets most people out of hellish situations is hope, the belief that things will get better. So because I had hope, I decided to share my personal struggle, and yes it was surely a knuckle biting, “want-to-pee-in-my-pants” experience the day that Part I of III went live.

What I hugely underestimated was the compassion, love, and support people gave to me. I was truly scared about this potentially damaging revelation but, coming out about the relapse showed me so much about human connection and compassion. Many people said to me, “I respect you more because you had the courage to show your humanness.” My goal is not to be any kind of hero or role model, I just want people to feel less alone, stigmatized, and shame, because I know how debilitating that can be.

CF: Do you ever fear a recurrence of the bulimia?

I’m often asked, “Can you be cured from bulimia?” I am not a health professional, but I am someone who has had almost 2 decade’s worth of experience dealing with both western and alternative healing modalities, and I can tell you this.

The absence of something that was once there does not mean that you are necessarily restored to health. Just because you don’t binge & purge doesn’t mean that bulimia will not come back. Just because cancer has left your body does not mean that it will not come back. Just because you are over one addiction like drinking or drugs doesn’t mean that you won’t develop a new one. Whole healing is mind, body, and spirit, and many people think that if they can just rid themselves of the dis-ease in their body, they’re home free, and realistically that is not the case. Those who have experienced quantum healing where their un-wellness does not return are those who have gone through what I call metaphorically, “Extreme Makeover: Body & Soul Edition.”

If you don’t deal with the underlying things that contributed to you getting sick and addicted in the first, it will come back. And if you relapse, it does not mean you are weak or that you failed in your healing, it just means that you have more work to do, or that you have been slipping back into your old patterns and habits, and you need to get back on track to doing the things that make you well.

Back to the Extreme Makeover example, I had to go into my basement and clean out years of piled up emotions, dirt, and baggage because I knew that the only way I could truly be well again, not perfect, just well, was to clean up everything I kept ignoring or hoped would just go away which we all know, never happens.

Bulimia will always be a tool in my “Life Box” of things to use in coping with stress and life, but whether I choose to use that tool or not is my choice. Now some will say that having an eating disorder is not a choice, it’s an illness, and yes I agree to a point. However, you as an individual have the choice to get help or not. You have the choice to heal or not. You have the choice to continue to live like this or not. For me, I choose to heal and to grow, and yes it’s not always easy or pain-free, it’s a process and I have hope.

CF: If somehow you did run into trouble again, do you think you'd blog about it in real time, or hold off until it was in the past again?

When I came out about the bulimia relapse I did it after I had a couple months of treatment. I don’t recommend anyone writing about their experience while they are in the middle of it because you are highly emotional, irrational, and not able to be objective. It’s best to wait for some time to pass when you are in a space where you feel stronger and more grounded.

When it comes to eating disorders, there are also the Pro-Mia and Pro-Ana blogs where some come out and blog about their eating disorders more as a way to stay active in their behavior or “lifestyle” as some of them refer to it, and not actually heal. I am very careful when I blog about my bulimia experiences and I don’t do it often because I want to be clear that my message is about healing and inspiration to have a better life.

CF: Do you think the "public disclosure" aspect of weight loss blogging is a good thing or is it a source of pressure for bloggers who have issues with eating disorders? Or is it a mixed bag?

I’m going to say mixed bag because publicly disclosing your weight loss journey can really play havoc with one’s inner “Perfect Person.”

On the upside, blogging your weight loss can give you additional community support, accountability so you are less likely to slack from your journey, and a sense of accomplishment. On the flip side, all is good when you are losing weight but what happens when you plateau or worse as many see it, start gaining back what you lost where a 2 pound gain quickly turns into 10lbs, then 15 etc. Most people start to panic, start to “fudge” with the numbers, and in an extreme worst case scenario start to full on lie like the KimKins lady.

Why? Because publicly disclosing your weight loss becomes more about your image and ego than about actual healing. Business-wise, you want to “hit your numbers” for the Quarter so you look good to the boss (your blog audience). The pressure to look like a success online can take over, and for those who already are prone to addictive and self-punishing behavior, something that started out as helpful, can easily turn into something hurtful (to oneself).

I blogged last year about shedding 25 lbs, and a year later I have kept 22 pounds of that off, but it was not entirely a whole healthy journey, and the pressure to keep writing about my progress week after week on my Weigh-in Wednesdays really had Perfect Girl in over drive. Would I ever blog about trying to lose weight again? After this experience, I would say no.

CF: Any other advice you have for folks who have struggled with eating disorders?

I could go on and on with this question, but for now I will just say this. You are not your eating disorder and you are good enough no matter what that voice inside your head keeps screaming. Your value as a human being and your ability to have love and be loved has nothing to do with your physical body, and I know you don’t believe me when I say this, but it is true and it took me almost 20 years to finally understand this, and I wish no one to go through what I did. You don’t have to.

Yes, getting better will require you to be brave, strong, and yes even vulnerable, but you can do it and you don’t have to do it alone. Have hope and stay committed to your healing especially during the times when you feel like giving up. Asking for help and allowing others to help you is one of the most loving things you can do for yourself. Healing is a process not a destination, and it will take time. During that time immerse yourself with loving and positive people, surroundings, and images. Most importantly, you don’t need to be afraid any more. You don’t need to live in constant fear, and hide from the world because you are not alone, you are never alone if you let people in.

CF: You've been one of the best-known weight loss bloggers out there for a number of years, but now it seems you're changing directions a bit. You've launched a new food blog Noshtopia, and broadened the focus a bit on Back in Skinny Jeans. How is that going, and what do you hope to see in the future for these blogs?

The inspiration to expand Back in Skinny Jeans was born from the fact that I wanted to evolve as a person, and in order to heal and grow from my own body and weight obsessions, I would have to stop blogging about the very things I need to let go of. At some point, we as women have to stop making our body and weight our #1 priority and focus in life, and for me, I started that process by evolving my blog so I could evolve. Honestly, it’s been a bit tougher than I imagined it would because I have an attachment to the physical, part of that is the designer in me who likes to create beautiful things. Traffic wise I had a large group of readers who came daily because they just wanted weight loss tips or wanted to fixate on body related topics, and they are gone now that I don’t feed them that way anymore.

From a business perspective, it’s tough to lose customers, but in the long run, I know I will continue to grow an audience because I am being more true to who I am. And if I don’t grow traffic, then that is okay too, because I don’t want to write just to attract numbers anymore. There is only so many times I want to write about 10 ways to get bikini ready or 7 ways to look 10lbs lighter, and I’m pretty much done with that. I want to write content that has meaning to me and can help inspire others to see that they are much bigger and have way more to offer to the world than being model thin.

Noshtopia is about wellness through food and yes has some relation to weight management but only as a reference that as you clean up your eating and chow more vibrantly you can achieve optimal levels of health which include a slimmer body and better overall wellness. I found that when I stopped eating foods that had artificial and processed ingredients as well as foods that I had allergies to, my sense of well being increased exponentially.

In terms of my time, I am spending more time on Noshtopia than BISJ because I can accomplish more of my “help heal the world” goals and express more of my creative talents like photography, design, writing, recipe creation, and healing. Noshtopia is live but I’m currently re-designing it so look for the new version soon to come.

CF: And aside from blog plans, where do you see yourself headed personally in the next few years? Any goals or hopes or plans you'd like to share?

Besides help heal the world and solve the mess that is our national medical system (lofty goals which live in my head), I would like to get my blog business Thriving Media to a thriving point, get that book that stills lives in my head published and on the shelves at Barnes & Noble, and I know this is going to sound cliché, but I want to marry a wonderful man and create some lovely children with him and live in a sunny house with an island in the kitchen. The old school Filipino relatives can be rest assured that I can marry and procreate, and I can have the family I have always dreamed of. It’s win/win for everyone ;-)

CF: Thanks Stephanie!