Fitness Inspiration in Gossip Girl

Monstrous Ball episode of Gossip Girl

After public humiliation, Dan asks Serena if she wants to go out for burgers.  Serena answers, saying yes, and she'd also like milkshake and fries.  Junk food is being presented in this instance as comfort food.  At the end of dinner, Dan offers Serena her choice of two different types of pie.  Serena wants both types, plus a third.

I hate Serena.  She regularly eats like a pig, doesn't exercise and looks like that.  Despite her being a fictional character, it upsets me.  I have a friend like Serena, except she's obese.  That's how it is for most women.  Eat too much junk, too often and become obese.  


Obviously, Monstrous Ball isn't fitness inspiration.  Or is it?  The diner scene does promote a few healthy things, like portion control.  Dan barely drank any of his milkshake, only ate half a burger and not all of the fries.  He's just sitting there, probably bored watching Serena eat. Also, hamburgers aren't as bad as their rep.  Hamburgers are a good source of protein, iron, and the fat in it helps keep you full.

We could imagine them coping differently, and then it would be good for fitness inspiration.  I've had plenty of bummer moments, which were made better by hot tea with friends.  Or once, on a sad cold day, I drank Diet Pepsi.  There were no friends there with me.  All I had for comfort was that blue can, a snug coat, and a guinea pig to wrap my arms around.  Bad day and rough times, but it got me into the habit of reaching for those things when I feel bad; blankets, sugar free drinks, pets, and friends or family.  Each time I have a low moment and handle it in this way, it reinforces the habit.  Fiturists should develop personal and healthy coping methods.  Most people have loads of bad moments in their lives, and sometimes, extended lows.  If we can get through them without excessive damage to our weight, we are stronger afterwards and better able to handle the next blow.

That's not to say one can't indulge from time to time.  I do, and I have habits that prevent excessive calorie intake.  Before I go to a new place, I look up the menu and nutrition facts and decide what to eat.  If I've been there before, I already know what I like there and how much I'd eat of it.  When I order an Oldtimer at Chili's, I immediately cut it in two, one side being bigger than the other.  I eat the smaller half, and might eat five french fries, max.  It's a habit to take most of the food home, so much so that I don't even have to think about it or use any restraint.  And that, my friends, if you didn't know, is how you indulge.  Very little, and with a practiced plan.

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Laugh Those Pounds Away? 

This, My Life on a Diet, says yes.  Renee Taylor, actress of the era of old Hollywood, details her often humorous struggles with her weight.

 

Renee Taylor is an actress from the era of old Hollywood.  She's had chance encounters, friendships, and worked alongside big names; Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, Mel Gibson,Cary Grant, James Dean, John Wayne, Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, etc.  (Younger audiences may know her from the sitcom The Nanny, playing the role of the nanny's crazy mother).

Renee Taylor's weight problem started in childhood.  Her family often had an empty refrigerator.  When food was plentiful, Renee binged.  Also contributing to an unhealthy body image was her mother's interest in thinness.  Renee is reflective and understands, to a degree, how much this affected her as an adult.  The mentality of someone who becomes overweight as an adult is quite different from those who were overweight in their youth.  For the latter, weight defines them. 

In pursuing an acting career, Renee recreated a similar environment to that of her childhood, with pressure to be thin and instability and uncertainty.  She was not comfortable without these things.  When things were going well, she'd gorge herself into heaviness again.  This allowed her to continue overcoming the problems of her past, proving to herself over and over that she could conquer them, that things were different.  Despite some awareness of how her childhood related to adult problems, she was unable to break the cycle of feast or famine. 

My impression is that Renee is high-strung, a workaholic, and needs things in constant motion.  It would've benefited her to have a hobby unrelated to her career or weight.  For some people, this might be painting, instrumental music, photography, pottery, bird watching, etc.  Renee, though, may be interested in a more competitive hobby.  I'm not sure she can handle the calmness.  Also, therapy might've been good.  Instead of eating, talk to someone about her feelings about eating.  That way, the problem is being addressed without harming her physically. 

Throughout her career, Renee tries various fad diets and asks her fellow actors what they eat to stay in good shape. For a time, the diets work, and then Renee is back to overeating again.  Towards the end, Renee's weight is out of control and she starts attending Overeaters Anonymous (OA).  She loses quite a bit of weight doing it.  Then, she quits OA and invents her own diet, which works well for her.

The diet she invented involves only eating one type of food for entire days e.g. eat fruit Tuesdays, grain Wednesdays, salad Thursdays, etc.  This is her happy ending, that she'd finally conquered her weight issues.  I believe that this diet slightly works, for a time.  And there are good aspects to it.  Renee learned to plan a meal plan which incorporated various foods that she'd like.  It is a stepping stone in the right direction.  She should gradually incorporate other food groups into each day.  Add meat to the vegetable day, vegetables to the meat day, and slowly make a balanced diet out of this.  Eventually, the hope is that eating would become more intuitive, and Renee could achieve peace with food and her body. 

Overall, I enjoyed the book.  Old Hollywood is interesting, and this book gives access to the mysteries of it.
It is also funny.*  But does it live up to the claim on the back of the book?  Can we Laugh Those Pounds Away?  (Sure sounds nice).  No, but this book does inspire fitness, in some ways.  Analyzing Renee Taylor's difficulties gives a person new perspective on their own problems.  Also, Renee is inspiring in that when she's fallen down, had a misstep, she gets back up.  I view it as encouraging because we can all do that.  It reminds me of a quote from Scent of a Woman - "No mistakes in the tango, darling, not like life. It’s simple. That’s what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, get all tangled up, just tango on.”

On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the best, I rate it a 2 for fitness inspiration, for the author's determination and reflectiveness.  It isn't much, but the author's activeness is motivating. 

+2

*Here's one funny excerpt:

Mel Brooks stopped by the theater one day to say hello.  I worked for him in The Producers.  I played Eva Braun to Dick Shawn's Hitler.  "You look good," I sad.  "What diet are you on?"

"Slipping immediately into the character of the two-thousand-year-old man, he said, "Why should I diet?  I never eat.  I don't even know why I'm fat.  I don't eat anything.  Maybe some orange juice for breakfast, that's all.  Okay, a piece of toast this big, but its rye, or sometimes one egg.  Simple, scrambled, a little piece of bacon, you can hardly see it.  A few potatoes, boiled only, a sprig of parsley, that's all!  Maybe a prune danish, no butter, and some raisins and a few nuts and that's it.  Nothing in my mouth all day except maybe lunch.  I have a little fish, with a vegetable, a hard roll, some applesauce, dietetic; coffee, skim milk, ices, maybe a little fresh pineapple on top.  A cookie, to kill the aftertaste; and nothing between meals, except maybe a box of Goobers, a few M&M's, a bite of pizza, maybe, for taste, and that's it until dinner when I eat nothing.  Absolutely zilch except if I'm hungry, a shrimp cocktail, a few hors d'oeuvres on a cracker, a cube of cheese so small a dog would refuse it; a plain salad, no dressing; a spoonful of spaghetti, no meatballs; a thin slice of veal, a smidge of Parmesan or you can't eat it; a drop of minestrone to push everything down; maybe a drop of Jello with make-believe whipped cream on top; a few after-dinner mints and that's it for the whole day, except maybe for a piece of chicken and a glass of wine in the middle of the night if I can't sleep, usually from worry that I'm fat and don't know why.


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Thinner

  Is it Fitness Inspiration?

 

Thinner is a book by Stephen King, and also a movie, about an obese man who is cursed by a gypsy to lose weight uncontrollably until he starves to death.  But does it inspire fitness?

Let's analyze, starting with the movie.  The main character is an obese unhappy man who eats too much.  The eating becomes constant as he can't maintain his weight.  Nothing about that inspires me, but I do enjoy the fantasy.  This element is not demotivational/uninspiring either.  I didn't watch and think, "he's stuffing his face!  That's what I should be doing now or maybe later."  No, I felt neutral to it. 

However, there was a troubling element to it - a strawberry pie was shown several times in the movie.  If it had been something normal that I'd eaten before, say apple, pumpkin, or cherry, I wouldn't have been affected.  This was not a normal pie, and I thought, "What does a strawberry pie taste like?  It sounds so exotic.  And look, those people have eaten it several times.  It must be good."  So, yours truly bought a pie crust and strawberries.  Guess what I did with it...FYI, it wasn't good, and I had to eat two pieces to decide that.  My verdict on the movie is that it is demotivational. 

This was a learning opportunity for me.  I, like many other people, am attracted to exotic-sounding foods.  They can either have an irregular name or it could just be something I haven't tried.  That's why Celebrity Chefs and cooking blogs are always "updating" or "modernizing" recipes.  Sure, you've had apple jelly before, but have you had it with jalapenos in it?  What if I called it "apple chutney"?  Sounding better?  Why yes, it is!  Made from scratch, just like my mom made when lived on the farm in Wisconsin and she added mustard to it.  We had an apple orchard and a pumpkin crop that we harvested in Autumn.  We cooked pumpkin biscuits, roasted pork loin and apple chutney, and served it as a sandwich...

It started to sound good didn't it?  A person like me wants to experience that Wisconsin memory on the farm, in Autumn.  That's the enticing effect of food in stories, movies, language, exotic places, and exotic-sounding foods.  If you're like me, you already know that you strongly react to these things, and knowing it doesn't stop the reaction.  So, one does need to develop a plan for managing the reaction. 

For me, there's a thought process I've developed.  Rather than just evaluating how I feel, and what I want, I first analyze the nutritional value of the food.  Strawberry pie - too much sugar, fat and calories to have on a regular day.  But apple chutney, pork loin, and pumpkin biscuits?  That's okay.  As long as one doesn't overeat, it is a normal nutritional meal.  That can be dinner tonight.  No biggie.

Still want the pie?  Well, thinking about it, I should realize that if it was anything good, I'd have tried it already.  They'd serve it at Thanksgiving.  But it isn't good.  So I should just forget about it. 

But I didn't forget.  Now what?  Well, strawberry pie isn't a good thing for me to eat on a regular day.  I can print out the recipe, add it to my cookbook-binder, and cook it for a special event, where there would be at least a few people to help me eat it.....I have a dessert that's pretty rich about once a month, but it is a single serving of something.  I can't have a whole pie just sitting around my house.  That's why it is best not to cook the pie. 

That was a lot of talking about pie.  Sorry.  I hope after hearing my babble about it, you aren't interested.

I didn't examine Fitness Inspiration in the novel, but that can be for next time.

By the way, the pumpkin biscuit, pork loin and apple chutney are good together.  No lie. But the story about growing up in Wisconsin on a farm, that was a lie.

Here's the apple chutney recipe I use (except I add whole grain mustard and less brown sugar):  http://www.closetcooking.com/2009/11/apple-chutney.html

Pumpkin biscuit recipe I used: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pumpkin-patch-biscuits

You're on your own for the pork.

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Twilight

Twilight.  Is this book a good source of fitness inspiration?  Let's review.

In the first chapter, Bella reports her weight and height.  "But I thought it was a book about vampires.  Why do I need to know her weight?" you wonder.  Well, body weight is related to eating, and a vampire is defined by it's eating habits.  So, her body weight is relevant...or is it?  What happens if we remove the weight?  Same story, right?  Yes, except better.  Without the weight, the story could be about any girl, making the character more widely relatable.

 Why is it there?  Because the character is boring and has no life, so her weight becomes something that defines her.

Her weight is 110 lbs; height is 5'4." BMI is 18.9, which indicates that her weight is within a healthy range, but at the low end of it (skinny).  However, next to the average American teenager, she would seem very small and likely face accusations of being underweight or having an eating disorder, from other teens and adults.  That doesn't make it true.  There are people who are naturally thin, but is it common?  No.  That's one reason for skinny-shaming.

But is Bella's weight Fitness Inspiration?  It depends on your state of mind.  I'm sure there's some crazies out there who read it and say "HOW DARE A FICTIONAL CHARACTER WEIGH LESS THAN ME!" and then they exercise.  Not me, although I confess to jogging an extra lap today when contemplating Bella's weight.  However, the gap between this fantasy and most peoples' actualities, is too great for this to be motivating.  For this reason and others, the weight should've been left out. 


Overall, the book was uninspiring.  I give points +2 points for a character does grocery shopping and cooking.  Teenagers and young adults tend to frequently eat fast food, due to lack of planning and poor cooking skills.

On a 1-10 scale, with 10 being very motivational and 0 being demotivational, this book gets a 2/10 for Fitness Inspiration.  In conclusion, this book is not good for fitness inspiration.

**On a side note, this book places a huge emphasis on eating and an unhealthy body image.  First, with the unnecessary listing of the characters physical stats.  Next, the character's self consciousness about her clumsiness reveals unhappiness with her body.  Additionally, when Bella is eating lunch with her friends in the cafeteria, she becomes aware of the beautiful teenagers (vampires) who are not eating lunch, which suggests that the author was thinking of anorexic teenagers when writing the book.  Finally, an unusual amount of time is spent detailing what Bella eats, buys and cooks.  Therefore, I believe that the inspiration for the book comes from the author's dissatisfaction with her body. 

So, what do you think?  Motivating or demotivating?  Is this book about a young woman with a body image disorder?

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Drag Me To Hell

Drag Me to Hell is a 2009 movie about a woman, Christine, who is cursed by an angry gypsy.  Great movie, but Fit Inspiration?  Let's review.

Christine was an overweight child who struggled with poverty and a mother who was an alcoholic.  As an adult, she is thin, dating a wealthy man, and a bank employee ambitiously pursuing a promotion.  Despite outwardly doing so well, Christine remains internally impoverished and struggles with the ghosts of her past.  This manifests as determination that leads her to acting against her conscience, which leads to her downfall.   

When Christine is introduced, she stops at a bakery to admire cupcakes, letting us know she has weight issues.  Annoyingly, this ruins the Fit Inspiration.  Bakeries become invisible when you're a Fiturist.  You just walk right on by.  Or JOG!  

The actress looks great, doesn't she?  Think she thinks about cupcakes?  Hell no.  I guarantee you she doesn't.  If she ever says otherwise, she's lying or heavier.

Later, Christine bakes a cake while remembering being overweight as a child.  That's when the goat spirit attacks her....See, when formerly overweight people are alone with junk food, it's trouble.  Trouble as in eating-cake-batter-trouble.  When Fiturists bake (like twice a year), they dump the batter down the drain.

 She baked this cake and took it to a dinner party......

........which later turned into this

Flies started flying out of the cake as the dinner party was eating it.  (Yes!  Start that relationship with your in-laws off right).  Bad things can happen when you bake.  More realistically, there could've been hair in the cake or a bug (embarrassing).  I mean, it could've been really gross.  Fiturists Tip #1: Buy a cake (but only if you need a cake).  

^ Here's for the part that'll really make you mad.  Christine boo-hoos into her ice cream.  I hate that.  I hate emotional eating in movies.  Normal people don't do that, and if anyone ever does, it's because they got the idea out of a movie (typical trope).

Fiturists don't do emotional eating.  They exercise.  I've seen it.  When they're up to their eyeballs in problems, they jog.  There are times when you can't do anything but wait.  People want to be doing something.  Non-action isn't an option for some people (overachievers).  But binge-eating doesn't solve the problem.  Better to relax and unwind.  Stop worrying. 

When we see Christine eating the ice cream, she's given up.  Game over.  Christine lost.

Not to ruin the movie for you, but, she goes to hell.

So let's rate this movie for its Fit Inspiration.  On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best:

+10 for a girl who overcame her weight issues
-4 because she loses at the end 
-2 for emotional eating
-2 for baking a cake
-2 for the bakery scene at the start

= 2/10
Overall, great movie, but it isn't Fitness Inspiration. We know that what we see can influence our actions.  Even after it is forgotten, what one fills his mind stays there, forever.  So it's important to watch these things with a critical eye, not allowing oneself to harmonize with poisonous thoughts, but to fight against them.

Remember, the Fiture is now!
  
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