Wednesday 31 October 2012

6 weeks at goal weight



Yes, it's been a while since I've posted.  You may recall how I'd planned to weigh myself daily from my goal day.  Six weeks later, that did not happen.  I've only weighed myself half a dozen times after my last post a month ago, and surprisingly for me, didn't even bother to enter most of them into my spreadsheet.  I have to say that for about 10 days, I was on a goal high, and life was sweet.  I treated myself to going to the cinema a huge number of times, certainly a record for me.  The films I saw were:

Wednesday 19th On the road - an unusual film about life hitch hiking in the US in the early 1950's.  Life on the road included working low skill jobs, as well as reading and writing poetry and short stories.  A bit arty, but that's okay in low quantities.

Thursday 20th The Expendables 2 - just a string of explosions, air crashes, and gun battles where the good guys (almost) never get killed.  Pretty much you had to disengage your brain when the film started.

Friday 21st Hit and Run - it's never a good sign when you completely forget what this film is about, and have to watch the trailer again.  An escapade type film about a couple who are on the run from some baddies who want some hidden money.  Forgettable, obviously.

Monday 24th Total Recall - a remake about someone who has memories implanted into his brain in a futuristic society.  Quite good, lots of action and a plot that isn't dumbed down.

Tuesday 25th Ruby Sparks - a successful author creates a character in one of his stories and she comes to life.  They have a relationship and he learns that he can change the way that she acts just by typing some words on a piece of paper.  Quite enjoyable.

Wednesday 26th Hope Springs - essentially a dramatic documentary about how the fire in a long-term relationship can burn out and how to reignite it with a trip away and some couples counselling.  Some of the acting sucked.  It was however, interesting showing the counselling and I'll be buying a DVD of this when it comes out because I have lived this film and don't want to live it again.

Thursday 27th Looper - using time travel to dispose of unwanted bodies, hit men come across expected and unexpected problems when they take on a profession with a finite life expectancy.  Well made although there were some huge plot holes.

Friday 28th Savages - my favourite of the bunch, marijuana growers who have to join up with a Mexican drug lord which results in horrifying deaths and kidnapping.  Very well made and has what I would call razzmatazz which is when everything comes together perfectly.

Monday 1st Savages - worth seeing twice.

Tuesday 2nd Pitch Perfect - in a nutshell, two hours of Glee but with more comedy and no backing band, instead using a cappella (which is making instrument sounds using your voice).  Anna Kendrick was great in Up in the air but she won't get any Academy Award nominations for this, sadly.

Wednesday 3rd Resident Evil: Retribution - some films (Lord of the Rings, Coyote Ugly) were made for 13 year old boys.  This film was made by a 13 year old boy.  The script, plot, set and pretty much everything was shallow.  If you play first person shooter video games on your Xbox 360/Playstation 3, you've played this film.

Thursday 4th Two little boys - it's been a long time since I've walked out of a film.  Probably 5-10 years.  I wasn't the only one to walk out of this.  The fact that it was made in New Zealand makes it worse (I've been to some of the locations in the film), but this film really wasn't funny and the production quality was worse than NZ's long running soap Shortland Street which is pretty bad. 

So there you have it.  12 films in two weeks.  Definitely an enjoyable experience, celebrating 3 years of weight loss and 12 years since being at goal.

So where to from now?  I have to say that maintaining has been easier than what I expected.  I sort of expected that my metabolism would have diminished somewhat and I would need to boost the level of protein that I was having.  As it turned out, that hasn't happened.  Obviously I can't eat whatever I want to, but I'm not that hungry and I don't seem to be needing to optimise the level of protein that I'm having.  I haven't been cold,  nor have I been lying around feeling listless and tired due to my light weight.

Blogging.  I'm proud of my weight loss, and yes, I'm proud of my blog.  Reading other people's blogs, they like to share a lot of what is going on in their lives.  As it happens, I'm more of a private person and don't do that.  However, I still need the blog and have decided to make posts at least every calendar month.  That's not a lot, but I can maintain that level for pretty much indefinitely, so it will be interesting to see how long I can go. 

Commenting on other people's blogs.  I need to work on this.  I do think that it helps with my own motivation and also it's only fair to support others as other people have supported me.  I've whittled down the number of blogs that I'm commenting on, but that means that I can remember more about the person I'm reading rather than just going by what I read on that particular post.

Exercise.  I've stopped exercising.  I knew that would happen.  I also need to start again because I really need to improve the quality of my sleep, and maybe exercise can do that.  We'll see.

Food.  I've started to eat foods that I haven't had in a long time (we're talking years).  One of which is tortellini, which are little pasta things filled with cheese.  The good thing about these is they are easy to prepare, just add boiling water and throw in the microwave.  However they have a high energy density which means that it's been at least 4-5 years since I've had them.  There are a number of other foods which I plan to have, but this one happened to come to mind first, so I decided to buy a packet and give it a go.

I need to be vigilant with my weight, so I'll see how weighing weekly goes in terms of safety.