DREWspective

The word of the last three days was low. Low, low low. I was mainly low for other, more personal reasons, but also because of the end of my nine-week run of losing weight. I guess it would have come in time anyway, but the four stone barrier is slipping by very fast.

Because of my frustration with the slowed-down weight loss, it was agreed that I’d stick to the diet for 12 weeks (84 days) instead of 105. In actual fact, some official dieting body had recommended against being on a VLCD (very low calorie diet) for more than 12 weeks, so the counsellor wasn’t really doing me a favour.

I’d gone to the gym yesterday, determined to get myself in shape, and had a not-so-okay workout.
This time I’d decided to do distance cardiovascular exercises rather than timed, going for a mile (1.6km) each time. Doing it on a bike wasn’t that hard, but the crosstrainer proved to be difficult and very time consuming.
It took me eight and a half minutes to do half a kilometre before giving up; it was incredibly hard to imagine anybody running a four-minute mile. I remember doing a cross-country run back in high school, which I absolutely hated; it was around a mile long, and my best time was 13 minutes something, I think.

Weight training wasn’t so great, either. If you saw how skinny my arms are, you probably wouldn’t be surprised, but I had problems lifting any kind of weight. The bar was too heavy for me to do chest presses properly, even with only two measly 2.5kg weights on each end. Lifting a 12.5kg barbell with both arms was humiliatingly difficult, too.

The good news is that I feel a little stretch, though not as much as I’d like. This kind of extremely slow progress is one of the main reasons why I don’t go to the gym that often; anything that’s this slow gets boring for me.

I’m really hoping that I’ll reach a four stone loss by the end of the remaining three weeks, otherwise I might as well have stopped after the eight weeks.

This week’s weigh-in was particularly embarrassing. I hadn’t expected to lose any weight, given the number of times I’ve eaten in the last week, but even I was surprised to find I’d gained weight for the first time, ending an eight-week streak.

How much weight? A massive 100 grams.

You read correctly: 100 grams.

It was likely to be a combination of the workout I did on Sunday, and the kind of food I ate, but I felt rather ashamed. Though any kind of workout is going to increase muscle mass, and consequently put pounds on you, eating didn’t help.
But I guess that’s one major drawback with the LighterLife diet; they’re fixated on actual weight and the bullshit BMI, rather than body fat percentages and other important factors.

One thing I don’t particularly regret about the last week, however, was having fresh sushi rolls on Wednesday (day 62). It was my first time having authentic, fresh Japanese sushi, and along with little brother I ordered some from a restaurant.
I’d opted for some salmon and avocado ones, and some crispy duck and cucumber ones. They were delicious!

I had been planning on adding some more fish to my aquarium, especially since I’d suffered a heavy loss last week; three rainbowfish, four Black Emperor Tetras, two Albino Catfish and several rasboras.
Most died because of dragonfly nymphs in the tank, which have been dealt with accordingly. One rainbowfish had an incurable case of fin rot and fungus, and just yesterday the last catfish died from unknown causes.

Unfortunately for me, I did my maths just yesterday, and figured out that the 20 gallon tank was overstocked from the beginning, and is still overstocked now.

Here’s what I have left:

3 x Silver Hatchets
8 x Neon Yellow Rasbora (estimated)
6 x Black Emperor Tetra
2 x Chilli Rasbora (estimated)
3 x Pygmy Rasbora (estimated - not Two Spot Rabsoras as I’d first thought)
4 x Assassin Snails
3 x Neon Dwarf Rainbowfish

That comes to 84cm of fish at their maximum adult size. If you go by the one inch of fish per gallon rule, theoretically the 20 gallon tank can hold 50cm.

Ideally I would purchase a much bigger tank - say a 40 gallon tank - but there would be too much of a cost involved.

These were the final set of fish I was going to add to the mix:

1 x Opaline Gourami
3 x Neon Dwarf Rainbowfish
4 x Amano Shrimp or 2 x Albino Catfish + 2 x Peppered Catfish

Only time will tell what will happen. Maybe I’ll upgrade to a bigger tank, or perhaps I’ll give up fishkeeping entirely.

Everything started well, managing a bottle of water, a shake and a bar, until it was time to go to the cinema to see the newest Bond film. Unfortunately the diet went right out of the window… but not as far as it could have.

I’d opted to have a couple of salads from M&S instead, totalling 370 calories (or roughly one bar). The first was chicken and bacon potato salad - which marked the first time in two months that I’ve had any potato - and the second was the good old Thai chicken wraps.

Even the salads weren’t a great option compared to the shakes, but it was miles away from the temptations lurking at the front of the cinema; Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, popcorn, sodas and the like. If I hadn’t gotten the salads I would have gone for the ice cream, I knew it.

With all the eating I’ve been doing, I was surprised to see the keto stick turn pink yesterday, almost as much as it did last week. I haven’t tested myself this morning, however, but I certainly am not expecting to lose as much weight as I used to.

As for the film: I saw Quantum of Solace, and the intro sequence was hot. The film itself was good, though the action was too blurry for me most of the time. For whatever reason, though, I can’t get the Licence To Kill theme out of my head.

Tupac famously said in his song, I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto:

Though it seems heaven sent
We’re not ready to have a black President

That was several years ago, and throughout the whole US election thing I was thinking that myself. I was convinced that America would see a female President long before a black one, and even until last night I was certain that the white guy would somehow prevail (think Bush).

But this morning, as most of you already know, history was made when Barack Obama was voted in as the first black President.

Personally, I was rooting for Obama because he was running for the Democrats; we’ve already seen what the Republicans were about through the last President. While there was the black aspect running as well, it wasn’t nearly as much of a motivation as it was for most people who voted for him.

As far as I’m concerned, what matters more than being on the winning side is whether the right person was voted in. In the next two years - possibly four - we will see.