Alright! Taxes taken care of, nice slow day to look forward to, so... here's a blog entry! The Battle of the Bulge is still ongoing and I'm pleased to announce that I have dropped a total of 10 pounds! 233 to start, today's weigh in was 223. The reason this is cool is mainly because, with the exception of a couple long days at Disneyland, I had very limited time at the gym this last week and was really concerned that I was going to gain some weight back. So this shows that my eating habits are also improving.
I've started getting some help from Dr. Ralph Umbriaco in Costa Mesa/Newport on some of the ailments I've been dealing with for the last six to eight months; mainly allergies that have hindered my body's ability to heal. I know that Holistic medicine and Kinesiology are somewhat controversial with people, but I've seen results and I've been able to overcome some major health difficulties in the past due to my experience with this kind of treatment. So my days as a skeptic are basically over. The unsightly psoriasis that I had developed on my scalp is now fading and no longer itches or flakes and believe it or not, I have more flexibility in my knee than I've had since October of last year.
On top of the improvements that I'm seeing, I'm also able to sleep all night long which I haven't been able to do since last summer. I had almost forgotten what it was like to feel fully rested. I've cleared 2 major allergies in the last week - Egg Yolk/Whites and Calcium both of which were contributing to weight gain, skin conditions and depression; I weeded out Sodium Chloride yesterday (never realized how hard it is to stay away from salt for half a day). I'm just so completely in awe of how good I've felt over this passed week.
So here's to yet another week and hopefully more improvements! Thanks for stopping by! ;)
The journey to become less of a Manatee has begun!! I realize that getting "fit" is still a ways off, but luckily I'm on the right road. It's been a week since the first blog on this subject and I'm pleased to say that I've been to the gym 5 out of 7 days (gave myself a cooldown period over the weekend). It's been a struggle with my knee because of the limitation on cardio that I can actually do, but I'm finding ways to compensate with upper body exercises.
I've adopted the mentality of "not killing myself" but gradually working my way into a routine and from there, increasing it as I'm able to. For example, the bike machine that I've been using has a degree of settings for resistance, of which I began at 2-3. In the beginning, I was able to keep the RPM of my pedaling at a consistent 75-80. Today, I moved between level 4 and 5 at intervals of five minutes a piece and my RPM rested nicely at 90 RPM. It's encouraging to see the increase in stamina and know that my knee doesn't hinder me as bad as I thought it would.
The rowing machine is probably where I get the most cardio because it's an all-encompassing cardio workout. As difficult as it is, I still manage to put in about 10-15 minutes on it before my body screams "ENOUGH!" Hopefully, I'll build better stamina as the weeks progress.
As far as eating goes, I'm eating 5 times a day much smaller portions. usually Cereal and fruit in the morning, snacks between meals have either consisted of vegetables like carrots and celery, or trail mix. I've stayed away from fast food.... well not entirely, I have picked up a few Garden Salads at BK... but that's much better than a Whopper! ;)
Weighed myself today and I'm down to 227, last week's weigh-in was 233. 6 pounds! I didn't expect to see that much of a difference, but it shows me that being sedentary for so long has affected me more than I had ever imagined. So here's to another great week and hoping to see some more of the "poundage" disappear for good! ^_^
SPOILERS!! - Don't read the below unless you've seen the movie or unless you're fine with finding out what it's all about ahead of time.
Clash of the Titans: The Remake released today to millions of fans of the original movie adaptation of Greek Mythology's 'Perseus and The Gorgon' from 1981 starring Harry Hamlin as Perseus. If you saw the trailers and teasers and thought, "Damn I need to see this!!" you'll get everything you expected and then some. It's amazing to see the difference in filmmaking when you drop 30 years in between the remake of a title, especially one that was enjoyed as much as the original was.
In some cases, there were classic elements of the original movie dropped into the new film's story. Most of the characters return along with Calibos, the twisted, horned, devil-like creature that plagues Perseus' quest throughout. It's the twists on the storyline and how these characters interact and move the story forward that really caught my attention though.. especially if you consider the events that happened in the actual myth of Perseus and the Gorgon.
Medusa - 1981 Original
The new movie introduces Hades for the first time as the evil centerpiece and mastermind of the people's hate towards the Gods; masterfully played by Ralph Fiennes. Rather than write a novel here about the complete change in plot, I'll just pick out some of the finer twists and hopefully not bore you to tears with complex details.
Calibos, for example, is not a character that really exists in Greek Mythology whatsoever. In the original movie, Calibos was the son of Thetis, originally a handsome man and betrothed to Andromeda, he's punished by Zeus for killing the sacred herd and turned into a monster as punishment. In the new movie, Acrisius the King of Argos is transformed into Calibos when he curses Zeus for sleeping with his wife, impregnating her with Perseus... strange twist but it worked. Even stranger was that they made Acrisius' daughter Danaë his wife and actually has her perish in the coffin that he condemns to the ocean rather than live to help raise Perseus. So in this case, Calibos hates Perseus because he's the bastard son of his ex-wife and Zeus, not because he shacked up with his ex-fiancee.
Medusa - 2010 Remake
The purpose of the entire adventure has changed as well. The first movie followed close to the original story of Perseus seeking a way to defeat the Kraken in order to save his love, Andromeda, from being sacrificed to it. In the new movie, even though Andromeda is set to be sacrificed, Perseus' interest is not in saving her, but rather killing the Kraken so as to weaken Hades and send him back to the underworld. Instead of choosing Andromeda as his queen after killing the Kraken, Perseus accepts the resurrected Io as his wife and they set off to be "human".
There were a lot more twists and turns that were interesting, but all-in-all it's a great movie in its own right and is definitely worth seeing (even if Sam Worthington is hard to buy as Perseus). There is even a cameo of Bubo, the annoying robot owl from the first movie. My favorite character in the movie is the Djinn, a wielder of dark magic that controls the massive sand scorpions. I'm planning to see this again in 3D IMAX when I get the chance. Let me know what you all think of the movie! ^_^
