I Love Halloween!

Every October, there is at least one cable TV channel that shows scary movies every night of the month. This year it seems to be the SciFi channel. I think we're watching the movie Rose Red, which is a Stephen King book (and seems to be a variation on The Haunting). I just watched a woman panic because something was crawling toward her under the area rug and then under the blankets up between her legs. But she failed to move or otherwise evade it. I don't know about you, but if there was something crawling under the blankets towards me I don't think I'd just lay there. I would not, however, be likely to look under the bed to see if anything "bad" was under there. That's just inviting to be dragged under by the monsters under the bed and gobbled right up. I do have to give the kid in the movie credit for pointing out that it's not a Boogey Man, but a Boogey Lady that's the problem they're dealing with, which got me thinking....

Have you ever wondered why the monsters are never female? The only female monster/scary movie lead character I can recall is Mothra. At least I think Mothra was female. From what I remember, she/it had kids. (That is not to say that male monsters can't have strong parental tendencies and go crazy defending their kids, but the general assumption is that somehow the mothering instinct is stronger than the fathering instinct. I wonder if that holds true for species which lay eggs, rather than gestating. Boy, let's get a little bit more random in our digressions, shall we?) I guess the Bride of Frankenstein was female too, but she was more of a sidekick kind of monster. Why didn't Dr. Frankenstein make a female monster first? Or was Ms. Shelley giving the good (bad?) doctor an even bigger God complex by having him reproduce the original creation myth? From a cursory examination of the plots I recall in my head, literature has lots of strong female lead characters, but no really big bad scary female leads (with the possible exception of the psycho woman in the book Misery). Does that seem to you like it's a gap that needs filling? Hmmm..... And NaNoWriMo is coming in November too.

Yay Me!
I'm still holding steady at 160 pounds of weight, but I'm about an inch of hip size away from wearing my size 12 Levi's. Just a few months ago, the size 16s were getting snug. I wonder if I can shrink myself enough to wear my 501s on my birthday. (The 501s fit much more trimly than my usual 550s.)

As I noted a day or two ago, the Y is having a fat buster "contest" over the next six weeks. I was wrong about it being based only on BMI. There was a fat percentage measurement, using bioelectrical impedance. It's not the most accurate way to measure body composition, but if the inaccuracy is consistent (as opposed to random), I ought to get a reasonable measure of any change in body fat, even if the starting and ending points aren't quite accurate. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Today, I'm at 33.8% body fat, which plops me into the obese range. I'm not really happy about that, but I can't say that it's really wrong either. Let's just say my muscles have plenty of insulation over them.

In any event, my goal is to get closer to 22-24% body fat. If we figure that I have 106 pounds of lean body mass, then at 24% body fat I'd have a total body weight of 140 pounds. Oddly enough, that was the goal weight I picked when I first started hitting the gym. Between 135 and 140 pounds is the weight I've always felt best at.

I've already got almost two months of regular gym time under my belt. Today's measurements have really helped boost my motivation level. I'm not trying to win the contest against everybody else. I just want to see a couple percentage point change in myself. If I can lose 1-2 pounds of fat each week for six week, that's 6-12 pounds and halfway to my overall goal! And if I can't quite get there, I'll still be closer than I am today.

But first, I need a snack. (I really need to work on actually eating dinner, instead of putting it off and just having a couple of snacks instead. I'd probably feel better if I actually had dinner and I really haven't got any excuse there.)

Comments

Popular Posts