For the first time in at least a year, possibly four, I’m tipping the scales at less than 180 pounds. I’ve been as high as 190 as recently as December. For most of the last year I’ve been unsuccessfully experimenting with diet and exercise regimes, but most of them have only resulted in a maintenance diet rather than any sort of fat loss. Since January, however, I’ve gone back to my old stand-by and eschewed carbohydrates. I’m feeling great, and I’m down ten pounds from my all-time high.

My diet includes:
low-carb pizzas, homemade with Mission “carb balance” tortillas (baked dry and crispy on a griddle) and good cheeses
Fresh, crisp Fuji apples (one a day, maybe two if I’m munchy)
Uncooked instant oatmeal packets with some milk (treat food, once every couple of days maybe)
Good cheese. Blue, Havarti, sharp Cheddar, spiced Jack, Brie… all used for small snacks.
Lettuce-wrapped burgers at Carl’s Jr (maybe two per week)
Fresh broccoli with some blue cheese dressing
Assorted “oh, I might as well have what you’re having” meals in moderation, one every couple of days, max.
12oz cans of Muscle Milk, but only right after a trip to the gym.
Assorted sugar-free beverages, some carbonated, some not. Some caffeinated, some not.

I’ve also been doing the olive oil trick from Freakonomics. Sometimes I’ll skip a meal, and I’ll just have a sip of extra virgin olive oil instead. It comes out to about 100 calories, and it shuts down my appetite for a few hours. As long as I take it easy with the next meal this trick allows me to almost effortlessly shave as much as 1000 calories off of my day. As an added benefit that’s one more meal I don’t have to spend time preparing, so I get more work done.

I’m thrilled to be looking at the one-seventies on the scale. My goal is to get myself at LEAST down to 165, with my stretch goal being 155. I still have a long way to go, but this diet feels maintainable.

While “Watchmen” was a powerful movie, it was most certainly not as significant to its medium (film) as the “Watchmen” comic was to its own.

But I’ll argue that there’s just no way for a groundbreaking book to be made into a groundbreaking movie. Take The Lord of The Rings, for example. The films are powerful adaptations of one of the most important works of 20th century literature, but they themselves are not among the most important works of film. (Well… they were groundbreaking, in that nothing that large had been attempted before, but I digress…)

But that doesn’t mean I was at all disappointed by “Watchmen” on the big screen. It was amazing. (But it probably will not be my #1 movie of the year.)

I was wrong. I didn’t think the “Watchmen” movie could do the book justice.

It did the book justice. It may have even improved on it in spite of (or perhaps thanks to) certain missing elements.
potential spoilers

I’ve been aggressively low-carbing and appetite-suppressing since mid-January, and it has been working. I’m down about four or five notches on my belt, about 1% or 2% body-fat, and my weight is down 8 pounds from my high of 190, and my average weight (the “center point” around which it seems to fluctuate during the week) is down 5 pounds from 188.

Oh, and the cholesterol test I took on Wednesday came back at 160.

I’m feeling great.

Last night I ate out at Bangkok Grill in Orem (800 S State, on the east side of State and the south side of 800 — you REALLY need to eat there if you haven’t) with a bunch of local pros and friends. My stomach seems to be smaller than it used to be. I overate, yes (it’s still quite hard not to) but I hit the “I have overeaten” feeling far, far sooner than usual.

My goal: By the time any of you non-Utah folk actually see me again (WorldCon in August, Self-Syndication Seminar in September) I want to weigh in at a trim-no-wait-that’s-actually-svelte 160.