I had someone express concern the other day that I perhaps wasn't doing this in a healthy way or that I was in some way starving myself. Nothing can be further from the truth. I've only been averaging about 2 lbs per week, which isn't out of control crazy. According to a nifty calorie calculator that I've used in the past, I would have to eat 2,800 calories a day with almost no activity to maintain a weight of 261 lbs. Generally speaking, an average of 500 calories a day cut equals a 1 pound weight loss. I've been trying to keep my daily caloric intake in between 1,500-2,000 calories, depending on what I'm doing. I've also increased my physical activity from absolute zero to at least trying to play basketball for an hour two times a week. This weekend I did anything but starve myself. I just actually took the time to make the right decision instead of going into fat person auto-pilot. Healthy food preparation doesn't take any longer than unhealthy food preparation. You just have to make that decision to grab the veggies out of the fridge instead of the frozen pizza out of the freezer. Hell, I even went to the movies and took the time to quick look at the back of all of the candy because I can't go to a movie without a treat. I ended up settling on Twizzlers and a Coke Zero.
Speaking of movies, I am a movie theater snob, and the only time I'll ever really enjoy myself is when I'm the only person in the theater. I've known this for awhile, but this weekend just hammered it home. I used to be really self-conscious about being a lone ranger in a theater, assuming that having someone next to you to share in the experience somehow enhanced it. After years of travelling by myself on the road, I realized just how wrong I was and how great it could be to have it all for me. I decided to go to Thor because I've yet to meet a super hero movie that I didn't like. Even the really bad ones get me excited. Marvel has a nifty trick of throwing extra scenes after the credits that tease The Avengers movie that comes out next summer and ties all the movies together. I decided that instead of waiting through ten minutes of credits, I would get there early enough to watch the clip at the tail end of the show before mine. I was willing to sacrifice the half hour between shows to save me ten minutes at the end of mine. I absolutely hate getting to movies late because I'm kind of particular about where I sit. I'm an upper-middle, middle kind of guy. I like to go about 64% up towards the top, and I absolutely need to sit in the middle of the row. I don't pee, I don't get up for snacks, so the middle is never a problem. Anyway, the crowd from the previous show cleared out, and I took my place in the best seat in the house. This was a little after 6, and my show started at 6:30. 6:15 comes, and I'm the only person in the theater. Score! I was pretty sure this was going to be the greatest night of my life, but as I was high-fiving myself an obese older couple came into the theater. Mind you, the ENTIRE THEATER WAS EMPTY except for me. These folks could have sat absolutely anywhere. Even if they liked my seat, they could have sat just to the right or left of me in front or behind me and I wouldn't have had a problem. Nope, no such luck. They headed up the stairs and sat directly in front of me, with the gentleman's reclining seat coming directly back into crossed legs. I was a little upset, but whatever. I brought up their obesity not because I have a thing against fat people. No, I brought it up because of course they took advantage of the all you can eat popcorn and all you can drink pop that comes with the large sizes. Throughout the duration of the movie, they refilled four freaking times! And there's no quiet way to eat and share popcorn, so I had to suffer through chewing, bag cracklings, and then the guy standing up over and over and over throughout the movie. Breathe deep, Jeff, breathe deep. This alone was enough to perturb me, but of course they weren't the only ones that ruined my night. At 6:20, a little boy's birthday party decided to join the festivities. I already don't think anyone under the age of 19 should be allowed into any movie ever, so I could feel myself tensing up. They came in and the dad surveyed the enormous open theater that currently had two popcorn balls sitting in front of a clearly agitated 29-year old. Let's see...300 empty seats...ummm...oh, I know! C'mon, gang, let's fill the entire row directly behind the sociopath! These wonderful little darlings spent the entire movie running up and down the row to talk to each other, running up and down the stairs to pee and get more sugar, and bumping into my seat every chance they got. Serenity now!
Okay, the credits were starting, I could do this. I love the previews, sometimes as much as the movies. In a world filled with shorter and shorter attention spans, I fully expect that in my lifetime there will be a full-length feature of just 3-minute clips from different superhero stories. I'll be in heaven. I was trying to get my head in the zone to ignore the munching in front of me and the playground behind me when I saw an older lady walk into the theater. I knew exactly where she was headed before she even started up the stairs. She came directly to my row and walked all the way down it towards me. She left exactly one seat between us. I couldn't wait for her to turn to me every five minutes to ask me what was going on, who the guy on the screen with that hammer thingy was, and whether or not I wanted a hard candy out of her purse. Luckily for me, she wouldn't have to rely on my knowledge of all things superhero because three more people came into the theater just as the commercials for Coke were ending and the previews were beginning. Clearly my row was now a little lopsided with the little old lady sitting next to me, so they decided to balance it out by coming and sitting exactly one seat away from me on my right. Folks, if I'm lying, I'm dying. They were younger, two girls and a guy. The gentleman took it upon himself to be Wikipedia for the entire crowd and narrate every single preview. "See that? Those are the first X-Men, and that one guy is supposed to be Cyclops's brother!" I was now trapped on every side in a weird cage consisting of four worst-possible-movie-goer-stereotypes. We were only short the black couple that kept yelling at Thor to not go into the dark room from having the worst possible movie experience possible.
I ended up really enjoying Thor. Let me recap the plot for you. There's this guy named Thor who is from another world where he is a prince. He messes up and gets banished to Earth where a fat guy stands up and goes to get more popcorn every thirty minutes. He eventually meets Natalie Portman who helps him run up and down the stairs and plays tag with him in the front of the theater because the dad has evidently forgotten that we live in a civilized society where that type of behavior is really unacceptable in a public place where people shelled out $10 for a ticket and $10 for flipping licorice and a Coke. Eventually his brother, Loki, stands up to yell at her elderly friend Mildred (I assume that was her name) who was about 15 minutes late getting to the movie and couldn't find her friend in a theater with 15 people in it, even though we were all sitting directly next to each other. After Mildred added to the body count in our row, Loki recapped the first 15 minutes of the storyline and discussed whether or not it had started raining yet. It was definitely a big summer blockbuster that featured a lot of cool special effects, like when the girl sitting next to me checked her cell phone every two minutes which added a much needed obnoxious light into my sight line. Finally, everything worked out in the end after an epic battle, which I never would have figured out on my own had the dude sitting next to cell phone girl hadn't verbalized the name of every single minor character, weapon, and planet in the movie, and how true or untrue it was to the original source material in the comics, including every single series of reboots throughout the last 40 years. As I got up to leave the theater when the credits started to roll, the know-it-all next to me took it upon himself to loudly inform his two female friends, "Wow, these guys must not know much about superhero movies! Everyone knows there's a secret clip at the end of the credits."
When I walked out of the theater, it was of course pouring rain. I came to the movies for Thor, but I felt like I was leaving with The Incredible Hulk. I considered sneaking into another theater in hopes of having a better movie experience, but I decided I'd better just call it a night. After standing out under the canopy for a couple of minutes and determining there was absolutely no way the rain was going to lighten up or that I could avoid getting wet, I made a mad dash for my car. It was raining hard enough that had I been a turkey, I would have drowned. About half-way there it started to hail. I was 99% sure that the kook who predicted The Rapture was on to something. Still, I kept my composure and avoided the temptation to hit McDonald's on the way home to ease my nerves. And I survived. Each day is a battle, but I'm going on a two week streak of survival and success. Here's to hoping that this movie has a happy ending.
By Odin's beard,
Jeffrey
No comments:
Post a Comment