No loss?

As I've said, I don't think I'm losing much weight on the No S Diet so far. In fact, I don't feel like I've lost an ounce. I realized last night as I was eating a greasy cheeseburger and onion rings at IHOP that although I've been sticking to negative changes -- no snacks, no sweets, no seconds -- I've made few positive changes, like actually eating healthier foods. I have changed my cereal to one without sugar, and I'm eating fruit at lunch to replace my afternoon snack, which was usually chips or something. But that's all I've really been doing.

It's hard to imagine that anyone could lose weight this way, but I guess the weight loss would be slow. After all, according to the 14 words that describe the diet, you only have to eliminate snacks, sweets, and seconds. I'm sure it's recommended that you make positive changes, but it's by no means official. I've been browsing the No S Diet bulletin boards and reading about people who are glad that they've lost weight while still being able to eat a lot of the stuff they want. Also, I guess that I'd rather lose weight slowly eating big cheeseburgers than losing it all in a week by eating... oatmeal... or... collard greens. But still, it's frustrating.

I only started exercising (with the shovelglove) a week ago, so my total weight lost for the month can't be that much. This past week I've been getting into the shovelgloving gently: 4 to 5 minutes a day. But I really have to get into it now. Tomorrow I'm going to go for the full 14 minutes. Also, I might need to get a heavier sledgehammer. I hope I can exchange mine. But I'll try it for another week to see if that's necessary.

I thought I'd be lucky this month to lose 4 lbs., but that's probably an unrealistic expectation. On the other hand, since I've been eschewing snacks, sweets, and seconds on most days, I must be losing some weight, no matter how little. And since I've been doing a few minutes of sledgehammer workouts that I wouldn't have otherwise done, I must be losing a little weight there. Hopefully it'll be enough for the scale to notice. To get my pre-diet weight, I weighed myself on October 31, November 1, and November 2 and averaged those numbers (your weight fluctuates a bit, and scales aren't very accurate). I plan to do the same thing to find my November weight. So come December 2, I'll know how much this is working.

Last night I finally saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Even though it was long (over two and a half hours), it was still very good -- better than the last one, in my opinion. It's true that they had to cut a lot of subplots, but I think it improved the movie.

I didn't watch much of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, but I did happen to see that instead of showing the M&M's balloon, they cut to footage of it from last year. I thought that that was kind of strange, but I didn't think too much of it. Now, you've probably heard about this, but it turns out that the balloon crashed into a lamppost, injuring two people. NBC, which aired the parade, was the only network not to report the accident while it unfolded -- the parade's tightly scripted, y'know.

Someone was trying to sell the Hollywood Sign on eBay. Starting bid: $300,000. No one bid before the auction was ended. Apparently they were the letters of the original sign, not the sign that has been there since 1978 or the land upon which it sits.