We went to see the Downton Abbey really the last we promise movie on Thursday.  $26 including Dana's Dr Pepper for the two of us.  As a series the DA was not bad.  It had a decent pace and obviously excellent actors.  But the movies are all smaltz and cashing in.

The theater was as nice as one could be.  As they are now days.  People fairly respectful although the woman on Dana's left thought she was in her living room and had way too many comments to her husband.  I refrained.  Barely. 

For some reason they have to have the previews, which were shilling just incredibly bad children's movies, cranked up to rock concert level and I didn't have hearing protection. 

But the whole thing was a major ok and tolerable mostly because I know it won't happen again.  DA is definitely a movie that is better seen, as was the series, in my living room.

And, of course, no subtitles. 

I've gotten so addicted to subtitles that I have a hard time following movies without them.  I don't think that is a good thing but don't much care since I really don't much want to go to movies anyway.

Fortunate the Russell Crowe movie about Nuremberg is getting panned in Rotten Tomatoes so I can wait to see it on my TV.

That's about it for as long as I can see.

Far as I can figure out, semaglutide mimics the hormone that tells you you're full.  That's about it.  The mechanism is a slowing down of digestion.  

As I eat a home made blueberry muffin which is, btw, actually blue as I let the frozen berries thaw a bit.  But the muffins are amazing and it is kind of like having a bowl of cereal for breakfast.

I started out mid August at 214 pounds or 15.3 stone.  I'm now 206.4, a few pebbles smaller.  Not a huge amount of change but a perfect slope if it continues.

This was accomplished by eating less than I burn.  That's the entire plan.  Calorie deficit.  And all the protein I can find.  

I can actually feel that the semaglutide is effective.  I get hungry but not overly so.  I eat and I can tell it is digesting really slowly.  I'm at the lowest dose you can get and today was the day I was supposed to increase it.  But I asked and was told to manage it as I saw fit so I did not change the dose for week number five.  If by next week I either am finding it increasingly difficult to maintain my deficit or I've not lost any more I'll look at increasing the dose.  I'd rather not.  I'd be thrilled to just track what I'm eating (on the excellent Cronometer app) and not increase the dose.  

The long range plan is to hit my goal or a bit below it and then wean myself off the semaglutide.  Or, if I never increase the dose, just stop using it all together.

Last week I was having tea and digestives having read and listened to British mysteries continuously for months and I realized that I'd had enough and was eating when I was no longer hungry.  That has happened to me several times recently.  

The great experiment will be once I stop shooting up what happens.  Will my body remember that I don't really need as much?  The current studies say not.  Current studies say I'll regain the weight.  But that is them and this is me and the arc of tracking this drug is pretty short.

So, we'll see.  In the fairly near future.  I'm only needing to lose another 15 pounds or so to be where I want to be.  So a pound a week.  End of the year?

I got up early today to play pickleball in a different place. Many of the same people but the tennis center is running a tournament so no PB there. We met at a really nice municipal athletic field where they have half a dozen courts. No reservations. They do something called paddle stacking. If you want to play you have to put your paddle on the designated bench in stacks from right to left. Four paddles is a match and when a court is available you play with whoever has the other three paddles. No one is supposed to keep their group, it is random selection.

The whole thing is a massive social experiment in action. There are contracts, agreements, push and pull and mostly being nice and playing by the sandbox rules. It is fascinating to watch. A couple of weeks ago there was a girl there, maybe mid 20s, reading on her Kindle on a comfy sheath she brought and when the court became available she joined the other random people who she'd never met and played a match, came back, put down her paddle in the next slot of stacking and went back to her book.

I played tennis for maybe 40 years and it was nothing like pickleball. Not just the game but the social contract that comes with it. I've learned to really work on my attitude so I'm a convivial person to play with. It means shutting my mouth a LOT when I'd normally make a comment trying to be funny. And not sweating at all when my opponent calls a ball out that was clearly, to my eyes, in. It is good for me. Difficult, but good.

I miss my son, Matt, who I'd absolutely love to have with me playing PB. He and I used to play tennis as doubles partners. We pretty much sucked but it was wonderful. This would even be better.

After PB I went out to the small spread of my friends who are in Louisanna alligator hunting. This is what their yard looks like:



They have a dozen chickens roaming the yard somewhere. I feed them, feed the cats, clean up the litter box, make sure everyone has water, and today I also fed the deer. So they came around and posed for the picture.

It was fairly cool in the yard and fairly quiet and the day just seemed to be nearly perfect in that moment. Didn't need or want much of anything more.

Yesterday I ran across a guy, Huberman, a Stanford science geek who has been around making waves in the better living through science realm for a while. I don't much like him. He's a bit too much bro for me BUT I'm happy to suck the good stuff from his podcast.

He went through the concept of timed eating, AKA fasting. I pretty much do that already. We used to call it skipping breakfast. If you go to bed early and don't eat for the couple of hours before bed and then wait an hour or two before eating in the morning then you are fasting. Easy to do 16 hours off and then an 8 hour window of eating.

Huberman has the science to demonstrate what happens, all good things for most people, when you live that way. So I adjusted my morning and didn't eat anything before PB. I thought not having anything would really screw me up but it did not matter at all. And I drank a protein drink and ate a bar on my way driving back, breakfast at 10AM after a couple of hours of exercise. It was actually pretty enjoyable.

We'll see how that works. It would be easy for me to not eat after 7PM. Tea and water only. And black coffee in the morning and more water before eating. And exercise.

We'll see how it goes.

This morning I went to Texas Humane Heroes, the humane shelter, and met up with their communications guy. We took a dog into Austin to be on a local TV segment.



I was along to help with the dog if the comm guy needed to be elsewhere for something. Didn't happen so it was just a ride down, shoot the live segment, and a ride back. I was only insurance if he needed another pair of hands.

Not much but I was able to help and it was not difficult.  The comm guy was more than a little self absorbed but nice enough.  The dog slept during the ride and was generally wonderful the rest of the time.  The TV people were really nice, nicer than they had to be.

So it was something different and interesting.

Other than that I've nothing today.  My fourth week on Semaglutide, fourth injection.  So far it is interesting.  I've lost maybe five pounds and it has leveled off but I'm tracking my food, staying under my calorie numbers, and not feeling too hungry so there will be more loss.  I'm supposed to increase the amount of the drug nearly doubling it starting next week.  But I traded messages with the doc involved and am question the advantage of more.  If it only makes me less hungry I'm not sure I see the advantage.  My satiation and hunger level is about right.  If it somehow magically increases my weight loss while still eating the same then OK.

We're still figuring this out.  I'd really like to lose the weight over a six month period and wean myself off of the drug. 

Tomorrow I start taking care of my friend's chickens again for four days.  They are going alligator hunting.  In Louisianna.  For real.  Actually the wife is taking the husband.  They come from low income families but I think when she was young they hunted alligator so they could have something to eat.  That kind of poor.  So she's taking him.  I told them to stay in the boat.

I'm watching after a dozen chickens and two cats.