100 Passions...and So Little Time

Thanks to Miranda at Little Loft, Large Life, my Wednesday nights are booked for the next year. She challenged herself to see every movie on AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions by this time next year. Now, I'm a sucker for year-long goals, so I am jumping on the bandwagon.

Here's the list. Plus signs afters those I have seen IN FULL.


AFI’s List of 100 Years, 100 Passions

. Casablanca +
. Gone with the Wind +
. West Side Story +
. Roman Holiday +
. An Affair to Remember
. The Way We Were
. Doctor Zhivago
. It’s A Wonderful Life
. Love Story
. City Lights
. Annie Hall +++++
. My Fair Lady +
. Out of Africa
. The African Queen
. Wuthering Heights
. Singing in the Rain +
. Moonstruck +
. Vertigo +
. Ghost +
. From Here to Eternity
. Pretty Woman +
. On Golden Pond
. Now Voyager
. King Kong (1933)
. When Harry Met Sally +
. The Lady Eve
. The Sound of Music
. The Shop Around the Corner
. An Officer and a Gentleman
. Swing Time
. The King and I
. Dark Victory
. Camille
. Beauty and the Beast +
. Gigi +
. Random Harvest
. Titanic +
. It Happened One Night
. An American in Paris
. Ninotchka
. Funny Girl
. Anna Karenina (1935)
. A Star is Born
. The Philadelphia Story +
. Sleepless in Seattle +
. To Catch a Thief + (may watch again just to see Grace Kelly's back in the evening gown)
. Splendor in the Grass
. Last Tango in Paris
. The Postman Always Rings Twice
. Shakespeare in Love +
. Bringing Up Baby
. The Graduate +
. A Place in the Sun
. Sabrina +
. Reds
. The English Patient +
. Two for the Road
. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
. Picnic
. To Have and Have Not
. Breakfast at Tiffany’s +
. The Apartment +
. Sunrise
. Marty +
. Bonnie and Clyde
. Manhattan +++++++++++++++++
. A Streetcar Named Desire
. What’s Up, Doc?
. Harold and Maude +
. Sense and Sensibility +
. Way Down East
. Roxanne +
. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir +
. Woman of the Year +
. The American President
. The Quiet Man
. The Awful Truth
. Coming Home
. Jezebel
. The Sheik/ Son of Sheik
. The Goodbye Girl +
. Witness
. Morocco
. Double Indemnity
. Love is a Many-Splendored Thing
. Notorious
. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
. The Princess Bride +
. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
. The Bridges of Madison County
. Working Girl +
. Porgy and Bess
. Dirty Dancing +
. Body Heat
. Lady and the Tramp +
. Barefoot in the Park (ugh, I am already dreading this one)
. Grease +
. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (I'm guessing not the Disney version....)
. Pillow Talk
. Jerry McGuire + (shame)

I am totally surprised by how many of these I've already seen. Like, the Ghost and Mrs Muir? When did I see that? And why? I mean, a salty sea captain ghost loves a widow in a sea cottage, so that is pretty great...yeah, okay. That one makes sense. But why have I seen Jerry McGuire (in the theater!) and not Funny Girl? I'm digging this challenge because I need to move beyond my comfort zone of the trifecta: Hitchcock, Hepburns, and Woody Allen. And not pysch myself out by focusing on the whys of what I haven't watched. So a rich, full year of Wednesday movie nights it is!

Slippage

We all know the term "slippage". The movement away from the actual; in this case, my weight is suffering from slippage. So is my dress size. So is the fabulous life that I imagine for myself. A few weeks after New Year's, I'm finally ready to start my resolutions.

THIS IS THE YEAR.

This is the year I wear all of my skinny pants.
This is the year I stop putting off buying new clothes because I might lose more weight and would therefore be able to buy a smaller size.
This is the year I put on makeup before leaving the house.
This is the year I wear this:



I figure I'll go back to Mireille. She was always right.

Now I'm going to go make yogurt.

Fresh Start

My resolution for today was to drink more water. I'd like to eat enough vegetables and go to the gym, but I am starting with the bar very low. I woke up and had a full glass of water before I even had my shower. Success! I don't know why water always tastes funny first thing in the morning, but it has never been appealing. However, Mireille says if you drink coffee before you've had your water then you've begun your day at a loss. And we wouldn't want that, would we?

I ate my museli and whole milk along with a peach, now I'm at work nursing my cup of coffee. I will finish it by 11 today! I will then drink a bottle of water before lunch (which I packed!) and will have another this afternoon. Then a glass before dinner, a cup of peppermint tea after, and some chamomile before bed. That's 8! And not chugged all at once, which Mireille says doesn't help your body at all.

I'm expecting two French cookbooks in the post-- French Country Cooking and French Food at Home. I'm very excited for both of these and look forward to incorporating some provincial dishes.

Lunch is tuna made with red wine vinegar, olive oil, and capers, marinated tomatoes (basil, balsamic, olive oil, Dijon) and yogurt with cinnamon.

I realize that listing all of my meals is terribly dull, but I am trying to be more aware of what I eat. Putting it into myplate makes me feel like a failure though, so listing it here seems like the best choice.

Soft-boiled egg
Trail mix with M&Ms
Brownie (2)
Tomato (2 small)
Piece of white fish
Green beans
Green tea
Peppermint tea
Chamomile tea
3 scallops
One more glass of water

I also took the dog for a leisurely walk.

All in all, I am pleased with myself and will try again tomorrow.

French Skinny

It's now August and I have totally abandoned the PD. Well, the Dukan version, anyway. If I had any readers I would make a point of how the Dukan diet DOES WORK. It works really well. It just doesn't work for me, because I like fat and carbs. And chocolate. I also had to give it up because I went away for a week and had no control over what I ate. That isn't a cop out, but fact. Breakfast was cooked by nuns, and lunch and dinner were provided by sponsors who think kids only love chicken fingers and pizza. So PD went out the window, but I have not lost my desire to feel better in clothes.

I'm still hoping to get to a comfortable size 4 and look lean, but I am trying the more traditional French route-- full fat, lots of vegetables, yogurt, and skipping meals when I've over-indulged. And movement. Namely the stairmaster and treadmill and some yoga. I will try to focus less on weight on more on sizes and measurements.

So as of 45 minutes ago:

Bust- 37 1/2 inches
Waist- 35 inches (ouch)
Hips- 38 inches
Thigh- 20 inches (what?!)

BR pant size- 8. I can squeeze into a 6, but I totally get a muffin top.
And my weight? 130 pounds.

I've eaten like a pig today, or at least it feels like it. As best I can remember, I've had 3 pieces of French bread with butter (two with jam), nabe yake udon, a peach, a soft-boiled egg, a brownie, 2 lattes... I think that's it?

Nowhere near enough vegetables. Or water. Or protein. Tomorrow will look better. Right?

Day 1

weight: 135

I wake up motivated. For breakfast: coffee with skim milk (the best diets allow coffee) and truvia. 2 hardboiled eggs. I pack my "lunch" of tuna with lemon juice and some fat-free cottage cheese and grab my liter of water. You know, to keep my kidneys from shutting down.

At work, I am dragging and bleary-eyed, but I am not sure if I can blame the diet. I pee 8 times. At 11 I decide I can't wait any longer and dig into my cottage cheese. It is sour and I worry that it may have turned so I put it away. I pee 2 more times. It's now 1 o'clock and I can barely focus on anything. All I want to do is nap and I dread the phone ringing. I eat the tuna. It is the best thing I've ever had.

I get home and eat another hardboiled egg. You are only supposed to have 2 in a day but I am starving and it is right there. I also drink a mug of "cleansing" tea in the hopes of staving off the possible constipation. I pee some more. For dinner, my boyfriend and I have grilled scallops and he gets to have cauliflower. I stare at him as it eats it. I'm so hungry that I can barely sit up and these scallops are amazing. I feel full.

This is the longest that I've ever gone without carbs or sugar and it's getting to me. I know we have some Little Debbie brownies in the pantry and I think about them incessantly. I have another mug of cleanse tea. It helps a little but not much. I think about princesses and how nice i will be to feel comfortable in a bathing suit. Then I think about the brownies some more. Finally I give up and go to bed.

The Princess Diet

On Friday, I (along with 2 billion other people) watched Kate Middleton marry Prince William. She looked radiant, happy, regal, and slim! And then Pippa! That ass!

That was Friday. On Saturday, I bought The Dukan Diet. On Monday, I started it.

And today is Tuesday, when it occurred to me that I should share my experience because maybe other people watched Pippa's bum sashay down the aisle and thought "Yeah, I want an ass like that."

I am 28 years old. I am gainfully employed and have a live-in boyfriend who is not following Dukan (from here on out, I'm just going to call it the Princess Diet, or PD). I am 5'5, 135 pounds, and I do not eat beef, poultry, or pork. Or lamb, or veal, or anything that isn't fish or shellfish. I am only interested in losing 10-15 pounds and ridding myself of the ever-accumulating cellulite in my thighs. Because Dr. Dukan says maybe that can happen.


Your True Weight is 121.5 lbs. It is a little bit higher than the desired weight you indicated. But it's your true weight, a weight that you can attain and maintain. Let’s start here.

If you start your diet today you will weigh 121.47 lbs on the 06/13/2011


You will have to follow 3 phases of Dukan Diet method, and in 91 days you will reach and permanently stabilize your new weight.


That's what his website told me, along with a snazzy ski slope-looking graph that I don't know how to copy.

So that's that. Let's get this journey started, eh?