Fitness Freak
I was talking to an old college friend online and one of the first things she said was 'It's great you've become a fitness freak.' I think that's when it struck me that maybe I have actually become a fitness freak. :-)
Fitness stats update:
Resting heart rate - 69bpm {would probably've been 65 or 66 had I not been ill-advised by a couple of new gym instructors to warm up for my fitness test, before the guy taking my fitness test came down} - Down from 72bpm.
Weight - 63.8 KG - Down 1.2KG
Bodyfat %age - 12% - Down 3%
Vo2 Max levels - 51.3 - Up 3.3
Blood Pressure - Normal range
The guy doing my fitness tests was very impressed by my jump in VO2 levels - which he thought was impressive since it came within a 1 month time frame. All in all huge improvements all round. I guess cutting down on my gym sessions while increasing the intensity of the workouts while I am there has helped. Target is to keep focussing on bringing the bodyfat%age down to 11% and try and up the VO2 Max levels to 53 before the April end trip.
FF signing off for now.
Labels: Fitness
Holiday Work
The year seems to flying past faster than I give it credit for. The business presentation went really well and I am pretty happy with how it shaped out in the end. The next major thing I can remember after that is the shoot for Tessa. Tessa wanted to make a video for her Phd presentation and that involved me sitting behind a red screen and then do a narration afterwards. Angelique and Xien helped out with that and it was good fun. Here is an image from that shoot (courtesy: Angelique)
Silhouette mine
One of the fun processes for making a shoot happen on 'Moments' is the borrowing of cameras and radio mics and I've been lucky that I've had supportive friends. I had to go and pick up one of the cameras from Simon but ended up having a few drinks at Dan's party, which is where Simon had lodged himself and it turned out to be just what I needed to relax a little so I could plan the shoot for 'Moments' between Tarun, Lorraine & Matt on sunday.
Mike Lowe & me having a chat while Simon poses
Enjoying the afternoon sun and a conversation
The sunday shoot turned out to be lots of fun even though it was an improvisational scene. Tarun was funny as hell and there were a few points where I couldn't control my laughter even though I was behind the camera. Alan George - a guy I met on the shoot of 'Rhodes 2' did the second camera and I am yet to digitize the footage but know from the shoot that we have enough material for me to edit a nice scene together.
Straight after the shoot was a drive to Lance's parents place for a christmas dinner with them and Tania & Andrew and Lance & Tai & her mom. It was an amazing evening with lots of great food and great conversations and laughs. Here are some pics from the evening.
Gorgeous Sunday afternoon
Tania, Andrew & Lance
Tai's mum, Tai & Tina
Chris looking through binoculars
Through the looking glass
Chris cooking some sausages
After the feast
Clouds rising
Andrew, Tania, Tina & Chris while sharing puzzles and stories
Tai's mum, Tai & Lance
Tai & me - she is not that tall - she is standing on a couch. :-)
Watched 3 movies recently - 'Avatar'; 'Observe & Report' & 'The Wackness' - Avatar was an amazing 3-D experience but the story was pretty average and predictable. It's a good watch in 3-D is all I can say. 'Observe & Report' was pure genius and so was Ben Kingsley in 'The Wackness'. Next up is 'Sherlock Holmes' when it releases later this week.
I finally did a fitness test after 2 weeks of recovery from my left shoulder injury and it was a mixed one but tending towards positive for most of the part. My weight is 65 KG's but my body fat %age has gone down to 15% {from 16.5%} which means I have gained more muscle mass. The downside of the test was my VO2 max levels - which have gone down to 48 {from 49.8} and I guess I need to jump straight back into getting my cardio levels up again after this extended break.
That's me for now.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Fitness, Movies, Party, The Moments In Between
Fitness Tracking
Through last night I was running ideas in my head about the best possible way to do the edit on the scenes that we shot over the weekend and the first thing I did this morning was wake up, switch on the computer and attacked the edit with a gutso. I managed to finish doing rough cut on 3 scenes over a 3 hour period and decided to take a breather, so went and brushed my teeth and as I came out of the bathroom I got a scare as Lance was standing there. He seemed pretty excited and he immediately asked me if I had heard about the Tsunami warning for NZ. I said no and he asked me to check out the news - basically a tsunami hit Samoa and it was on it's way to NZ and the whole country was put on a civil defence alert.
I couldn't get back to edit and needless to say it was exciting and frightening at the same time because of the constant news updates about the status of Tsunami. And because of it I couldn't go back to edit and I was almost about to cancel my fitness test but then I decided against it and did go in for the test. The results were surprising {because I had reduced the intensity of my workouts by half over the past 2.5 weeks because of workload} and encouraging.
My weight is 63.7 KG {downward movement of almost 3.5KG}; Body Fat %age is 16.5 {down 1.5% & almost close to my target of getting it down to 15% by end of the year}; Blood pressure is normal; VO2 Max levels are at 49.8 [up 0.5] at Level 15 {while the last test was at Level 11}. So overall improvements in all areas and now just have to see how this 1.5 month break impacts on it. Plan is to see if I can find a gym near where I'll be, so that I can atleast maintain the fitness levels - if not improve them during that time frame.
The tsunami alert was cancelled at mid-day and big waves didnot hit NZ as it was feared but reports coming out of Samoa show that they are pretty badly hit because of it. Just shows natural disasters can strike anywhere, anytime.
Simon, Lauren and me had a fantastic workshop for our storline yesterday and it is going to be good - kind of ties everything together pretty nicely in terms of themes that we are exploring in the movie. Tomorrow I am acting in a short film - a small but fun part. And on Friday, I intend to finish off the rough cut on the remaining scene that needs to be edited before I am ready for the holiday.
That's me for now.
Amit
Labels: Fitness, New Zealand, The Moments In Between
Long Tuesday
Some drunk idiot accidentally texted me because he didn't enter all the numbers of the person he wanted to text and that broke my sleep and it took me a couple of hours to get back to sleep. Not particularly an ideal situation when I had a 5.30AM start at work, so I am feeling pretty tired right now.
The latest fitness update is mainly positive to neutral. Neutral is that there is no change in my blood pressure and resting heart rate and my weight has remained consistently within the +- .5KG range - either side of 67. The positives - my VO2 max has gone up slightly to 49.3 {i am not completely happy about the level of improvement but that's something I can work on} and my body fat% has gone down to 18% {a loss of 2% body fat content from last time while the weight still remains the same - means leaner muscle}.
That's me for now.
Amit
Labels: Fitness
VO2 Max
New round of fitness test is through and it is mixed results. My weight's gone down by 1 KG to 67.2 but my body fat %age has gone up by .5% - which is not too bad I guess. Resting heart rate is still at 65bpm. Blood pressure has improved to almost theoretical/text book levels - 124/72 . While my
VO2 Max has increased to 48.8 - which is a definite plus. What it all means is that my cardio fitness as well as overall fitness is definitely increasing but I need to keep increasing the intensity of training in order to keep on track with my goal.
I saw this fascinating documentary called '
Unknown White Male' and it is a riveting watch. Check it out if you get a chance.
Amit
Labels: Fitness, Movies
Fitness Update
Well - I keep getting teased by Lance that I've become obsessed with my fitness, so thought I would cover that in this post. The truth is that I might be slightly obsessed now - the fact is that I want to be healthy and fit 20-30 years from now. A fit body is the key to a fit mind in a lot of ways. It's been roughly 6 weeks since I've started going to the gym regularly and there have been small improvements through out. I took a fitness test today and my resting heart rate has come down to 65bpm {from 71 bpm}; my weight has gone up from 66.9 KG to 68.2 KG but my fat content has gone from 20.8% to 19.5% which means that the extra weight I've gained is muscle; my cardio levels have improved and lie half way between average and good with a scale rating of 47.5 [a significant improvement over the last time];and finally my blood pressure is within normal range. So there have been small improvements all around because of the regular exercise. No time to bask in the glory of these improvements because my aim for the year is to get my resting heart rate down to low60- mid50 range and try and decrease the fat content to maybe 15-17% of body weight.
Things are picking up momentum with the 'freedom' project and we will be shooting the first scene later this week with Liz and Drew. Lance and Benji will be shooting the scenes and we had our technical meeting last night. Add to it I've just kick started the process of developing the scenario with Claire for the scene that we will be putting on for the project.
The script development process for the scripts I want to take to India are going at their own pace and Angelique has taken my suggestions on board for the script she is writing while Simon is coming up with some nice stuff to enhance 'Rejected'.
I've finished reading 'The Forever War' by Dexter Filkins and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is such a hard read because of the emotional punch it packs through it's simple but profound observations that you feel for the author. By the same token it highlights human nature in it's stark nakedness.
We have new flatmates and they are a pretty chilled out couple who are into sports and stuff and do normal hours and don't have any crazy hidden agendas like doing band practises or anything like that. We had a BBQ to mark end of summer, mini flat warming for them and it turned out to be a chilled out event and got to catch up with old friends.
I am now eagerly waiting for the daylight savings to end because it sucks waking up in the morning {according to the clock} and still finding it pitch black outside. On a different note - tax cuts kick in from tomorrow, so will have a very small additional amount to spend/save.
Anyway as you can tell I am pretty fragmented right now and waiting to catch up on my sleep.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Books, Fitness, Freedom Project, Random
