Thursday 7 June 2012

Target heart rate and caramel cake

Finally got word back from the doctor that sent me for the chest/sinus x-rays last week and the reason I've been sick all month and hacking up a lung constantly is because I have sinusitis.  'Twas what I expected honestly, since my husband has the same symptoms as I do and was diagnosed with it in the office, I'm the unlucky asthmatic one that had to be sent for the x-rays to rule out a pneumonia.  Started antibiotics tonight, and should be feeling somewhat human by mid week next week.  At least I can swim.

In my exercise science class, we've been going over how to create a good workout plan and how to calculate your target heart rate.  Fun stuff, but important because I want to make sure I don't over train.  I know that they estimate fitness level partly based on the resting heart rate, so I used the heart rate reserve formula to calculate, because it gives a more accurate picture of the heart rate I'd want.  Figured I'd take advantage of being at the pharmacy to use their pressure cuff to get my resting heart rate and blood pressure.  Well, apparently even though I've got another 30 pounds to lose my body is in great shape, my resting heart rate (and even then not completely resting because I wasn't sitting 10 minutes before taking it, so this is a touch higher) is 65 bpm and my blood pressure is 107/68..  hmmm..  yay for good hearts?  It's going to be crazy when I actually lose the weight and build up my fitness level, there is lots of good potential there.

So I'm training and trying to maintain a 25-27 bpm 10 second count at the peak of workout.  Great, because all of last week after my swims I was doing my 10 second count to verify for when I finally figured out the calculation and I was training at a 27 bpm 10 second count, which is 85% of my max heart rate, meaning the top of my training zone.  Awesome.

I took my bike into the shop to get tuned up so I can start my cycling training and toss it into the mix.  The bike cost me 50$, the tune up will be 70$.  Kind of funny, but still cheaper than buying a new bike for sure.

So far my swim training is going very well, I do 1000m on a regular basis during the training session, and I am slowly increasing the intensity of those swims to improve my times..  On Wednesday, my workout looked like this:

100m breaststroke warm up
Arm and shoulder stretch
100m crawl, 100m breaststroke (X3)
150m crawl
150m cooldown breastroke easy pace

I was pleased, the workout set (the 750m distance) took me just under 20 minutes (19:49) which isn't bad considering almost half of it is breaststroke.  I'd almost argue I'm more fit now than when I was a lifeguard, but wait till 20 pounds more go away before I get that bold.

Right now I'm burning a lot of calories working out, because I'm doing Zumba, Karate (started back last night) running, swimming and soon cycling.  I'm making sure to listen to my body though, because today it said "hell no" and I'm okay with that, I have a good swim tomorrow morning.  My major weight loss issue right now is the food.  I need to develop a nutrition plan that takes everything into consideration with my goals and health issues in mind   I have to cut out snacks, I'm being so bad Tuesday/Thursday when I go into class I always end up stopping at timmies for timbits or something equally horrible, and I need to stop doing that, because they taste good but make me feel like crap, give me indigestion and give me horrible sugar crashes.  I'm going to make an effort to have fewer refined grains, more whole grain breads and switch out sugary jam for peanut butter for extra protein.  I'm not into all those fancy supplements, I prefer to simply eat healthier.

On the unhealthy note, my husband wanted me to make a small cake for one of his supervisors for his birthday.  Nothing fancy he said, so I didn't bother with fancy decorating, I didn't even use a real piping bag when I wrote happy birthday on it, just a Ziploc bag with the corner cutoff, but I did get to try out another flavour.  Caramel.  I made my delicious chocolate cake recipe just like normal and when I made my butter cream I omitted the vanilla and added about 2 drops of caramel flavour to the icing.  Now I really like these flavourings because the company I get them from has very clear allergy statements and dare I say it, most of them are 100% artificial, so I don't have to worry about allergens.  They sent me the whole chart so I checked the ones I want and will be trying them all out eventually.  Back to cake, put a bit of brown colouring in the icing to make it look more like caramel then iced the cake.  I saved about 1/4 cup if icing for the writing and mixed in a bit more brown then decided instead I would put cocoa powder in that to make it a truer chocolate brown.  That icing was GOOD!  I didn't take photos, mostly because it was a pretty simple cake, but I determined my next quest thanks to this adaptation..

***Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate caramel filling and a tiny swirl of regular caramel icing on top ***

Featured next time on my blog: Tofu cheesecake adventure!

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