This was one taken today by SusanB’s husband.  Tomato is on the left, I’m in the middle, SusanB on the right.

I’m calling today a cardio day because I did lots of walking. Geek that I am, I wore the HRM for the day. The first time included lots of general walking around, running out of the rain, and a quick coffee/water break. The second number was a straight walk, although part with my mother, so I had to slow down a bit. The third one (the shortest) was when I was on my own for 20 mins. Since I usually do 60 mins that comes somewhere in the 400 cal range I figure I got it in there between the three times. 

From the HR monitor:

I originally planned food for a rest day, but decided I’d done enough exercise to make it a cardio day. I thought of adding a lemon tart to my lunch, but it just didn’t look worth the 220 cals. However, even with snacks on the way home I was hungry before dinner (so grabbed a fruit & nut bar). I definitely should have started out with a bigger breakfast. Oh well, lesson learned.

Food for the day:

Total: 2406 (32% fat, 33% carbs, 33% protein)

Breakfast: two fried eggs, clementines (252)
AM Snack: protein shake, almonds (299)
Lunch: beef provolone panini (450)
PM Snack: fruit & nut bar, soy nuts, nectarine (384)
Dinner: baked chicken breast with tomato/wine sauce & cheese, broccoli, butter, calico coleslaw (541)
Late Snack: berry yogurt sorbet, protein shake, flat bread with cheese spread (480)

I mentioned this the other day and promised I would get around to posting the recipe. I looked back at the original recipe (called Captain’s Curry) and it’s based on curries made in the American south (Charleston is mentioned). I only mention that because it doesn’t have cumin in it, something I tend to associate with curries. The original recipe had 1 cup of coconut milk added in at the end. It’s something I wouldn’t add, and I see it’s quite high in calories as well, but thought I’d mention it. I really just added the tomatoes and changed a bit of the spicing. Oh, and it was a crockpot recipe as well.

A Recipe for Weight Loss: Curry Sauce (with tomato) (recipe here)

Everything today ended up later than planned. The mixed greens lately from Costco have been pretty poor. We tried another box from a different store - same thing. If I remember correctly we had the same problem last summer for a while. We got a couple of bad boxes in a row and switched to cabbage salad. So this morning I made cabbage salad (calico coleslaw) which isn’t too bad, but slightly higher cals, but maybe a little more substance than the usual lettuce salad.

So I got started late into the lifting so I didn’t bother with a PWO shake, just made lunch right away. Afterwards went outside to check the garden and was surprised to find some plants that needed water. It’s rained off and on since Saturday, but some of them are under the overhang of the roof and were quite dry. Oh yes, and I tied up the cherry and grape tomatoes growing on the patio. This wouldn’t be worth mentioning except for the fact that they are about 8 feet tall. If I can talk my mother into it tomorrow afternoon when we get home I’ll take a picture with her standing beside them. Since I don’t have anything tall enough to stake them to I ended up taping string to the metal chimney with the clear equivalent of duct tape. I should probably just trim them but they are pretty impressive looking. Oh, and lots of little tomatoes.

So that’s about it for the day, just the usual. Had a swim and made dinner later. Oh yes, tonight’s dinner was a slight experiment. Our normal hamburger recipe is 1-1/2 pounds of lean ground beef, an egg, seasonings. The most recent batch was a 50/50 mix of turkey and beef, with almost no difference to the taste. So from 256 cals each to 208 cals each. Not a huge deal, but I usually take two burgers so it’s a nice little cut. Hey, if nothing else I ate an entire bun tonight (usually I cut a piece off)!
I’m off to Stratford (Ontario) tomorrow to meet up with a couple of women from the diet board I post on. Since it’s a bit of a drive (90 mins) to just have a quick lunch I talked my mother into coming along for the drive. Stratford is a nice touristy town with a (from what I remember) lovely lake to walk along. We’ll go earlier in the day and look around and then part ways for a bit. Yes, she was welcome to come to lunch but prefers to take her own and do some shopping instead.

Food for the day:

Total: 2398 (30% fat, 37% carbs, 31% protein)

Breakfast: two fried eggs, oat scones, jam (395)
AM Snack: none (0)
Lunch: tortillas, smoked turkey, mustard, cheese, nectarine (602)
PM Snack: fruit & nut bar, raspberries, protein shake (323)
Dinner: hamburgers(2), roll(1), condiments, calico coleslaw (813)
Late Snack: berry yogurt sorbet, protein shake (265)

I started with 15-mins walk on the treadmill, some stretching, and then did:

A: Front Squat/Push Press - 60t/8, 60t/8, 65t/8
B1: Step-up (12″) - 17.5e/8, 17.5e/8, 20e/8
B2: Dumbbell One-point Row - 27.5e/8, 27.5e/8, 30e/8
C1: Static Lunge, Rear Foot Elevated - 15e/8, 15e/8, 17.5e/8
C2: Push-up (full) - 8, 8, 8
D1: Plank - 60+60sec, 60+60sec, 30+20+20+20sec (all on floor)
D2: Horizontal Wood Chop (on floor) - 37.5t/8, 37.5t/8, 40t/8

I was pretty much at 85 mins when finished, so I stopped. Sheesh, didn’t even consider rounding it up to 90 mins with a short walk.

HRM: 507 cals, Max: 155 (87%), Avg: 124 (70%)

I don’t know if it’s me today, or if I’m just hitting weights that are finally a bigger challenge. Today I felt like every last set of an exercise was about the last rep I could possibly push out. It started with the FSPP when I almost dropped the barbell on the 6th rep of the 3rd set. I suppose that was a bad sign. I’m pretty sure that my tempo was slower on pretty much everything.

The planks still pretty much kill me. Although I have managed to get some to 60 secs, the form sucks completely. Oh well, can’t do much about them as they come back in Stage 5. 

Since it’s sunny and hot out I need to take some time this afternoon and make sure the plants are well watered. I’m going to be away most of the day tomorrow so I don’t want to come home to a whole bunch of drooping plants.

Well, I pretty much did nothing for the rest of the day. Every time I thought it might clear up enough to have a swim the thunder would start up again and we’d get more rain. So just played around on the computer for part of it and walked around outside when it wasn’t raining looking at how sad some of the plants looked. Oh yes, and I still had to water a couple of plants. There’s always somewhere the rain doesn’t hit.

Food for the day:

Total: 2415 (29% fat, 35% carbs, 31% protein)

Breakfast: fruit & nut bar, clementines (272)
AM Snack: almonds, protein shake with frozen berries (418)
Lunch: tortillas, bbq pork, cheese, nectarine (560)
PM Snack: pisco sour, hummus, raw veggies, soy nuts, boysenberries/raspberries (351)
Dinner: boneless chicken thighs, curry sauce, rice, broccoli, salad w/dressing (504)
Late Snack: berry yogurt sorbet, protein shake (310)

So I did manage to get my cardio done this morning. I started off walking around the pool (stepping over the cat) but felt that heel rubbing a bit so I stopped at 20 mins and put a band-aid over it. Funny, but it didn’t bother me at all on the treadmill yesterday. It must have something to do with how I’m walking on the concrete outside. So I decided to do another 2 sets of 20 mins, but at about 7 mins… I had to pee. I thought I could ignore it, but nope, no way. So I stopped at 10 mins. I did finish off with a 30 min walk though.

It’s a good thing I did it this morning though. It suddenly got warmer and at the moment it’s pouring rain out. Oh and I love this piece of our current weather warning:

“A FEW OF THESE STORMS ARE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING HEAVY RAINFALL OF 50 TO LOCALLY 75 MM. ISOLATED STORMS MAY SUPPORT LARGE HAIL TO 3 CM AND BRIEF STRONG WIND GUSTS AS WELL. BRIEF FUNNEL CLOUDS MAY ALSO FORM WITH A TOUCH DOWN POSSIBLE.”

50mm = 1.9685 inches (whole lot of rain)… and funnel clouds… hey, just say the word… tornado.

I joke about it, and I shouldn’t. We don’t get a lot of them here but I know other places do. The only quick information I could find was that between 1984-1997 different counties here in the vicinity got anywhere from zero to 12 of them. Also, I’m sitting in the only county that had none. The yearly average is 14, and most of them are small, doing only minor damage. Hail we’ve had two or three times this year. I could do without hail today as some of my beefsteak tomatoes are starting to get bigger.

Anyway, just adding my cardio information for the moment.

From the HR monitor:

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do this afternoon… probably nothing. I’m not really in the mood to cook, and I’d have to shop to keep going. I was thinking of making some pizza shells for the freezer, however, I’ve got tentative meals planned until Sunday so I might leave it until Tuesday of next week so we could have a fresh pizza that night.

Since it was raining and crappy out I spent the rest of the day cooking sauces and making the fruit & nut bars. I ended up with 12 lots of a curry/tomato sauce for chicken, and although it’s not divided up yet, the same amount of the tomato/veggie/wine sauce. Yes, that’s 24 dinners (with uncooked meat) for two people. Silly me, but I love filling the freezer up with simple to cook stuff. If it pours rain tomorrow I might do a few simple pasta sauces, however, I’d have to either go buy onions or try and talk my mother into it. I suppose it can wait for a bit.

Food for the day:

Total: 2403 (23% fat, 37% carbs, 36% protein)

Breakfast: egg white omelet, oat scones, jam, clementines (423)
AM Snack: protein shake with frozen sour cherries (265)
Lunch: tortillas, eye of round, cheese, nectarine, plum (574)
PM Snack: oat scone, cheese spread, fruit & nut bar (315)
Dinner: balsamic pork tenderloin, broccoli, butter, salad w/dressing (516)
Late Snack: berry yogurt sorbet, protein shake (310)

This started with a recipe on 3FC, but I wanted more protein so added soy flour and flax seed (well, the first gives more protein). Moist and chewy with a hint of sweetness and my favourite - dried sour cherries. Now the ones I used don’t have any sugar added, however, the calorie count I used is from a commercially available cherry (which uses cane sugar). I suppose people will substitute the fruits and nuts they have and/or enjoy more. I added a sweetener (dulce de leche) but with sweeter dried fruit you could probably drop it.

Cals (per 2″x4″ bar): 203 (10g protein, 7g fat, 27g carbs, 5g fiber)

A Recipe for Weight Loss: Fruit & Nut Bars (recipe here)

The original recipe here (with comments about things people added)

I warmed up with a 10-min walk on the treadmill. Then I did:

A: Wide-grip Deadlift from Box - 75t/8, 75t/8, 80t/8
B1: Bulgarian Split Squat - 25t/8, 25t/8, 27.5t/8
B2: Underhand-grip Lat Pulldown (Pullover) - 32e/8, 32e/8, 35e/8
C1: Reverse Lunge from Box with Forward Reach - 15e/8, 15e/8, 17.5e/8
C2: Dumbbell Prone Cuban Snatch - 12e/8, 12e/8, 15e/8
D1: Swiss Ball Crunch (Long-arm) - 8, 8, 8
D2: Reverse Crunch - 8, 8, 8
D3: Lateral Flexion (Hannah side 3) - 8, 8, 8
E: Prone Cobra - 120sec, 120sec (skipped last one)

And then HIIT. I wasn’t sure I had it in me, but I did it! 90 mins total.

HRM: 483cals, Max: 170 (96%), Avg: 116 (65%)

I felt this was a medium effort workout. I think I needed to make the warm-up either a little longer or a little more aggressive. There was lots of sweat but not a lot of high heart rate. I also felt like I was barely making it with some of the last lifts. I was running quite long so I dropped the last Prone Cobra to keep the workout to 90 mins.

My period also started this morning and I feel generally crappy. I did go out this morning and buy a few things at the bulk food store. What a pain to have to jot down the macros (they’re supposed to have little pull-off sheets, but they never do for what I’m buying). There’s another of the same store just a little further away so I’m thinking I might try them next time.

This afternoon looks like, well, crap. The thunder and lightening were going on during my workout (all inside today), and now it’s pouring rain. I’ll get my sauces made this afternoon… and I might try a breakfast bar recipe if I can decide what to put in it!