Calorie Burn Denial

I’ve always loved a good english muffin for Breakfast but always found that they never had much staying power. That is until I decided to give the Ezekiel cinnamon raisin ones a try. This morning I toasted one up with a good spread of light cream cheese and had it with a boiled egg and a cup of organic coffee with some scotsburn blend cream and 2 tsp of agave nectar (cappuccino flavour) for a total of 410 calories: It was great, but I racked up this breakfast calorie-wise comparable to my favourite oatmeal variety and I thought I’d get away with a few less calories. I suppose next time I’ll skimp on the cream cheese and switch out the sugar for some syrup and that would save about 65 right there.

Oh and I meant to tell you Randi that you probably do have the Ezekiel products at your grocery store but you’re might be looking in the wrong place. They are found in the freezer section of the “health food” section. They usually keep the “rice dream” and the “gluten free breads” etc. there too.

I spend some time before going to bed last night to make a couscous salad (tabouleh style) with the leftover couscous I had from last night’s dinner. I must have been really tired while I was doing it because I kept grabbing the wrong can and opening them before looking at them. I was trying to open up some garbanzo beans, but I grabbed the navy beans and opened them first. I figured they wouldn’t work as well in the salad but put it in my mind to use them up sometime this week. Then I reached for another can and opened it and then realized I opened up a can of lentils! Frig! I’ll NEVER eat all of those beans because there are still some leftover chick peas from this salad and tons of this salad too! Ah well, I will do my best and they are not super expensive either, so no big deal.

So back to this couscous salad. It was incredibly delicious and consisted of:

• 1c whole wheat organic couscous
• 1c garbanzo beans
• 1c diced tomato
• 1c diced english cucumber
• 1c diced green onion
• 1 tsp dried mint
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 4 tsp EVOO (recipe called for 1/2c and I reduced)
• juice from one lemon (recipe called for 1 c)
• zest of one lemon

Combine and let sit in the fridge. This kind of recipe always tastes better the longer it sits and I have to say it was so yummy! It was so fresh tasting! I had one serving of it for Lunch today on top of a bed of organic herb salad greens for about 193 calories:

About an hour later I had some Mocha Liberte No Fat Probiotic Svelte Yogurt with some fresh raspberries on top for another 162 calories:

And on my way out the door to go home for the day, I wanted a “pre-workout” Snack far enough in advance before I got home so that I had time to digest it. So I had a delicious deep chocolate vitatop and a naval orange for about 164 calories:

My first instinct the second I walk into the door when I get home is to grab a crunchy snack always, always, always and I thought I had taken care of that urge by grabbing a snack on my way out the door from the office, but I felt I still needed something, so I had a half of a serving of Guiltless Gourmet chipotle baked tortilla chips for 120 calories:

Then I geared myself up with my HRM (with chest strap, yes) and got to work. I was anxious to see how many calories I was going to burn doing the 30 Day Shred DVD. I wanted to get a good calorie burn in before hand so that I was good and warmed up, so I did a hard 30 minutes on the elliptical and my HRM said that I had burned 300 calories. I paused the workout on my watch and then got set up for the Shred. I did Level 1 since I think I like it better than Level 2 and not just because it’s “easier” because it really doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to be as far as getting your heart rate up goes, but I just like it better and I’ve got plenty of time to advance to level 2. So I resumed the workout on my watch and did the Shred. I have to say I did not burn many more calories doing this DVD than if I had stayed on the elliptical! After the workout, my HRM read that I had burned 472 calories in the entire 57:32 workout (including the 300 on the elliptical).

What?? It always feels so much harder though! I was disappointed because I know how hard those exercises feel! So to compare from yesterday, I did 47 minutes on the elliptical and burned 442 (including 5 min cool down) and today I did 57:32 and only burned 30 more calories in 10 minutes more??! It seems a little unfair, don’t ya think?! But this is exactly why I was glad I got the HRM because now I have real calorie burn results as to what I have done and how hard I have worked because I gotta tell ya, there was times when I felt like I was working a lot harder than the HRM told me I was! So when I’ve got a little scientific gadget that has no feelings or emotions telling me the facts I can’t argue with it and have to just work harder and stop “phoning it in at the gym” as Jillian says. No more calorie burn denial here!

So just to give you guys a visual of what it’s like when me and Jillian are all BFF in our rec room, I’ve got her on the big screen pr0jection TV which makes her life size kicking my ass like she was really there!

It makes SUCH a difference when you have something that big there and it makes it feel almost like you’re doing a real class at the gym = LOVE IT!

So after my workout, I made a turkey burger with extra lean ground turkey mixed with S&P, dried basil, oregano and savory and grilled on the grillpan. I toasted a Rudi’s Organic Bakery Wheat hamburger bun and loaded it with some organic herb salad mix, a few slices of tomato and red onion, the turkey burker and topped it with a tbsp of the cranberry & pomegranate brie topping. It was very good. To go with it, I grilled up some eggplant and zucchini on the grill pan seasoned with S&P, oregano, basil and sprayed with my EVOO spritzer and topped it with a few dolops of Liberty Tzatziki. Last minute I decided to have a small scoop of the couscous salad since I still have tons left. The entire meal was 466 calories and absolutely delicious and satisfying:

Oh and while I was cleaning out a closet the other day I had a bunch of wedding stuff that hasn’t been touched since the wedding in September and I have a ton of leftover napkins, so I’ve been using them up for dinner lately

And I grabbed these Kinnikinnick Gluten free Gingersnap cookies while perusing the health food section of the grocery store the other day. They are only 29 calories for 2 so I thought why the heck not since I always seem to need that “after dinner sweet something.” So I had two of those and I gotta say, not the best tasting things I’ve every had since there’s a funny “baking soda” kind of taste to them, but they are perfect with respect to crunch and crumble factor so they are not a bad substitution for 29 calories:

"The Math":

Calories in: 1544

- my daily calorie needs (not taking into account exercise): 2208

- the 472 burned through exercise

= 1136 calorie deficit for the day.

See, it's simple math! :-P