Solstice thoughts...

It's been an interesting week. Tuesday I went to the gym and I started to get worried about the heart rate monitor on the elliptical machine I was using. See, as I told kightp, I don't know if those monitors are accurate, but they tend to be precise. If they show over 150 for long, I'm probably going to end up with a pounding headache by the end of the night.

This time, the heart rate monitor was showing 130, and I know damn well that I was working hard enough to have brought it up to 140 to 145. So, how could I trust the thing?

Okay, yes, I'm sure some of you are laughing right now, having figured out the "problem". I've never worked with heart rate monitors during exercise before, so it didn't occur to me. But yes, after 5 weeks of exercise, of course, my heart has gotten significantly stronger, and thus can maintain oxygen flow through my body with fewer beats per minute.

So, Wednesday, I had to hit the gym again, to prove that it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't... an hour of working out on the cardio machines (stair stepper, treadmill, and elliptical) over the course of 75-80 minutes proved that.

I wanted to celebrate the solstice some, so I hit the local Fred Meyer for Asti Spumonte (yes, I prefer the sweeter wines...), cheese, chocolate, and a little of this and that. And then, I decided my feasting for the solstice could wait until the weekend. I grabbed some pepperoni and frozen pizza (Red Baron's mini-deep dish pizzas - covered with additional pepperoni and baked, they're pretty darn good), and got home to do some quick research and get back to blogging.

You can check out my efforts from last night at ForTheDream.

Along the way, I did some life-affirming things for me... I sliced up some beef to smoke for jerky,

(See, I was munching on a protein bar - 26 grams of protein! - and realizing it wasn't very good. Then I checked, and found a quarter pound of ground beef had 22 grams of protein. The protein bar cost $2. That means that if beef is less than $8 a pound, it's cheaper to make jerky to get the same quantity of protein... and beef jerky tastes *good*. Only upside to the protein bars is that they have lots of fiber (because they use soy protein).)

made myself a half turkey sandwich on Cornell bread[1] because pepperoni pizza, while the food of the gods, is not high in protein, and then threw out some bird seed for all the birds, making a special offer to the Raven, who is my spirit guide.

But mostly, I wrote, finding my voice again.

This Beltaine, I decided I needed to start working on my body; this Solstice, I started working on my spirit again. I think it's a good progression.



[1] Cornell bread: I cheated, actually. Cornell bread is made like ordinary white bread, but
you used unbleached white flour, and in the bottom of each measuring cup, you put 1 tablespoon of soy flour, 1 tablespoon of dry milk, and 1 teaspoon of wheat germ, before filling the cup with the flour. I used whole wheat flour (which includes the germ) and still added the same amount of germ, and added a bit of gluten. It's definitely bread. It tastes different, but it tastes like bread. It just doesn't taste like white (or, in my case, wheat) bread. Complete protein (soy and wheat), lots of minerals and extra vitamins.

Solstice thoughts...

It's been an interesting week. Tuesday I went to the gym and I started to get worried about the heart rate monitor on the elliptical machine I was using. See, as I told kightp, I don't know if those monitors are accurate, but they tend to be precise. If they show over 150 for long, I'm probably going to end up with a pounding headache by the end of the night.

This time, the heart rate monitor was showing 130, and I know damn well that I was working hard enough to have brought it up to 140 to 145. So, how could I trust the thing?

Okay, yes, I'm sure some of you are laughing right now, having figured out the "problem". I've never worked with heart rate monitors during exercise before, so it didn't occur to me. But yes, after 5 weeks of exercise, of course, my heart has gotten significantly stronger, and thus can maintain oxygen flow through my body with fewer beats per minute.

So, Wednesday, I had to hit the gym again, to prove that it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't... an hour of working out on the cardio machines (stair stepper, treadmill, and elliptical) over the course of 75-80 minutes proved that.

I wanted to celebrate the solstice some, so I hit the local Fred Meyer for Asti Spumonte (yes, I prefer the sweeter wines...), cheese, chocolate, and a little of this and that. And then, I decided my feasting for the solstice could wait until the weekend. I grabbed some pepperoni and frozen pizza (Red Baron's mini-deep dish pizzas - covered with additional pepperoni and baked, they're pretty darn good), and got home to do some quick research and get back to blogging.

You can check out my efforts from last night at ForTheDream.

Along the way, I did some life-affirming things for me... I sliced up some beef to smoke for jerky,

(See, I was munching on a protein bar - 26 grams of protein! - and realizing it wasn't very good. Then I checked, and found a quarter pound of ground beef had 22 grams of protein. The protein bar cost $2. That means that if beef is less than $8 a pound, it's cheaper to make jerky to get the same quantity of protein... and beef jerky tastes *good*. Only upside to the protein bars is that they have lots of fiber (because they use soy protein).)

made myself a half turkey sandwich on Cornell bread[1] because pepperoni pizza, while the food of the gods, is not high in protein, and then threw out some bird seed for all the birds, making a special offer to the Raven, who is my spirit guide.

But mostly, I wrote, finding my voice again.

This Beltaine, I decided I needed to start working on my body; this Solstice, I started working on my spirit again. I think it's a good progression.



[1] Cornell bread: I cheated, actually. Cornell bread is made like ordinary white bread, but
you used unbleached white flour, and in the bottom of each measuring cup, you put 1 tablespoon of soy flour, 1 tablespoon of dry milk, and 1 teaspoon of wheat germ, before filling the cup with the flour. I used whole wheat flour (which includes the germ) and still added the same amount of germ, and added a bit of gluten. It's definitely bread. It tastes different, but it tastes like bread. It just doesn't taste like white (or, in my case, wheat) bread. Complete protein (soy and wheat), lots of minerals and extra vitamins.

(no subject)

New updates at ForTheDream, asking the question "what would you be thinking about, if you were the President, the day after the 9/11 attacks? Osama bin Ladin? Or some two-bit dictator who was nothing but an annoyance to us?"

(no subject)

New updates at ForTheDream, asking the question "what would you be thinking about, if you were the President, the day after the 9/11 attacks? Osama bin Ladin? Or some two-bit dictator who was nothing but an annoyance to us?"