HIIT

Wow...its been over a month since my last post... I have been cooking, and I do have some lovely pics, but I am just too lazy to post. My doctor put me on the pill last month (not for birth control actually, long story..), and I put on 10 POUNDS since then. Yes, its been freaking me out. One day I was tugging on my jeans and it was so tight. I went to the gym and weighted myself and almost died when I saw the readout. Oh well....which leads me to my title. HIIT.

I tried out a new exercise program today called HIIT, which is High Intensity Interval Training. I read on the internet that HIIT is really effective at burning fat, because it throws the body into an anaerobic state during exercise, so it burns more fat than a slower paced, cardio workout. Also, after exercising, the body burns fat at a higher rate than usual becuase HIIT elevates the metabolism too.

HIIT is basically a 15-20 minute workout where you interplay 30 seconds of really intense, maximum-heart-rate workout with 1-2 minutes of workout at 60-70% heart rate. Man was I energized!! I have never felt so gooooood during and after a workout before! HIIT can work with lots of activities; running (interspearse sprinting with jogging), elyptical, biking, swimming....whatever.

I chose to do the stationary bike today. I rode so hard during the 30 sec bursts I am surprised that the bike did not hop a few steps forward. For my virgin effort, I did only 19 minutes. I felt like SuperGirl afterwards, so I did 80 crunches in 1 minute (usual is 70), ten pushups (usual is 7) and 40 leg lifts (that's usual). After that, I still felt really gungho, and was scanning around eagerly to see what else I could do. Then a little voice at the back of my head told me to stop and go home, because from experience, I know how easy it is to go from feeling like SuperGirl today to ShittyGirl tomorrow becuase of overexercising.

I plan to start slow, so for the first couple of weeks, I am only going to do 2-3 HIIT workouts per week. I can't wait for Thursday! =)

Chocolate chip cookies

I baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies (CCC) today. Halfway through baking, I got bored looking at all the CCC clones I was making, so I tried getting creative. I took some dough and added cocoa powder and coconut flakes to it. When the cookies baked up, it tasted.....just OK. The coconut flavour wasn't that robust, and I couldn't detect the cocoa taste at all. But I think it made for preety cookies, with all the little coconut shards poking out. The CCC's were good though. I used the Nestle Toll House recipe as a base, but swapped in some Crisco for the butter. From previous trial and error, I find that Crisco really helps in retaining the shape of the cookie, and prevents over spreading.

Lilliputian city

I found this picture on the internet of a city skyline and modified it to create a "toy trainset" effect. The original:



And the modified version:

Crazy oblivious driver

God did a disservice to the human race by putting everybody's eyes at the front of their faces.

Really-man! Some people should have one eye at the front and the other one at the back of their heads. Or one at each side of the face like fishes so that they can scan all around them before they move.

So what happened today was this. I was peacefully running through some neighborhood and was about to run past a driveway behind a bush. All of a sudden, this stupid car came reversing out at top speed and almost knocked me down. I was only 1 foot away can! A split second later, the brainless girl driving swung her head my direction, and for a few seconds we just stood there; me with a "OMG she almost ran me over!" look on my face, and her with a "ZOMG I almost killed her" look in her eyes.

Aiyah, you live in that house, you know that there is a big bush obscuring your driveway, so dont shoot out like explosive diarrhea out of the driveway and knockdown any joggers/walkers who happen to be passing at that time. YOu know-ah, if I had an iPod with me, I would definitely have been knocked down like a skittle because I would not have heard her coming. As it was, when I heard her car, I only had time to take one step back. No toes crushed, phew...



So after running, I cooked dinner. I made pizza again. This time I added olives. I wanted to make other things, but I was too tired. Oh, I made brownies too. Its not dense enough. Its rather cake like.

Hmm, my food escapades are becoming boring. I should cook exciting foods next week.

Gruel

On Saturday, I woke up blabbering and half delirious from a painful painful toothache. When half you face feels like it is being jackhammered, nothing else in the whole wide world matters except stopping the pain NOW. Oh, I found out that taking aspirin for a toothache does squat to lessen the pain. I took 18 tablets in 24 hours; NADA pain reduction!! So I hauled my ass off to Walgreens at 8am, bought a family sized pack of ibuprofen and filled out my prescription for amoxicillin that I forgot I had. Went home, munched on the tablets and slept the day away. Sunday was much better as I think the amoxycillin kicked in and dealt with the infection or whatever. The throbbing pain was greatly reduced so I decided to cook a simple dinner as I was starving. It was stirfried chicken breast, bell peppers, onions, baby corn and spring onions with a sweet mapotofu sauce. I also added peanuts that I had braised previously. Heaped everything onto rice, and then I discovered that I could not chew!! Everytime my upper and lower teeth met, I would get this searing pain that made my toes curl and made me wanna wee. So I had no choice but to make another dinner. As I had a large pot of rice, I heated some up with water and made rice porridge. I know this pic looks awful but I was starving and it was softsoftsoft FOODFOODFOOD pourdowngullet.

ZAAAAAA!!!!! and pot stickers.

Pizza dough making is quite an art. I have made pizza from scratch like... >20x's using the exact same pizza dough recipe from Allrecipe, but every time it turns out differently!! Bloody hell. Today it was kinda sticky, so I could not swing the dough about. When I made drier dough, I tried swinging it about using gravity/swing momentum to stretch out the dough, but I really suck at it and have accidently thrown the dough across the kitchen a couple of times. I have also begun to use a bread maker for the dough, which is soooooo much easier than squashing and abusing the dough by hand. Today's flavour is sausage. Well...actually its brat (german sausage). I undressed three brats and sprinkled it over the base with red and green peppers.

I was rummaging in my packed-to-the-nostrils freezer looking for the Sargento cheese for the pizza and was assaulted by a container of something, which turned out to be pot sticker meat that I made a few weeks ago. I found some pot sticker skin, so I decided to make pot stickers too. Can't remember exactly what I put in the meat, I think its chicken, sesame oil, water chestnut and spring onions. Yaaaa, I know...its not too traditional, but it works. I pan fried, simmered and fried them again, and voila!

Doctor's appointment

I went for my doctors appointment yesterday, got prodded and poked and had blood drawn, and was given a clean bill of health. That was kinda a relief, since I had quite a big scare a few years ago. I used to think nothing of yearly physicals; just turn up at the clinic and answer "NO" happily when the doc asks if there was anything to discuss. But nowadays, I get nervous when my appointment is around the corner, and make a mental list of everything to ask on appointment day. Sigh, it sucks growing old and raisiny...

Biscotti

I made biscotti over the weekend. Actually, from this angle, the biscotti's look very proportional, but actually, they are a little stunted because the dough did not spread during baking. I had to smushsmushsmush it a little halfway through baking, before I cut them. I added mango puree into the dough, but the flavour was totally lost after baking. No matter, it was still delicious!

chicken, stuffing, corn and garlic bread

Ahhh, my first post! I thought I would start off my blog with a post of a simple meal. Well, the meal is simple, but it was quite hectic cooking it, as I cooked everything together and had 4 pans going at once. Yes, 4 pans, as I fried the garlic bread. I have a huge oven, and I didnt feel like heating it up just to put two miniscule bread slices in. So I buttered up the bread with garlic butter and smacked it on a pan, and toasted it on both sides for a few minutes. The stuffing has walnuts in it, it adds crunch.