Bagels and Exercise

Exercise-wise, I've been having a really good week.  I have been exercising on and off for a while now, but made some decisions that somewhat force me to exercise daily.


I love bagels.  I mean, love them.  There's something about stopping on my way into work in the morning and getting myself a toasted bagel with cream cheese ON it that really just makes my day (You have to specify on, otherwise, Dunkin Donuts will just drop a container of cream cheese into a bag and call it a day).  As soon as I get in the car in the morning, my mind is already eating a bagel.  Well, for those of you who don't know, a sesame seed bagel is 350 calories and the cream cheese to go with it is 130 calories.  That's 480 calories on breakfast ALONE!  Never mind if you get a coffee to go with it!


Well, I made the decision on Sunday that I will allow myself to have a bagel ONLY if I exercise.  It's a reasonable trade-off, right?  It's been going well so far.  I have gone so far as to wear the gym clothes I would never normally wear just so that I can get to the gym.  All so that I can eat a bagel in the morning.


My workouts for this week have been boring so far.  I've been mainly concentrating on jogging and biking, so I'm either on the treadmill, the elliptical, or the bike.


Here we go:


Monday:
Elliptical Trainer        33 minutes  428 calories
Biking (12-14 mph)  12 minutes  165 calories
593 Total Calories Burned


Tuesday:
Jogging 5 mph           15 minutes  206 calories
Walking 3.5 mph       20 minutes  130 calories
Biking (14-16 mph)   10 minutes  171 calories
(I did run walk intervals)
507 Total Calories Burned


Wednesday:
Jogging 5 mph           15 minutes  206 calories
Walking 3.5 mph       20 minutes  130 calories
Biking (12-14 mph)   10 minutes  137 calories
(I did run walk intervals)
473 Total Calories Burned


Thursday:
Elliptical Training       33 minutes  430 calories
Biking (14-16 mph)  12 minutes  204 calories
634 Total Calories Burned


One of the other decisions I made (just today I made the decision), is to not eat ALL of the exercise calories like I originally have been doing.  I decided that I would put the total amount of calories Burned in the NOTES section of MFP and put a slightly reduced number in the actual area where it counts as calories earned.  This way I can account for some of the error in calculating any of the exercises.


What do you think?

Homemade bagels!!

My friend Carolyn had posted on Facebook recently about homemade bagels!  I decided it was something I needed to try!

The recipe is SO simple (much easier than other recipes I saw online....)

Here we go (in picture form for the second half!)

The Recipe

1 Tablespoon instant yeast
4 cups unbleached bread flour
2 tsp salt
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 1/2 cups luke warm water 

The Method

Mix everything together and knead well.  Sit in a bowl and let rise in a warm place for about an hour.  

Dough that has been risen for an hour

Divide the dough into balls and smooth them over as best as possible.  Let them rise for another 10 minutes

Dough balls have risen for 10 minutes!

Punch holes in the balls (as you can see, I didn't do a good job of making the balls equal size....)  Let rise for another 30 minutes

Bagels have risen for another 30 minutes and are now ready to be boiled!

Bring a pot of WATER to a light boil and add 1 Tbsp white sugar and 2 Tbsp Brown Sugar (this helps with the browning process when baked)  Boil for 1 minute on EACH side and then remove to a baking sheet lined with foil/parchment paper and corn meal

 

The boiled bagels are ready to be baked!  The parchment paper/foil helps prevent sticking and the corn meal with also help with bottom crunchiness

Bake the bagels for 22 minutes at 425*

Before baking - while the bagels are still wet, you can add any kind of topping you want.  I added granulated salt...

ENJOY!! - 12 bagels = 4 points plus each!