Before the Elf for Health Challenge, I had never even heard of a mug cake. So, I hit Google and did a search. Trust me…there are a LOT of mug cake recipes out there!
I finally settled on that I found on Babble. A Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Mug Cake. I will admit…it was pretty easy to make. Crack an egg in a mug, add 3 tbsp of brown sugar (I used 1.5 tbsp of brown sugar Splenda since I was out of regular brown sugar), 1/3 cup flour, 1 tbsp softened butter, and 3-4 tbsp of chocolate chips. Stir and bake in the microwave for 1.5-2 minutes.
I wasn’t too sure how this was going to turn out, but I mixed it up, stuck it in the microwave for 2 minutes and waited. I was a bit nervous when the cake started to rise out of the mug while it was cooking, but when the timer went off, it sank back down into the mug.
It wasn’t the moistest cake I have ever had, but it was pretty good. if I do it again, I will take it out closer to the minute and a half time, rather than leave it in for the full 2 minutes.
In the end it was a quick and tasty treat. According to My Fitness Pal, when I punched in all of the ingredients, it is about 500 calories or so. I will not be eating too many of these bad boys…and I definitely need to got for a run and do a workout tomorrow to burn off some of these extra calories.
Today was a good day on the training front: 2.5 miles, followed by a core workout of 30 second plank, 30 Patrick Abs, and 20 Air Squats, two rounds. The run went really well. I think I’ve figured out what I need to do to have a good run…ease my way into it…who knew warm-ups worked! I started with a couple of minutes of brisk walking, a couple of minutes at 5 mph, a good chunk of my run at 5.5 and the final couple of minutes at 6.0! I am not known for my speed at all, so to be able to do anything at 6.0 is quite a feat for me. There were still a few times during the run when I wanted to stop, but I just kept telling myself to run…run….run…and before too long, 2 miles done!
So, now onto the “walls”. The first wall I hit was at work, at around 1:30pm. I’m not too sure what it was, but I suddenly had absolutely no energy, felt a little queasy and so desperately wanted a nap that it almost hurt to be awake. I do wonder a bit if it had to do with what I ate for lunch. I was really looking forward to my lunch – leftover stuffing from my stuffed squash eat clean dinner from Monday. I warmed it up in the microwave and thought I would just add a bit of salt…bad move…the salt grinder in the office was broken and when I gave it a crank it just dumped a bunch of salt crystals onto my meal. I tried to pick off the big chunks, but it was quite obvious when I ate it, that there was still a lot that I missed. It really was just too salty, but I was starving, so I still ate it. I’m not sure if that was part of it or not, but maybe??? Anyone know if too much salt can make you feel horrible? Eventually I got my second wind and had a productive afternoon, but that half hour was a bit rough.
I did not do any Eat Clean cooking tonight. I had a meeting for the EWGA golf league that I play in, so planned to have leftover Mulligatawny soup when I got home. We were meeting at Starbucks, so I had budgeted calories to treat myself to my absolute favourite Grande Non-Fat, No Water, Extra Hot Chai Latte. I absolutely LOVE this drink, but I’m trying to cut back on my consumption since they are so high in sugar (a grande has 43g of sugar!!!). I haven’t had one in over a week, and that first sip was just so good. I miss them, but I know it will be better for me to keep it to one a week.
After the meeting, I went home planning to eat, but wasn’t really in the mood. So I will have my soup for lunch tomorrow. Instead, I watched a movie with my youngest and got caught up on some of the shows we PVR’d while away last week. We had our usual Wednesday night TV snack of popcorn (oil popped with salt and butter). I probably shouldn’t be eating this either, but figured since I didn’t eat a proper dinner, I had the calories. I will do better with my eating tomorrow. My Fitness Pal tells me based on what I ate and how much I exercised, I have 3 calories left for today, so hopefully all these “treats” I had today won’t come back to bite me when I step on the scale tomorrow. So far, I’m down 3 pounds!
My second wall of the day was trying to figure out what to write for today’s blog entry…and what to call it to peak interest. I’m trying to write a post every day, to keep myself accountable in my training and eating. This is sometimes challenging, since really, my life is not all that exciting. Coming up with things to write about that will keep readers coming back doesn’t always come easy. Hopefully today’s dull, no yummy food picture blog isn’t going to drive people away.
I wrote this while watching last night’s TOSH.0 on PVR. He showed a video of a kid skiing that just made me laugh. The kid gets totally out of control, going way too fast, and the dad who is videoing chases the kid down the hill screaming “Pizza, Pizza, Pizza”. For those that don’t ski, this may seem like a crazy thing to yell at your kid when they are obviously having trouble…but if you ski, this is hilarious, because this is how kids are taught to ski these day. Pizza means snow plow, which is putting your skis in a wedge shape to slow you down. When the skis are parallel to each other, they call that French Fries. Eventually kids will Pizza through the turn and go French Fry between the turns and then work their way up to being parallel or French fry through the whole turn. The young boy in this video still has a way to go:
The best part of this video is the dad trying to get a high-five out of the kid after the crash “Dude, you survived!”
My Pursuit of Happiness and Skinny Jeans 