Maple Glazed Pumpkin French Toast, SoulCycle Review, NYC Blogger Dinner & Puppy Shred

Big news! So a few months ago B.Healthier made a delicious pumpkin french toast. Lee at For the Love of Peanut Butter read that post and made her own version of Maple Glazed Pumpkin French Toast. Ever since seeing these amazing pictures and thinking about how delicious this sounds, I have wanted to make it for the boy and me. Every weekend something came up that got in our way — until this weekend!

I followed Lee’s recipe as best I could. I had some mishaps along the way, particularly when the Vanilla Extract shot out of the bottle at lightning speeds. The first 2 pieces were extra vanilla-y — and still tasted great! Here is a picture of that very first batch:

I also had to adjust Lee’s recipe since I was making 6 pieces instead of 2. I admit that towards the end I got a bit lax and just started tossing a splash of this and a splash of that without measuring — and even forgot the Vanilla and nutmeg altogether for the last 2! I used Pepperidge Farm Light Whole Wheat Bread (45 calories per slice), egg whites, cinnamon, nutmeg, unsweetened Almond Breeze almond milk, vanilla extract and pumpkin butter.

While grocery shopping at Jubilee for the ingredients, I was annoyed to find out that they do not have any pumpkin puree (as Lee’s recipe calls for) or even Libby’s canned pumpkin. All they had was pumpkin pie mix. Not a big deal, since pumpkin butter is delicious and would certainly do the trick!

I melted some PB&Co Mighty Maple and drizzled it on top. Here is the end result:

It looks great, but the real test is the taste test. I only drizzled a small amount of peanut butter in case the boy didn’t like it, but I kept a bowl of melted peanut butter at the table so we could add more.

We both tasted the french toast (after adding some real maple syrup!) and…. WOW. Incredible! And the boy LOVED the maples glazed peanut butter with it and added lots more! He did like the French Toast Casserole that I made once before a little more, but was VERY pleased with this — and I liked the Pumpkin French Toast much more than the other one!

A big thanks to B.Healthier and Lee for this amazing, delicious, healthy, easy-to-follow recipe!

30 Day Shred
I picked up some 3 lb weights last week and now use them for most of the Shred! Once I am comfortable with this weight for the entire 20 minutes, I will move on to level 2. It won’t be for at least another week though. I have done 9 days so far!

My mom decided to try the Shred this weekend. She called me after and said, “That was so hard! It was the longest 20 minutes of my life.”  Funny since I consider it the quickest 20 minutes of mine! The next day she woke up VERY sore! Which means it is working, so I hope she tries to do it a little more. She won’t do it every day, but I think every now and then would be a great boost!

And the boy has been watching me do the Shred and sees what a great workout I get from it, so he decided he wants to do it too! He also has a hard time waking up so he hopes this will help him get going. So starting tomorrow we will do the Shred together – I am very excited!

And another unlikely candidate decided to try the Shred – SANTANA the puppy! She blogged all about her experience Shredding, read about it for a great laugh! My favorite lines:

“However, also being a puppy, I CAN’T DO THE BUTT KICKS! Who invented these non-puppy-friendly butt kicks??”

…and…

“2) Instead of butt kicks: BUTT LICKING! Increases flexibility and it’s delicious!”

There is much more hilarity in there too – please click here and read all about Santana’s proposed 30 Day Shred Challenge for Puppies (also works for cats and the elderly).

My brother saw this in a store for those of you with a Wii:

SoulCycle Review
On Saturday, the boy and I finally went to SoulCycle. We have been trying to go for so long but so many things kept getting in our way. This weekend we finally had our chance.

We arrived early and entered a dark, long, narrow entry way full of lockers. I asked someone if this was the entrance since it looked a little creepy and he said it was. We walked through and got to a front desk. Phew! We signed in and were offered spin shoes for rent, which we didn’t need since we have our own. I noticed a sign that said first time guests get a reduced rate of $20 (rather than $32). We paid $32 each online already, as there was no mention of this deal on the site. I asked the girl at the desk and she was very nice and credited us each $12.

We went to the narrow hallway of lockers and did our best to get ready with people trying to get past us and getting ready themselves. There are 2 individual changing rooms, but when the class before ours let out, they were taken. There were just 2 small benches to wait for our class and to get out shoes on. We opted to put on our shoes in the hallway of lockers.

Finally, it was time to go into the class room. We walk in and can barely get to our bikes on the other side of the room — there was simply no walking space. Every bike was practically on top of the next. We squeezed and shimmied our way through and saw that our bikes were against a fan, a speaker and a corner. We were able to switch bikes since the class wasn’t full and we moved up a row.

The bikes themselves were different than the Spinner bikes I’ve used in every gym I have gone to. Setting them up was different and I wasn’t familiar with the numbering system. I set it up the best I could, albeit with a bit of apprehension. Then I noticed there was no computer. For a studio that costs $32 a class, a studio where a set of 5 classes is the same price as a full month of my own gym membership, a studio where they specialize in a workout where monitoring heart rate is pretty important, I would have expected computers on every bike. No biggie, I could always look at my watch to track my heart rate. And I guess RPMs don’t matter here. I also noticed that there were water bottle holders in places sticking out of the lower part of the bike, rather than on top.

I hop on the bike and attempt to snap my shoes in. Right, snap! Left, no snap. Tried again with the left foot. Wouldn’t go in. Kept trying. Class began. I was still trying to get my left shoe in. Keep in mind that I spin almost every day and I never have this problem. I am getting upset and the boy, whose shoes snapped right in, suggests I try another bike. I was scared that another bike would have the same problem, and I was determined to make this one work. I keep trying. Keep struggling. The teacher, I need to note, didn’t care.

At my gym, most of the spin instructors will come and help you if you’re having a problem with your bike. I remember this being the case at my old gym as well. But not at SoulCycle. The teacher just kept on going, ignoring the fact that a paying customer was not able to participate in the class. Finally, after getting so agitated and upset and fighting with the pedal, I decided to move to another bike. I couldn’t move the knob to adjust the next bike I chose, so I used the one in the very corner, the bike that was touching the fan and directly under the speaker.

I adjusted it, got on and finally started pedaling, 15 minutes after the 45 minute class began. And I burned over 100 calories by just fighting with the bike and being stressed! Remember how I said there were water bottle holders and other things sticking out of the bike? Well, those ended up being the real death of me there.

Bang. OUCH. I hit the part of my thigh right above my knee on a piece of bike. Kept  going. OWWWWWWWW. Banged my knee HARD against a piece of bike. I stopped pedaling and re-adjusted my seat so I was further back. Keep in mind that (1) I spin all the time and know how to adjust a typical bike, these were not typical and (2) even when I am too far up on a typical bike, there are no pieces of water bottle holder and other random crap to bang into me! The worst that happens on a Spinner bike is that my tush hits the seat a little while standing. No big deal. But I never, ever got deep, dark, painful, raised BRUISES like I now have from the bike at SoulCycle.

Here are pictures of my thigh bruise and my knee bruise.

 

Once I moved my seat back it got better. And by better I mean less painful. Except that other problems arose. I look up at the mirror and it is ALL FOGGED. Can’t see a thing. Now, as I have said, I have taken many a spin class… and this has never happened. A studio that specializes in just this one thing should have some proper ventilation, don’t you think? As a result, I couldn’t breathe. I feared for the boy, who has asthma. I looked down at my Polar F7 Heart Rate Monitor and saw that I was at 195 even though I wasn’t pushing myself that hard — that is just how hot and suffocating the room was.

What I did like about the class was that it wasn’t focused on hills as much as the classes at my gym are. It was more about getting up, sitting down, leaning forward and backwards, and using 1 lb hand weights. I really enjoyed this change of pace and the time did fly once I got started. I would like it if some classes at my gym were structured more like this one. It was nice not to be told what percent of my max hear rate I should be at, how many RPMs I should be at and how many minutes the next hill will be. That being said, it took my experience at SoulCycle to realize just how good I have it at The Sports Club/LA! There is room to breathe, room to walk in between bikes, a mirror you can actually see in, and air that is quite breathable!

My heart rate remained in the 190s throughout the entire class. Too high for such an extended period in my opinion, but I am not an expert so who knows. I did burn a lot of calories — and if I didn’t miss out on the first 15 minutes, I would have probably burned close to 550 calories for the class, which is unheard of for me. But it wasn’t worth it. Not for the price.

SoulCycle is expensive, but you certainly don’t get what you pay for. I would think a company who does just spin and nothing else, and charges a high price, would offer a top-of-the-line experience. SoulCycle did not.

NYC Blogger Dinner
We had a really great night at the dinner! I met some fantastic girls and ate wonderful food at Planet Thailand. I drank the Iced Green tea Lychee Lemonade (it was alcoholic — and VERY strong!) and split Chicken & Shrimp in Chili Sauce and a Tiger Roll with one of the other girls. I tried keeping Bethenny’s advice in my mind and not go overboard and I think I did a great job! I strive for this every day now – and hopefully I will start to see a difference. I will blog more on this another time.

Some of the bloggers brought goodies!

A big thanks to Tanya from IAteAPie.net for the wonderful Lean Cuisine Lunch Bags! I used mine today to carry all my Chobanis to work! And another major thanks to Melissa from FitnessNYC — she not only organized the event, she also gave every one of us a goodie bag that included free passes to Physique 57 – which I am dying to try, and a free pass to Kinespirit! I love trying out new work outs! She also included yummy treats and gripping ponytail holders for exercising, menus for great restaurants and more!

I had a great time and it was so nice to talk to other girls who write health and fitness blogs. I learned about some new blogs that I’m getting started on reading!

Spin-A-Thon
It is on Friday, March 27. Each session is an hour. I am going with Melanie and Missy at 6:30 AM. It benefits Muscular Dystrophy. I am very excited!

Snuggie
The boy got me one this weekend, along with a mat for the Shred.