Some tasty (healthy) treats

I had this for breakfast the other day. It's one cup of oatmeal cooked in water, with some cinnamon, ~20 raisins, ~20 cranberries, and a teaspoon of Silan (or Date syrup). Delicious!

1 cup of oatmeal cooked in water / cinnamon / ~20 raisins /
~20 cranberries / 1 teaspoon of Silan (or Date syrup)

After breakfast, I realized I had a lot of oatmeal left over. So, I decided to make cupcakes! I put the oatmeal in silicone cupcake holders and placed them in the refrigerator. These days it's extremely hot in Israel...so when I feel like a cold, healthy treat, I just pull one oatmeal cupcake from the refrigerator, sprinkle some cinnamon, add a teaspoon of Silan* and that's all there is to it.

* You can play around with the amount of Silan on your cupcake to fit your dietary needs and sweet tooth

Before & After

Every cupcake is about 90gr. If we round it up to 100gr, then according to Fatsecret.com we end up with 63 calories, 1gr of fat, 10.8gr of carbs, and 2.6 gr of protein. A teaspoon is about 5gr, so for the Silan we have 16 calories, 0 gr of fat, 3.8 gr of carbs, and 0.1 gr of protein.

P90X Kenpo X

I'm now in phase II of P90X and wanted to share some post-workout pics I took the other day after completing Kenpo X.

Workout stats:
Average HR: 137
Peak HR: 174
Calories burnt: 648

Catching my breath while trying to towel off

With my new SUUNTO M4 chest strap

Yoga mat dripping wet with sweat

Blood, sweat and tears (minus the blood) sprayed on the TV

Sweat drops on the floor

Raising the bar

I love doing pull-ups. P90X incorporates pull-ups into every resistance workout, like Chest & Back, for example. Pull-ups are also the "Go To" exercise for rock climbers...it's essentially the simplest, most effective exercise you can do.

I've had one of those pull-up bars that you install over a doorway for a while, and I found it extremely uncomfortable. I'm a pretty tall guy (1.88 m / 6'2'') and I'd have to really bend my legs when using this pull-up bar in order for my legs NOT to touch the floor. Being on the tall side, also meant that I'd usually have to watch my head passing through the doorway, cause the pull-up would just barely graze the top of my head.

So, I decided to make my own pull-up bar :-)

SUUNTO M4

Finally! I got myself a new HR monitor. I've had this simple watch with very limited functionality when it comes to getting the proper HR reading. What bothered me most about that watch was that you had to place two fingers on these sensors at the side of the watch whenever you wanted to get a HR reading. I found it very annoying...try keeping two fingers on two very small sensors when you're jumping around P90X Plyometrics, or running, or doing push-ups...impossible. Sometimes, the watch would get stuck calculating my HR and I'd have to try again. So, I decided I had enough, did some research on the internet and found the SUUNTO M-series. I was looking for a watch that had just the right balance between functionality, comfort and style. I didn't want one of those "Techy" watches that when you wear it you look like Robocop. I wanted...well, a watch...something I could wear on a day-2-day basis. I was familiar with SUUNTO from my scuba-diving days...I have one of their (very) old diving computers...but back at the time, it was considered very advance, and I remember enjoying using it on dives.

The SUUNTO M-series has five watches - M1 through M5 - where M1 is the simplest model and M5 is the most advanced. I bought the M4 because it had all the features I needed where the next model up, the M5, had one added feature which being able to connect to other SUUNTO devices like their running POD to track speed, distance, etc. Initially, I thought about getting the M5 as a kind of investment for the future, say, if I decided to get more serious with my running....but in the end, I decided that if that day comes, I'll have a good excuse to buy a better watch :-) Make sense, right?

Well, yesterday I did the P90X Kenpo X workout with my new SUUNTO M4...oh, wow...what a difference! No more trying to get false readings by putting two fingers on the sensors for like 30 seconds!!! As soon as I put on the chest strap, the watch immediately started tracking my HR. I could get an accurate HR reading any time during my workout. The watch even gave me visual and audio cues when I needed to raise or lower my HR in order to stay in the zone.

I call this watch "The Dictator"...when I woke up the first day after I bought and configured it...the first message I saw on the screen was "Exercise Day"...and when I confirmed, the next message was "45 minutes, Very Hard". LOL! If that's not a P90X watch than I don't know what is!