On Saturday I decided to do some baking. I'd had a very busy month at work and Saturday was my first chill out weekend since Christmas. So I decided to bake some muffins and had a look through my recipes. I fished out an old recipe card, one I'd inherited from Mum, for apple and raisin muffins. The card looked like it came from the 70's or 80's but the recipe seemed straightforward - and at the bottom it said 125 calories per muffin!
Wow I thought. I have a Starbucks muffin once in a while and the lowest calorie one clocks in about 275 (skinny something fruit or other muffin) all the way up to about 600 for a double chocolate or equivalent. As an aside my local have stopped doing the breakfast bran muffin which disappointed me a lot - although even that had about 550 calories. The day I found that out was a huge shock - lesson learnt that healthy does not always equal low calorie, and that muffins are essentially cake even if they are full of bran and pine nuts and things.
Anyway, I digress. I found my muffin tin and muffin cases and started cooking. The recipe said it made 16 muffins - my tin only held 12 but whatever, I'd make them a bit bigger. However when I had finished the mixture and started putting it in the cases I spotted the reason for the low calorie count - they were going to be tiny! The finished muffins (and I only made 11 in the end) filled about half of the muffin case rather than muffining over the top! I should have used normal fairy cake cases.
No wonder we were all thinner in the 80's - our muffins were less than half the size! Anyway, they tasted pretty nice. I would have taken a picture but Choc Chip was out for the day and had taken the camera and by the time I remembered, I'd eaten most of the rest or put them in the freezer.
It always bugs me that the sandwich shops have such massive pieces of cake - and the above would show this is not an unreasonable moan. People say to me, well just eat half and save the other half for another day. Unfortunately that never works - I think about the other half all afternoon and end up scoffing it anyway. I'd rather pay half price for half a piece.
The joys of cake.......
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
3 February 2009
9 January 2009
Exercise and schooldays
I only realised a couple of years ago that its possible to learn to run, and to learn how to become better at running. At school I was the kid who was picked, well not quite last for team games, but probably second or third to last. I wasn't the fat kid - but I was the kid who slowly got slightly chubbier each year. The highlight of my school PE days was coming last in the girl's cross country age 15.
I used to dread the athletics in the summer, with the horrible 800 m and 1500 m run round the track. I distinctly remember either walking the entire way, or pulling out after a lap with "breathing problems". Now that I look back at it, I wasn't particularly fit, but in my head, that was the box I lived in and the box I would stay in. The "not very fit" box. The "will never improve my fitness because that's just the way I'm meant to be" box.
The teachers didn't help matters. The good kids - the naturally good at exercise kids - they got the help. They got the training. They joined extra-curricular classes and school teams, and the teachers focussed on these kids, and all I ever heard was, "you didn't put much effort into that now did you?" Consequently by the time I got to the top of the school - I didn't bother to even try and put effort in.
Why did none of the teachers ever say, "hey I can see you need a few tips on how to get better at running/breathing/throwing the ball, let me help you?" Or even, "hey don't you realise exercise isn't about which school is the best at kicking a stupid ball round a field, its about keeping each and every one of you healthy for life?"
Of course every one has their own individual accountability, but a helping hand/kick up the backside at a vulnerable age would have meant a lot to me - and would probably mean a lot to all those kids out there who really hate their PE lessons.
So for anyone out there who had similar experiences - YOU CAN DO IT. You'll get there, and you're not alone.
I used to dread the athletics in the summer, with the horrible 800 m and 1500 m run round the track. I distinctly remember either walking the entire way, or pulling out after a lap with "breathing problems". Now that I look back at it, I wasn't particularly fit, but in my head, that was the box I lived in and the box I would stay in. The "not very fit" box. The "will never improve my fitness because that's just the way I'm meant to be" box.
The teachers didn't help matters. The good kids - the naturally good at exercise kids - they got the help. They got the training. They joined extra-curricular classes and school teams, and the teachers focussed on these kids, and all I ever heard was, "you didn't put much effort into that now did you?" Consequently by the time I got to the top of the school - I didn't bother to even try and put effort in.
Why did none of the teachers ever say, "hey I can see you need a few tips on how to get better at running/breathing/throwing the ball, let me help you?" Or even, "hey don't you realise exercise isn't about which school is the best at kicking a stupid ball round a field, its about keeping each and every one of you healthy for life?"
Of course every one has their own individual accountability, but a helping hand/kick up the backside at a vulnerable age would have meant a lot to me - and would probably mean a lot to all those kids out there who really hate their PE lessons.
So for anyone out there who had similar experiences - YOU CAN DO IT. You'll get there, and you're not alone.
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