After a long weekend it was hard to wake up this morning! Ryan had to work yesterday so I had the day to myself. I cleaned the condo and went to the mall to browse all the MLK day sales before coming back to snuggle with Reese until Ryan came home.
Workout
After work today Ryan and I decided to go to the gym and see how fast we could burn 500 calories – according to the cardio machines – I’ve heard they aren’t the most accurate when it comes to actual calories burned. I usually go to the gym to do cardio with a goal in mind to achieve a certain time or distance, never calories. So this was a new mindset for me!
We started on the stair stepper for 5 minutes and then we moved to the treadmills. I can’t compare myself to Ryan for obvious reasons but he ended up reaching 500 in about 28 minutes. Me on the other hand.. 
it took me about 48 minutes! I started off by doing intervals for 15 minutes between 3.8 mph and 5.5 mph and then I ran for 5.0 for 10 minutes. The final 18 minutes I went back and forth between 4.0 and 5.0. In the end I burned 500 calories – sounds good to me!
I felt like it was a great cardio workout for me and I liked that Ryan and I were able to do it together – even though we are on different fitness levels! Baby steps but I’m working towards my 2012 To Do list of working out more!
Mexican Tomato Bean Soup w/ Corn Dumplings
Dinner came together so easy tonight – This weekend I looked through our “Cooking Light – Way to Cook Vegetarian” cookbook and flagged a couple meals for the week. Tonight I was in the mood for some soup (it is supposed to be a cold night – maybe even some snow). I tweaked it a little bit but I think this soup will make its appearance in our kitchen again!
I had high hopes for the corn dumplings but I either used too much oil or not enough cornmeal.. they disintegrated as soon as I made them in the soup – maybe you will have better luck!
Here is the link to the original recipe – I added a can of Pinto beans and eliminated the limes (just because we didn’t have any).
Off to play hide and seek with Reese! She hides under my hanging clothes in the closet….
Have a good night – Thank goodness for a short workweek!
Sweet Tea Please 