New stuff

I tried my first ever class of Swiss Ball Pilates at our local dance studio last night. It turned out to be pretty hilarious, and very relaxed, and whilst I'm not entirely convinced of how much benefit I got out of it exercise-wise, it was nice just to spend an hour stretching and bending and generally bouncing round on a ball - a bit of me-time.

I can definitely still feel some tightness through my left hip - legacy of the back injury, but maybe that will start to clear up soon with the help of this class. Overall, it was a very pleasant experience, and the instructor Dawn was lovely and very good at coming round and repositioning you and talking you through the exercises. The rest of the class consisted of a bunch of ladies ranging from my age to retirement, who were very chatty (and in fact chattered most of the way through the class), and we all had a giggle as we tried to master some of the moves without falling off the ball, and to a chorus of rubber-on-rubber squeaks from the balls on the mats.

In the spirit of new things, I've just rung the gym and booked in for a Body Combat class this evening. I suspect it may well kill me, but hopefully the hot weather will mean a smaller class and less people to see my abject humiliation! I tried this class once before, a couple of years ago, and I think I made it to about 15 / 20 mins before I thought I was going to pass out due to an insufficient amount of oxygen. Of course I also weighed a good 2 stone or so more than I do now and wasn't able to run at the time, so maybe that will work in my favour this evening. I hope so.

Food-wise we tried something new last night. We experimented with the turkey mince, and came out with a burger for 2 points, or 3.5 points for 2. They were freaking awesome! I took a picture because they looked so pretty, so I'll add that on here later this evening. We flavoured ours with some onion, orange pepper in little chunks and a tea-spoon and a half of Thai green curry paste between the 6 burgers - absolutely delicious, and the held together perfectly on the griddle due to the addition of 1 egg yolk and a couple of teaspoons of flour. We had them as open burgers on a toasted granary bun (one bun between 2 burgers) with a spot of extra light mayonnaise and some raw spinach. I had sweet potato wedges on the side with mine, but that was almost a bit much. I've got 2 left uncooked in the fridge for tonight, so I think they'll go on the George Foreman tonight to negate the need for any cooking oil whatsoever, and dispense with the carbs on the side - the bun is plenty of that already.

Nice to try new stuff and have it work!