when I am cycling, my HR usually stays up above 75%. On our last ride, I even had points that it was 95% (I was racing my husband at the very end haha). I like to keep it around 85% most of the time, so it's been great knowing exactly how hard I'm working!

As far as eating the AP's...I think it depends on your body. I've tried it both ways. When I would eat my AP's (again, with my max of 4 per day), I wasn't losing weight. I went back to eating only my daily points, and started losing again. I'm not all that strict, I eat when I need to eat, especially if I've worked out hard, but I've just found that if I eat my AP's and extra weekly points, the scale doesn't budge. I still get 25 points/day though, I know when I drop more weight and my daily allowance drops, I will need to eat up my AP's for sure.