Enough time has passed.

2022-2023 brought stretches of inactivity due to work-related injuries, an aspiration event and subsequent aspiration pneumonia, and other unforeseen crises of one nature or another. Over the summer of 2023, I lost my high-activity job when my company tanked. I’ve been mostly sedentary since July last year.

Another notable event from last summer was that I stopped using hormone patches (HRT). I’d been on HRT since I had my ovaries removed in my 30’s. I’m now 55, so menopause is natural for me rather than merely surgery-induced. With my doctor’s blessing, I tossed out the hormones. Seven months of full-blown menopause has not helped with my body composition in my inactive state, and it certainly (to this day) makes sleeping even more difficult – and humans need adequate, high-quality sleep in order to keep in top condition.

Rolling into 2024, I decided to move forward with my fitness come-back, regardless of my lingering lung injury symptoms. Every day, I use a Wixela inhaler (that doesn’t help at all but I tell myself that it does and then I proceed with my workouts, and yes, in case you were wondering, I sometimes deliberately string words together to create run-on sentences because I enjoy rebelling and making up my own punctuation rules and I hold an MFA in Creative Writing so I’ve earned the right to get creative when writing).

I’ve been working out at home, using dumbbells and Les Mills On Demand. (Les Mills for life!) I started out the year with three workouts per week (Body Pump), then added in my beloved Body Combat for conditioning, muscle endurance training, combat fighting technique practice, and H.I.I.T. cardio. Three weeks ago, I finally worked myself up to three Combat workouts per week.

2024 FITNESS OVERVIEW
Current workout schedule: 6x/week
Workouts: LM Body Combat 3x; LM Body Pump 3x
Strength progress: 100% regained, and then some. I’ve increased my weights in some muscle groups.
Conditioning progress: 98% regained. I’m now stronger than I was before, but it will take more time to return my body to its former fighting condition. I’m mostly there, though!
Problem(s): My one lingering aspiration pneumonia symptom is wheezing, and sometimes it’s hard to get a deep breath. This often slows me down in Body Combat. When that happens, I just take a minute.

In this post:
Workout date: 3/27/2024
Workout: Les Mills Body Combat, release #65
Fighting styles featured: Boxing, Kickboxing, Tae Kwan Do, Capoeira, and Muay Thai
Favorite track: 5, Power Training 2
Favorite song from the release: “The Day is My Enemy” (The Prodigy)

Music is hugely important to me. In each LM workout release, I think of my favorite song as the theme song for that release. In case you’re interested, here’s my theme song for this workout:

And, finally, I’ve got screenshots from the workout. To record, I leaned my phone against a wooden dog statuette on a bookcase shelf, and the only lighting came from the room’s two lamps, plus the kitchen lights. The picture on the back wall is crooked. I do not look cute. I will never look cute when I work out. I like to work out in (mostly old) t-shirts, and shorts or leggings that I’ve had for over ten years. This is your clue that I’m not here to be a fitness influencer in any way, shape, or form.

But first, have breakfast with me:

On this day, this is what I had as a pre-workout snack:

Now let’s put on our Body Combat workout gear!

Snaps from the workout, not in chronological order:

These next five show the stages and levels of a roundhouse kick:

As always, there’s much to be improved here, and that’s one reason I value these fitness posts. I can refer to them to see where I can do better.

That does it for this workout, friends! I gave it a “B.” My form needs improvement, and my conditioning’s not 100% back. To describe my enjoyment level, though, I gave it a solid “A.”