fitness

Open Letter from an Autoimmune Patient to Those Concerned About Her Vegan Diet.

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment
Yours Truly on 07/17/2025. Hi.

Dear all who are concerned:

I have Sjögren’s Syndrome, a systemic autoimmune disease, and it’s with gratitude that I hear your doubts and qualms about the food that I eat. You’re worried about me. You’re worried that I’m possibly making myself sick, keeping myself sick, or making myself worse with my plant-based manner of fueling my body. I’m writing this letter in the hopes that it will ease your minds.

Instead of focusing on what’s wrong with me, focus on what’s right with me.

First, though, to review:

Between Sjögren’s Syndrome, itself, and the complications I’ve developed, I’m uncomfortable and in pain all of the time. I have a lung that’s structurally damaged and getting worse, and a stomach that’s 60% paralyzed. Sjögren’s arthritis and tendonitis leave my fingers, hands, and wrists painful and stiff; I currently can’t drive, hold a pen to write, or use my hands to push open a door.

First thing in the morning, because of my severe dry eye, I squint through one eye at a time as I feel around for the eye drops. Getting the drops into my eyes is difficult because it’s uncomfortable to keep my eyes open long enough to deposit the drops. (I often miss, re-squeeze the bottle, and end up with drops running down my face.) At the same time, my mouth, throat, and tongue are so dry, it’s an ordeal to swallow and to speak coherently. My finger joints are the worst when I wake up. I can’t close my hands into fists.

I push myself through my morning chore routine and declare victory when I can get the bed made before noon. Morning going-out plans require a self psych-out and a ride on a choppy wave of adrenaline. It helps if I’m excited about where I’m going. When I arrive, no one can tell that I battled to get there, and I relax onto the warm sands of another win.

A lot goes into the execution of an average day as I listen to my body and respect her limits. I know I’m going to be working out, and that I’ll need to show up for myself.

All of this said, I can’t feel too badly about my everyday trials and tribulations when I think of some of the things that I’m able to do, despite my chronic illness.

Examples:

–I can pull myself up in bed and swing my legs around using just my abdominal muscles. With my core strength, I can easily get up from a seated or lying down position without using my hands or other assistance. (Important because I can’t use my hands; they don’t flex backward, my wrists are weak, and the pain is a problem.)

–I can hold a 4+ minute plank on my knuckles. (Important for the same reason as parenthesized above.)

–I can walk five miles, up and down inclines at varying speeds, wearing a 12-lb weighted vest.

–I can work out nonstop for an hour doing LM Body Combat and Body Step classes, which incorporate HIIT cardio.

–I can run up and down stairs.

–I can lift weights. Using modifications where necessary to accommodate the disability in my wrists, I strength-train with weights at home, or on machines at Planet Fitness.

Amazing, isn’t it? Why focus on what’s wrong with me when I can yet do all of these things? Clearly, I’m doing something right.

I work out through the pain, and I get it done. These days, I work out six days a week. Regular exercise is highly encouraged by my doctors; it’s practically prescribed.

Imagine! I’m chronically ill with pain, discomfort, and a slew of medical challenges, yet I feel good in my body, and I’m fitter than many women my age (56) who aren’t sick. How can this be?

Food is medicine, and food is fuel. The food that I eat energizes my body even when I’m sleepy and tired. The energy in my body permits me to exercise consistently. What is this miracle food that allows me to maintain my fitness and a healthy weight in the face of my autoimmune encumbrances as a middle-aged woman in menopause with hypothyroidism and osteoporosis, to boot?

Plants.

I get my macronutrients (carbs, fats, and proteins, nutrients that we need in large quantities to ensure that our bodies function properly) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, trace minerals) from plants and plant-based foods. I’ve never been anemic or deficient in any vitamin or mineral.

Autoimmune disease is an inflammatory disease, and an anti-inflammatory diet is largely whole food, plant-based.

Rather than making me sick, plant-based eating makes it possible for me to enjoy a solid level of fitness despite my chronic illness, because I wouldn’t be able to do it if I didn’t feel this vitality in my veins. Rest assured that I am not making myself worse with my plant-based diet.

I’ve taken brief steps away from veganism over the years, for various reasons, so I know how much worse I feel when I do eat mammals, birds, fish, and dairy. It never went well. I experienced level 11 pain when Sjögren’s arthritis attacked both of my ankles in a bad flare. I couldn’t walk for two weeks. I was 25 years old.

Arthritis, rashes, bodily fatigue, and gastroparesis flares were just some of the additional issues I experienced. Every time, I returned to my plant-based diet, and I felt better. Even with my current problems, I feel better now than when I wasn’t vegan, because I have this awesome energy in my body. I always felt sluggish when I ate meat and animal products. For me, personally, there is no comparison.

It’s important to note that one autoimmune disease can lead to other AI diseases, and complications are always a lurking threat. Experts don’t know what causes autoimmunity in the first place; theories include genetics and environmental factors, but at this point, no one knows for sure.

What is known is that there are triggers that can interfere with the management of autoimmune conditions. For instance, stress can trigger flares, so minimizing stress as much as possible is always a goal. Foods that promote inflammation in the body should be avoided, while anti-inflammatory foods should be favored. Anti-inflammatory foods are plant foods such as fruit; veggies; whole grains; nuts; seeds; legumes (i.e. beans, lentils, and peanuts); and healthy fats found in certain plants and fish (i.e. olive and avocado oils, along with the omega-3 fatty acids found in flax seeds and fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, and sardines).

For research-based findings and information regarding the correlation between autoimmune diseases and whole food, plant-based diets (WFPB), I’m asking you to take the time to read this article published by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine: The Benefits of Plant-Based Nutrition: Treatment and Prevention of Autoimmune Disease. I’m providing the link here. The American College of Lifestyle Medicine is “A society of medical professionals united to reverse chronic disease,” and they provide a wellspring of information with research- and evidence-based educational pieces on this and various, related topics.

The Benefits of Plant-Based Nutrition: Treatment and Prevention of Autoimmune Disease

Though I do take pharmaceutical treatments for my disease, I consider my whole food, plant-based diet to be just as essential. I’m blessed to have the health that I have, but I also take some credit for my wellness. I’ll hang onto my vegan lifestyle, but thank you for your concern. I know that it comes from love.

I love you, too.

Several average days in the life of a jobless GenX-er. (FOOD and FITNESS-centric!! Lots of pics!)

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Hello. I’m a fitness junkie, a combat veteran, and a jobless GenX-er with PTSD, autoimmunity, and a partially collapsed lung, and this post is for anyone who’s curious about what I may get up to in an average week. Let’s jump in!

Every morning, first thing: I put in lubricating eye drops so I can fully open my eyes, and I drink water so I can swallow. (Sjögren’s syndrome.) Also, take I take my thyroid medication. (Autoimmune thyroiditis/Hashimoto’s.)

The necessary lubricating eye drops and a thyroid pill first thing in the morning.

Then I make the bed. We’re looking at my side of it, with my plush octopus (that I call “Levi”).

Making the bed, not crawling back into it. (Alas.)

On this morning, I was able to bond with my desert tortoise, because he was out. It was Monday. We had our first monsoon rain of 2024 that day, and Geronimo spent more time in the yard than in his burrow! I went out to enjoy time with him in the morning, afternoon, and evening. By the end of the day, my heart was full with Geronimo love. It is so special. HE is so special. He is my heart; I love him so much. I can’t even explain it.

Lots of time with my precious little boy on this day.

Then I came in and prepared our coffee, as usual. I love this little ritual, love looking forward to coffee. My fav is black with a powdered blend of eight mushrooms, and also powdered monk fruit extract. Kyle likes his coffee the same way, but he takes plant milk in his.

Black coffee with mushrooms and monk fruit.

I prefer to finish my coffee before eating breakfast. Breakfast is usually some kind of cereal with frozen blueberries. I mix up a half-serving of vanilla plant protein shake to use instead of milk. It is delicious! If I don’t have cereal, I’ll have a piece of Ezekiel toast with Earth Balance and a full-serving chocolate plant protein shake.

(Mon-Sat, that is. I make chocolate-chip protein pancakes every Sunday morning.)

Cereal with frozen blueberries and a vanilla protein shake for the milk.

I almost always watch a video or two while I eat. I’m subscribed to quite a few YouTube channels, a handful of which are just regular people whose shenanigans I follow in their vlogs. The video I watched on this day was one of those.

Watched a video while eating breakfast.

Next, I pop the rest of my morning meds and do my Wixela inhaler.

Meds. Inhaler. Horror-themed water bottle. Check, check, & check.

Then I head into the bathroom to press a warm/hot compress onto my eyes, which is both a Sjögren’s management thing and the first step in my morning skincare routine. My Sjögren’s mainly attacks my eyes and mouth. Mostly my eyes.

The morning compress on my eyes feels incredible and makes a huge difference.

After that, I get ready for the day – brush my teeth, do my skin and hair, and put on something comfy.

For my first task of the morning on this day, I continued with my office closet re-org project. This is where I keep the clothes I don’t wear on a daily basis.

Moving things from one closet to another always generates a re-org project.

I gathered things for the Goodwill, did some laundry, and also spent some time searching for remote jobs.

Tuesday! On this day, I headed out to the dentist’s for a cleaning.

Going in to get my teeth cleaned is about a Tuesday thing to do as any other thing.

From there, I went to do some grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping at Fry’s

Also went to grab a few things from Target. Now, I’m not an impulse shopper, and I don’t enjoy shopping for clothes, but I walked past this dress on the clearance rack, and I had to try it on. Then, of course, I had to buy it. It was only $9.61!

Gorgeous dress on clearance!

It’s hard to understand what’s going on just by looking at pics. The inside layer is a short strappy bodycon slip dress, and the outer layer is a long floaty lace shift. The back is open. This dress is beautiful, and I can’t believe that I got it for less than ten bucks. Believe it or not, I didn’t own a single long solid black dress. Now I do. I have an occasion in mind for it, too.

This is the back. It’s open.

On my way home, I stopped in at a friend’s house to water their plants while they’re out of town. Later in the afternoon, I grabbed my usual protein bar for a pre-workout snack. I eat one of these bars six days a week, before every workout, and I never get tired of it. It’s basically a Thin Mint in bar form.

One of my fav protein bars.

So, yeah, I work out six days a week. This day was Tuesday, so it was strength-training with dumbbells, aka Body Pump on Les Mills On Demand. This was release #99, in case anyone’s interested in knowing that!

Hydrating.

I grabbed these screenshots from the video clip I recorded during the back track. Apologies for the horrible lighting, friends. Yikes. It’s bad.

Rows
Clean-and-press

Body Pump’s approach is an hour of light weights, high reps, and very little rest. These dumbbells are adjustable, and here I have them set at 15 lbs. It’s a good weight for the millions of reps that we do during the fast-paced 5-7 minute back workout.

Adjustable dumbbells

The next day was Wednesday, and I spent a little time in the kitchen.

Making a big batch of pico de gallo.
Fresh pico for days! I make it extra green (hot)

Then I made a high-protein “longevity” salad:

High-protein longevity salad with tahini-lemon dressing. I had half of a red cabbage, some green onions, and a couple of lemons to use up, so this salad was the perfect thing to make.

Wednesday is a Combat day. I have atelectasis (collapsed lung – mine is partial, as it’s only my lower right lung lobe); I have to do this Albuterol inhaler before I can start a Combat workout. Combat is basically 60 minutes of H.I.I.T., and I find it hard to catch a deep breath toward the end of the highly intense workout.

Because of atelectasis.

This is LMoD Combat #77, by the way. It’s one of my favorite Combat releases!

More apologies for the dark and grainy screenshots. The lighting was dim and totally unsuitable for filming. But you get the idea.

Just playing.
“The Wall”
NOT playing.
Leg check.

Later that night, I caught a mirror selfie almost by accident when I was talking to Kyle. I was standing at my little dresser getting ready to remove my make-up, and I had my phone in my hands. Glanced in the mirror while we were talking, and lo, I saw an opportunity. I will never understand how mirror selfies work, so when I saw this, I had to snap it.

Hilarious, but it seems to have worked.

The next morning was Thursday. Today. I had an onion and a scant cup of green lentils that I wanted to use up, so I made lentil soup for lunch.

I love an easy lentil soup recipe that calls mostly for pantry staples!
Lentil soup and spinach tortilla wraps stuffed with the high-protein longevity salad and tahini-lemon dressing that I made yesterday.

We also had the sugar-free vegan black bean brownies I made last week. They sound weird, but they are actually scrumptious, deeply chocolatey and rich. No one can believe that there’s two cans of black beans in this pan of brownies. It’s just a great recipe!

Black bean brownie. SORCERY.

Tonight: Dinner with my love while watching one of our current shows.

“The Boys” – if you know, you know.

I brewed up our nightly hot ginger tea. We started drinking this tea to assist with after-dinner digestion, and now, we’re oddly addicted to it. We drink it because we crave it!

Our favorite nighttime beverage: hot ginger tea.

When I sat down to put this post together, I realized that I never got pics of the girls this week! I immediately set out on a kitty-hunt. Here’s what I managed to get:

A Roary.
And a Sabrina.

And now, my friends, I’m heading to bed. Tomorrow is Friday, and I’ll be able to continue (and hopefully finish) some ongoing tasks around here.

I hope you all had a good week! Until next time!

All Right, Lunger. Let’s do it. (Lung and Fitness updates!)

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

We’re talking about my lung, so I stretched and reached for that Tombstone quote, even though my lung issues have nothing to do with tuberculosis. (Definitely a stretch, but Tombstone is my all-time favorite and most re-watched movie. Let me have it!)

Today marks a bizarre anniversary. It was one year ago today that I accidentally inhaled a large vitamin caplet. That’s right. It’s been a year. On May 10, 2023, I aspirated a vitamin. The next day, I consequently developed aspiration pneumonia.

For those of you accompanying me on my path back from this absurd and inexplicable event, I’m here to share the latest. My recent CT scan – taken a month ago – revealed that I’m continuing to make progress. Some scarring remains, and there are some ongoing shenanigans taking place down there in my lung, but I’ve improved considerably.

Impressions copied/pasted from my CT scan report:
1). A stable 6 mm solid nodule versus nodular scarring in the right lower lobe.
2). Mild bilateral lower lobe bronchiectasis and multifocal mucous plugging in the right lower lobe.
3). Stable regions of chronic linear scarring and subsegmental atelectasis in the right lower lobe.

The reason why all of this damage is in my right lower lung lobe is that that is where shit goes when you inhale it. If you didn’t know, now you know.

My doctor encouraged me to give it time, because the situation at the beginning was “very, very bad,” and the COVID I had back in November likely impacted my recovery process. I should be patient as my lung continues to heal, she advised.

I’m not worried. We compared this CT scan with the one that was done a year ago, and the whole picture’s looking MUCH better. In the initial scan last year, my right lung lobe was so riddled with opacity that it lit up like a wayward Christmas tree.

Symptoms-wise, I still wheeze somewhat, though nowhere near as dramatically as before. I still sometimes struggle to take a deep breath, especially at night when I’m lying on my back, and also toward the end of my hour-long Body Combat workouts. To help with this, my doctor increased my Wixela inhaler medication dosage and instructed me to use it twice a day, morning and night, rather than just once. She also has me doing my Albuterol inhaler right before working out, so I can breathe comfortably throughout the hour. It’s been capital! I’m breathing easier during Combat, and thanks to my nighttime Wixela dose, I’m also getting to sleep a little bit faster.

It’s been quite the road. Along the way, I couldn’t have imagined what this one-year anniversary post would contain, and now here we are: I still have symptoms. I have damage. But the symptoms and the damage aren’t keeping me from doing anything, and that, my friends, is all that matters. As far as I’m concerned, this is my new normal, and I’m okay with it. Working out religiously 6x/week, I’ve managed to re-build my muscle mass while also getting back down to my normal weight of 110 lbs. (Fortunately, I’d only gained 12-ish lbs during the seven or so months I couldn’t exercise.)

In honor of this one-year, um, vitamin anniversary, I took some pics yesterday before and during my Combat workout.

First, earlier yesterday afternoon:

Sitting around with red lights in my eyes, as one does.

Okay, I took a bunch of selfies while sitting on the couch, and they all came out with red dots of light in my eyes. You know that I’m still too lazy to figure out how to edit photos. It’s whatever. Just know that I’m not possessed.

This brings us to these slightly awkward, cheesy, potentially cringey pics! Enjoy.

Arms, post-Body Combat:

VEGAN GAINS.

Shoulders, post-Body Combat:

MORE GAINS.

Forearms:

Okay, not a great pic, but you get the idea. Haha!

And the real stars of the show: Inhalers!

Help with exercise and sleep, respectively.

I’m supposed to be taking my prescribed Mucinex, as well, but I’ve been awful at that. Meaning, I haven’t taken it at all, and I don’t know that I will. I don’t feel that I need it, but you know what? It wouldn’t hurt to try it!

Okay, I’ll take the Mucinex. See, you guys help me out just by being here, by being a part of this experience. Your reading holds me accountable, and for that, I thank you.

Until next week, then, right?

[::holds up water flask for a water toast::]

Go forth in good health, my friends.

At-Home H.I.I.T. Combat Workout (Fitness Updates!)

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

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:

My current go-to breakfast is a mixture of almond Ezekiel cereal, Bob’s Red Mill Old Country Style muesli, fresh or frozen berries, and half of a vanilla protein shake for the milk. I use Orgain plant-based protein powder.

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

Pre-workout snack choice of the day: a brown rice cake spread with a mixture of PB powder, monk fruit sweetener, and cinnamon.

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

Shoes and gloves, of course, and a brace for my bad right ankle. Knee braces for my bad knees. The braces are game-changers. I call them my “exoskeleton.” I can write a whole fitness post about them, alone.

Snaps from the workout, not in chronological order:

Sprints
(Some kind of) fighting stance
Hook
Side kick
Squat jumps
Squat jumps
Using my t-shirt as a towel.
Jump turn
Ginga
Squat touch-downs
Lunge (turn sequence)

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

Roundhouse kick, start
Roundhouse kick, extending
Roundhouse kick, extended
Roundhouse kick, slightly higher (to the limit of my flexibility). I am not flexible.
Roundhouse kick, bringing it down.
Fast-paced push-ups
Fast-paced push-ups with shoulder taps.
Taking a second to try to get a deep breath.
Descending elbow
Ascending elbow
Power knee
Uppercut

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.”

2023 reflection and 2024 New Year’s Goals!

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

As I’d mentioned previously, I’m excited about this new year. I’ve taken some time to recenter myself, and I’m feeling energized in moving forward with clear focus.

Here’s a blurb, a brief summary, a bit of backstory for any of you who are new here: 2023 was a horrendous, heinous, atrocious year. Yours was, too? I am so sincerely sorry.

2023 got the better of me because I allowed it to. I found myself focusing on each awful thing that happened because I got swept up into the whole of it. I lost my footing, which I guess was easy to do. After all, before I could recover from one thing, the next thing hit, and so on, and so forth. Not only was there no respite between events, but many of them overlapped. 

The one blissful, magnificent, luminous spot in the clouded-over year was our wedding and honeymoon. As soon as we got back, 2023 started up again.

So I got swept up in this ridiculous tidal wave, and I allowed it to set me back. At some point, instead of working through my grief, I withdrew from the world.

And I got nothing done.

And I’m in pretty terrible physical shape.

So this year, I’m going to get shit done. I’m going to get back into great shape. Most importantly, I’m going to get strong again and return to the level of physical conditioning that makes me feel right. (I do not need or want to lose weight. I want my muscle mass back, thank you.)

You know what I find to be interesting? On the surface, my personal set-backs looked, to me, like failures, but upon reflection, I recognize that they were not. I didn’t fail. I flailed. It was my own fault that the year was a gigantic flail-fest, and I’ve learned from it. There will be no flailing in 2024, my friends. I know that there won’t be, and not because I believe that nothing will go wrong. I’m under no such impression. I know for a fact that I wasn’t born yesterday; I have zero expectations of uneventfulness from this new year. Indeed, 2024 has already thrown in not one, but two crises. They hurled in quite rudely only 13 days into the year, but I was mentally refreshed and ready for them.

This year is going to be better because I’m going to make it better, I’ve decided. I’ve written out some goals and other notes in a journal that I keep at hand:

NEW YEAR – 2024

It’s been going well. Really well. Firstly, I had to get back on course, and I have, and I’m pleased with this accomplishment. My life required a compass calibration, and I made that happen. I’m heading in the right direction.

Secondly, we’re 18 days into the year, and I’ve logged in workouts on nine of those days! I’m currently working out at home, lifting weights (6x) and throwing punches and kicks (1x). The other two days were walking days. It’s a start. What I’m aiming for is three strength-training workouts and two combat workouts per week, plus a walk every day. As it is, I’m feeling good despite my slow start – because it’s a start! – and I’m enjoying the feeling of strength coming back.

Today: January 18, 2024

Oh, but – if consistency is key to fitness success – and I believe that it is – then I did fail in 2023, in this regard. To be fair, though, two unique medical events occurred and disrupted my fitness momentum in 2023: respiratory aspiration and subsequent long-term pneumonia with residual lung damage (May-present), and COVID (November).

I’m incredibly happy and grateful to be back after losing control of my health and well-being in the midst of 2023’s villainous shenanigans. Getting out of shape was as detrimental to my mental health as was my shutting down and withdrawing. I have PTSD. I need structure and physical activity in my life in order to function in a healthy, balanced way.

Preview to next week’s post: Also in 2023, I decided to wean off of benzos and ditch hormone replacement therapy. This threw a double blow to my sleep. Never mind my classic chronic issue of getting to bed too late! That was – is – a behavioral pattern. What’s happening now is physical: sleep has been an actual struggle in and of itself. I’ve been working on it, and I think I’ve finally arrived at a method that promotes drug-free sleep for Yours Truly, who has taken Klonopin every night for, oh, 20+ years.

I’m excited to share this part of my journey, too, and I’ll do so in hopes that someone (one of you?) can benefit from my trial and error.

Speaking of sleep, it’s well past that time. Stay healthy, my friends. Until next week!

Plot Twist: October Fitness Updates!

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Ahem. Please to allow an interruption of this Short Horror October 2023 series as I slip in a fitness updates post, because I’ve got updates. After starting and stopping and twice slogging through post-workout soreness, aka Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), aka agony that made walking practically impossible the last time it happened, I’ve at last managed to haul my “return to exercise” mission back to a place of consistency.

My right lung is still somewhat of a mess, and it may never be the same again, but I can’t allow it to control my fitness. My CT scan of two weeks ago showed “near resolution of consolidation,” along with scarring (and some other nonsense of which I won’t speak at the moment), meaning that I still haven’t completely cleared the pneumonia, and there’s now a bit of damage as a result of the infection. I’m under the care of an excellent pulmonologist who continues to have no objection to my working out, so it’s entirely on me to do what I can fitness-wise. She sent me in for a pulmonary functioning test two days ago, results forthcoming, and I’m continuing with my treatment regimen of twice-daily Wixela inhaler.

All of that to say that if I can work out to any extent, I will. Lung damage or no lung damage, I’m lifting weights three days a week. Today was workout Day 4, and I’m already starting to feel like myself again, energetic and happy to be in my body.

Current breakfast of choice, Monday-Saturday: oatmeal cooked in water and combined with chocolate plant protein powder, cinnamon, and plain unsweetened soymilk.

Several months ago – since I lost my job, actually – I quit intermittent fasting and got back to eating protein-packed oatmeal six mornings a week. I’m hooked. Peanut Butter Pancake Sunday is sacred and will not change. I still use Birch Benders plant protein pancake & waffle mix for that; it is delicious.

For my workouts, I’m back to living-room gym sessions using dumbbells to do my favorite Les Mills Body Pump classes (Les Mills On Demand), and I have my eye on a certain Funk Roberts workout, as well. Stay tuned for that! Have I mentioned that I rearranged the furniture in the living room so I’m not having to work out behind the couch anymore? I’ll be able to start posting fitness updates with pics again.

On that note, friends, I’ll leave you to your agendas of the moment. Oh! This Saturday in the cosmos we’re having a full Hunter’s Moon/partial lunar eclipse/Blood Moon situation, and it is going to be magickal.

BUT I DID IT. (Fitness updates!)

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So that just happened.

It’s been four and a half months since I got sick after inhaling a horse pill into my lung, and I just finished working out for the first time. It was humbling, to say the least. BUT I DID IT.

The doctor gave me exercise clearance a while ago, and I’d spoken in all seriousness of starting back up: I’ll do yoga, I decided. But that didn’t happen, because Life, so it wasn’t until today that I finally put on my gym shoes, and when I did, I did not do yoga. I pulled up a Les Mills Body Pump workout and jumped into strength-training with dumbbells.

The workout kicked my ass, BUT I DID IT.

(Granted, I’m still wheezing. I have a pulmonary appointment in a few weeks, so we’ll see.)

Here’s how it went:

Track One, Legs: Halfway through the squats, I had to give up the pace and bring it down to half-time. This was necessary in order to maintain perfect form. That is how out of shape I am. BUT I DID IT.

Track Two, Chest: It went well despite my legs shaking in the aftermath of the leg track.

Track Three, Back: Another successful track, but I called it a day as soon as it was over. I was feeling tired and slightly nauseous BUT I DID IT and it was fine because the first 30 minutes of Body Pump’s large-muscle-group tracks constitutes a full-body workout.

So I followed the doctor’s orders exactly: I took it slowly, listened to my body, and tapped out accordingly… and I took it light. I used three-pound dumbbells for the full-body warm-up, and five-pound dumbbells for the leg, chest, and back tracks. My normal dumbbell weight for the back track is 12 pounds. It was a struggle even with very light weights, BUT I DID IT.

Now I can really relate to those of you who are starting your fitness journeys from level 0, because that’s about where I am.

We’re in this together, friends.

Of lemons.

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I’m ready for tomorrow. Coffee maker: prepped with ground coffee and water. Peanut butter sandwich: made and ready to throw into my bag before I leave the house for work. Now I’m reclining on the bed, leaning against pillows beneath a blanket, fresh out my nightly lavender aromatherapy shower. My hair is clean and damp, and that is one of my favorite feelings. There’s a glass of ice water at my side, and a large mug of hot water with the juice and pulp of half a lemon – one of my latest obsessions.

^ I wrote that paragraph last night and then got too sleepy to continue. Typical. I took this selfie first, though:

Post-shower, post-aromatherapy, post nightly skin care routine. [15 June 2023]

Picking up where I left off, I find it interesting how illness often seeds new obsessions and rituals. I now look forward to the nightly mug of hot lemon water. (Is there a name for that beverage? Lemon tea?) I started drinking it at night at the suggestion of a nurse at the beginning of the pneumonia – going on five weeks ago – yes, I still have it, though I’m on the mend. I’m waiting patiently for my lung to heal, and it’s been tricky, this waiting. I’m terrible at it, impatient with taking it easy, with the wheezing and gurgling in my lung when I breathe (gross). But instead of focusing on that, I lie in bed every night all cozy and clean and aromatherapied and counting my many blessings as I sip my hot lemon water.

And now it’s morning, and I’m sitting at the kitchen counter writing this as I sip from an enormous mug of coffee before I get ready for work.

Yes, I’m back at work.

No, I haven’t yet been cleared to work out. Two days ago at the hospital I posed the question again and was told in no uncertain terms that I’m not to do any lifting, not even light weights. No lifting at all. No elevating my heart into the aerobic zone. My body, said the doctor, is trying to heal my lung, and it can’t do that if it’s busy lifting things and experiencing any kind of heart-rate increase. Being inactive is going to help my body in this bizarre reverse universe.

BE THAT AS IT MAY, I’m grateful that I can otherwise go about my regular life. I go to work and then go straight home; I haven’t run any after-work errands since I’ve been sick. I’m grateful for the health that I have, incredibly grateful for Kyle, who’s been taking care of me and making sure that I don’t do too much.

Oh! Speaking of working out, I have been cleared to do stretches for my exercise. I’d been getting into that, anyway, as you may recall. That’ll have to be the main event rather than the supplemental event, and the more I think about it, the more eager I am to see where that takes me. Perhaps I’ll get back into yoga, proper. Perhaps it’ll shape the future of my fitness life in ways that wouldn’t happened otherwise. Illness, as I’d said, seeds new obessions. I don’t know about you, but interests easily become obsessions in my world.

Have the loveliest of days, friends.

May the Fourth stretching session. (Fitness updates!)

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Hello, friends. I was going to tell you the story of what’s been going on with me this last week – since last week Wednesday night – but I stopped mid-draft and set it aside for the time-being. I don’t have all of the clinical information yet, and I’d rather tell you a complete story than a Part 1. A Part I leads to a Part 2, and I don’t wish to write about this (latest awful and weird – insert eye-roll) incident more than once.

So instead, I come to you tonight with a post I drafted a couple of weeks ago. I’ve got some (dubious) pics of a stretching session I did here at home on Thursday, May 4, and I thought I’d share them with you fitness enthusiasts. There’s honestly not much to say about the stretching workout, itself, except that I went into it with the intention of doing actual yoga. Beyond that? It just felt damn good to get down onto the yoga mat and stretch out my limbs, back, shoulders, chest, pretty much everything.

I said they were “dubious” because getting the pics turned out to be somewhat of an adventure. My new living room configuration has me working out between the back of the couch and a wall, leaving very little in the way of photo ops at decent angles, distances, and lightning. Working out behind the couch is fine, but grabbing footage/pics back there is another story. I’ll figure it out!

As for my plan to do more stretching, I’ve got an eye on Les Mill’s BodyFlow program. I figured I’d just try it out, see how it goes, how I feel about it. I find that I benefit the most from guided workout sessions, and Les Mills On Demand is the absolute business in that arena.

My main interest in incorporating dedicated stretching sessions into my workout routine is stress-reduction. Inordinate stress can wreck the body. It’s been doing a number on mine, let me tell you. 2023 has been challenging. There’s been a lot in the way of stress and distress, and my body’s shown textbook signs of it. I’ll spare you the rundown of the medical shenanigans that’ve gone down over the last few months. Suffice it to say that I’m now taking action at the root of the problem.

Bottom line: It’s in my power and it’s on me to do something to manage my stress levels. I need to sleep adequately, stretch my body regularly, and engage in a meditation practice in order to invite equilibrium and balance back into my being. A moving meditation practice such as yoga can strengthen the mind/body connection, and that’s what I need.

So here we are at the pics, friends. As I’d said, I just got down and did a few basic stretches, and I’m sorry that it escaped me that doing stuff on the floor in a cramped space would present a problem with photojournaling. The pics are pathetic in terms of, well, you can’t really see what the hell I’m doing. Again, I’ll experiment with the camera situation so I can put up decent fitness posts again.

There are just a few, and they’re from last week Thursday, May 4.

Here’s Yours Truly behind the couch:

Stabilizing in a side plank.

Working on my forward stretch/arm flexibility.

I’m not flexible at all, friends. That is literally as far up as I can raise my arms with my hands clasped behind my back.

Stretching hips and triceps.

I have to figure out a better way to place my phone to capture shots for my living room workouts. You can’t see what I’m doing with my lower body in the above pic. It’s a hip stretch.

Attempting an upper back stretch, again the best I can do with limited flexibility. I know I can achieve improvement. Give me a few weeks of self-discipline in a guided yoga program, and I’ll come back with a progress report!

(This is my attempt at a cobra pose, by the way. It’s okay if you’re laughing. I am.)

Performing a hamstring stretch.

I have one leg bent at the knee in front of me, and the other leg stretched out behind – though that back leg is supposed to be bent at the knee, too – and I’m holding that pose while leaning down toward the floor.

Holding a triceps stretch, both arms overhead, left handing grabbing my right elbow and pulling it toward my head.

(I remember that I wore those pants to work that day; I just changed my t-shirt when I got home.)

There you have it, my friends. If anything, I hope you got from this that if I can do any kind of exercise in a cramped space, then so can you!

Dealing with my current ridiculous (soon to be explained) situation, I need to recover adequately before hitting the floor for more working out. My 2023 fitness journey has been a start-and-stop endeavor, but you know what? Listen to me, 2023: I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.

That’s my theme song of the year. I’ll leave you fine folks with the video.

I hope you’re all doing well out there, wherever you are in the world. I love and appreciate that you’ve stuck with me despite my inconsistency here. Thank you.

Pumped-up thoughts. (Fitness updates!)

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It’s very early morning here, and I come to you from my kitchen with a huge mug of hot Pike coffee sweetened with monk fruit extract and lightened with soymilk, and isn’t it true that if you drink coffee, there are few moments in a day as satisfying as this one?

Hello there, old friends, and welcome, new friends! You latter bunch seem to mostly hail from fitness communities, so I thought I’d speak to you… and you, and you, and you, meaning those of you who aren’t from fitness communities, as well. Many of you folks have been here for years. Thank you for hanging around all this time!

Well, I’d set several goals for the new year, and I’ve yet to reach the one where I get back into a consistent blog-posting schedule… or the one where I regularly check my email… or the one where I check messages on social media, or the voice mails on my phone, for that matter… (I’m really the worst at staying connected, and not proud of it, let me assure you)… or the one where I get more sleep!… but I have managed to dial back into my committment to fitness. I can now report that I have arrived. I have reached my destination. It was the last turn on the left, three months down on the right, and I’m here to stay for as long as circumstances allow. Life does happen. There may be more hiatuses in the future, but it’s humbling to know that I can get back into the groove when I set my mind to it. I never feel right when I take extended breaks from fitness. Returning to it feels like returning to myself.

So, having finally integrated a training regimen back into the rhythm of my mundane day-to-day and week-to-week, and feeling that it was such a momentous feat, I thought I’d share a little aspect of it. I mean, it’s a great feeling to get back into the fitness game after months of sitting it out. Along the way I’ve been reminded that muscle memory isn’t a myth. In a short period of time, I’ve regained what I’d lost, and I can see a clear fitness path to a place beyond where I was before.

(I still have a Planet Fitness membership, but it’s been all Les Mills On Demand these last six weeks. BodyPump and BodyCombat are my main fitness jams. The love is real.)

Getting back to my point: The aspect of fitness I want to share is thoughts... because working out is mind over matter, and so on and so forth, and while such adages seem stale, they’re quite apt.

Now, physical training has always served as a form of moving mediation for me, a meditation that includes the mental challenge involved in making it through a tough workout. Just as in traditional meditation, my mind tends to wander. When I want to direct my brainwaves and focus inwardly, then, where do my thoughts land? Here are some of the things that pass through my mind while working out, things that seem random, but actually apply directly to my efforts as I struggle to maintain my form and keep up the pace while strength-training in, say, BodyPump:

Thor.
I think of this formidable deity, and I imagine that he’s got my back. He lends me fortitude.

Archangel Michael.
The divine warrior, flaming sword in hand. I don’t have to request his presence to help me through a tough workout. He’s always there. When my thoughts turn to him, I feel his strength.

Music.
Rhythm in percussion and bass is always a driving force.

The elements:

Earth.
Being rooted, grounded.

Air.
Swiftness and weightlessness, imagery that actually helps me to lift heavy weights.

Fire.
Blazing energy.

Water.
Fluidity in movement.

A part of the joy of working out is the elation I feel when I persevere through physical challenge to make it to the goals that I set for myself during that workout. The euphoria is both physical and emotional, coming through in brain chemistry and the feeling of accomplishment. It’s more than a rush. It’s being high on achievement, and I’ve found that my thought processes during my workouts amp it all up. They help me to work harder and go the distance. I feel stronger in my body, more energetic the next day, and I sleep better. The benefits of exercise can’t be overhyped, and every time I return to the fitness life after being away for a while, I can’t imagine how I’d managed in the interrim.

With that, I’m drinking the last of the coffee before getting ready for work. I wish you all the wondrousness you find in your efforts, whatever they may be!

What is my “Wellness Routine”?

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Tonight, the moon is three days old. There’s something about this particular moon – waxing crescent – that makes me want to pull weeds under her light. It’s the strangest little hum of an urge and I don’t think I’ll ever do it, but I enjoy thinking about it.

(The moon that set approximately six minutes ago.)

It came to my attention that a famous actress has been mocked and lambasted for her “wellness routine,” which she divulged to the public recently. The ruckus led me to reflect. How would I sum up my own wellness routine?

My wellness routine includes body lotion after a lavender aromatherapy shower every night; working out and focusing on my mind/body connection while performing the exercises; eating nutrient-dense, high-vibration, delicious food; bonding with my animal babies; listening to music; engaging in my spiritual practices; writing; tending to my twice-daily skin care rituals; making space for my creativity; and being in nature. It’s all divine, all devotional. I’m grateful.

Bonuses to throw in: work, where I (still!) love to go to do the job that I (still!) enjoy. Movies and streaming T.V. shows, which intrigue, delight, horrify, and amuse. Cooking and baking, especially baking. These days it’s healthy quick breads, muffins, and scones.

Family and friends… I would call those blessings.

I still aspire to getting more sleep, as it’s critically important, but my return to working out 4-5 days per week has been the greatest. At home, I’ve dialed it in with Les Mills On Demand Pump and Combat. At the gym, it’s traditional weight-training and the treadmill. Re-establishing my fitness routine, dedicating time and care to my physical fitness has been – I mean, it’s been absolute sorcery, what it’s done for my spirits. A recent double loss plus a harrowing time for another loved one has amounted to too much tragedy in too short a span of time, and my fitness discipline has helped immensely.

But sleep, now. Sleep is the final piece of the wellness puzzle. It’s the most challenging for me, and I should finish this post on that note. It’s time to focus on sleep and really make an effort, and I should start this very second! I wish you all a good-night (or day… or whatever it is for you).

Until next time, my friends. Take care and stay safe out there!

Confessions of a (former) Gym Snob: I joined Planet Fitness, and I love it. (Fitness updates!)

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I went to the gym today. And yesterday, and the day before, and four days last week. I’m hanging on to my Les Mills On Demand subscription for home workouts, but recently I’ve added an actual gym component back into my fitness routine. I’ve returned to my old habits, my friends, and I feel so much better! I’m eating 98% high-vibration foods and lifting weights and doing cardio and feeling strong and energetic and good in my body again.

In my car in the gym parking lot before heading in to my workout.

I can feel my renewed commitment to my physical well-being benefiting my mental health, as well. I experienced two losses last month that both cut deeply, pretty much back-to-back. My cat has been sick. A close family member has been struggling in ongoing crisis. It’s been stressful, and I very much needed to return to gym therapy. When I finally did, I joined… Planet Fitness.

Now, fellow gym rats, I know what you’re thinking. I know because I used to be right there with you, mocking and ridiculing Planet Fitness. It’s the gym notorious for kicking people out for wearing spaghetti straps, for sounding a “Lunk Alarm” when someone commits the crime of grunting while lifting heavy weights, and for lacking an Olympic barbell.

Lies. Lies, my friends.

Well, the 45lb Olympic barbell part is true. There isn’t one at Planet Fitness. But that doesn’t seem to discourage seasoned strength athletes and career gym rats from working out there.

I mean, even two weeks in, I go to the gym and look around in bewilderment, because I still don’t recognize the place. I know that I’m in a Planet Fitness, but… am I?

I don’t recognize the women in the short, tight gym shorts and sexy sports bras and nothing else, because those women in those outfits aren’t supposed to be there… yet they are, and no one says anything.

I don’t recognize the guys in bodybuilding muscle shirts and the kind of tanks that have wispy straps of fabric looped over their shoulders and armholes so long, the guys might as well be unclothed completely. Those guys aren’t supposed to be there, either, according to Planet Fitness lore. But they are there, and no one cares.

Neither do I recognize the super built, ripped folk walking around in skin-tight microfiber t-shirts and weighted vests, because Planet Fitness is a “beginner’s gym” – so advanced athletes aren’t supposed to be there, either.

Or any of the serious strength athletes – of all ages and genders – focusing intently on their training.

Oh, there is indeed a “Lunk Alarm” warning banner up on the wall in the free weight area, but it seems to be there for entertainment purposes, because the Lunk Alarm isn’t sounded when people audibly exert physical effort. My trainer said that they only time the Lunk Alarm is used is at the end of days that have closing times, as a way to alert people that the gym is going to be closing soon. (The gym is open 24/5 and has closing hours on the other two days.) Even in that case, he’s only seen it done once or twice.

What else? Little pleasant surprises, like the electronica music they’ve got playing overhead. I guess I was expecting standard pop music fare. Silly me!

I wasn’t expecting the gym to feature a spa with cutting-edge equipment. Apparently, some people join Planet Fitness just for the Black Card spa. They don’t go to work out. They go for the Total Body Enhancement red light therapy capsule booth, the HydroMassage lounge seats and beds, the various tanning technologies, and the massage chairs.

I certainly wasn’t expecting unlimited free personal training with my $10.00/month no-commitment membership! That’s right… personal trainers are included in your classic membership, which sets you back TEN DOLLARS each month.

It’s solid good training, too. My trainer sat me down to discuss my goals, and the next time I went in, I found he’d created a custom workout for me based on a four days/week schedule… and he trains me during the workouts. I still can’t believe that a custom workout plan and unlimited personal training is included in the Planet Fitness Classic membership. Ten dollars a month, friends.

(I called EOS, my former gym, to compare. At EOS, one 30-minute personal training session costs $36.00 on top of your membership fees.)

You do have to pay more if you want access to that Black Card spa, though. In order to use that spa, you have to spring for the pricey Black Card membership, which is… $25.00/month.

Looks like the whole time I was laughing at Planet Fitness, the joke was on me.

On that note, have a wonderful day, friends!

Let’s try this again, shall we, 2023? (Fitness post!)

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Here’s how 2023’s gone down so far in terms of working out:

On the Monday of the second week of January – the 9th – I did an hour of Body Pump (Les Mills On Demand), and it was swell. I felt the effort intensely over the next few days, of course, because my muscles had pretty much atrophied after so long of not working out. And that was great! I felt awesome getting back to my fitness routine.

Three days later, I overworked my forearms at work to the point where I aggravated my old tennis elbow weakness on the right side, and I knew that I had to avoid using that arm as much as possible until it was healed… and, somewhere in that same time-frame, I managed to aggravate my chronic lower back weakness to the point where the pain became nearly incapacitating on some days. I actually had to leave work a few hours early one day because the pain was so bad, I could barely stand, walk, or sit. The only position I could be in without excruciating pain was lying down on my side.

As well – this was the most frustrating one, because it wasn’t an old injury acting up, it was just plain stupidity – I found myself dealing with pain in my ribs on my left side on account of my slamming myself into the edge of a wall of boxes in order to grab one that was lying just out of reach. There was no reason that this had to happen. I 100% did it to myself in a moment of foolish over-zealousness, which was why I was too embarrassed to mention it to anyone. I did my best to work through the terrible pain of breathing while hiding it from everyone over the two weeks it took to heal. (I probably just separated a rib rather than fractured it, I’m guessing).

So I spent all of January Week Three and most of Week Four recovering from these shenanigans; e.g. I did not work out.

At the very end of January Week Four, on Saturday the 28th, I did 30 push-ups in three sets of ten over the course of five hours, and it was hard, and I wept inside.

February Week One? Zilch.

February Week Two? That would be this week, and I this morning, I did – because I was off today due to medical appointments at the V.A. – the same one-hour Body Pump workout I did on January 9th. Despite my right forearm (less than 100% recovered). Despite my lower back (better, but threatening revenge if I dared to make it work in any way). My ribs have completely recovered, which is the main reason why I felt good about venturing back into my gym shoes.

Here’s the deal: The separated rib thing was a consequence of something I did, but the aggravated forearm and lower back injuries were a consequence of something I didn’t do. I didn’t keep myself in shape. I’m convinced that those injuries only resurfaced because my fitness was poor. On a daily basis I was doing as much as I usually do, except my body wasn’t equipped to do it thanks to my negligence over the last six or so months. I unloaded a shipment with my mind and dragged my body along with it, and my body said fuck you, and I deserved it, and here we are.

So today, my friends, my ass was home in the morning, and I told my forearms and lower back to just let me know if I needed to adjust anything during the one-hour workout, because I was determined to do it, and they had to meet me halfway, at least. And they did.

I didn’t film the workout for a living-room gym post, but I did take a post-workout selfie:

Post-workout [7 Feb. 2023]

The thought behind this expression: HA. I DID IT. I lifted light weights for an hour (no more than 10-lb dumbbells), and I feel damn good.

The End, but the beginning, I hope.

p.s. It’s Tuesday. I plan to attempt a Thursday post at a reasonable time, and also I would love to make a Tuesday/Thursday posting schedule happen again, so we’ll see how that plays out. Things are settling and getting back to normal! I have stuff to share. I’ve missed it. I’ve missed you. I’ll be back! Take care, friends.

All hail Gluteus Maximus. (Living room gym post!)

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My friend and I were talking the other day about each other’s physiques, and he noted that I have “a big butt for my frame.” I replied that my glutes are simply developed from working out, which prompted him to ask what I was talking about, to which I explained about the muscles that comprise the butt: Gluteus (glutei?) Maximus, Medius, and Minimus. When he opined that those are ridiculous names, I informed him that they’re Latin words, and don’t they sound like Roman names? And he couldn’t argue with that. “Yeah it sounds like a Roman emperor.” And I concluded, “Roman emperor Gluteus Maximus. He was an ass.”

Which brings me to this workout that I did a couple of weeks ago, as it’s lower-body intensive. We’re talking Les Mills Body Pump 118 Metabolic Blast, my friends. This particular workout is my current favorite way to hit my major muscle groups in a mere half-hour. It’s also great because it’s a rare Body Pump workout that doesn’t require a bench, as there are no chest presses in the routine. You don’t need more than standing space with just a few feet around to step one foot back for lunges – or you could opt to do the exercises as squats rather than as lunges. You can live in a closet and do this workout. No excuses.

I set up my phone to film the 30-minute workout, then did the usual screenshot snapping, cropping, and resizing to end up with some (bad) pics to share with you who are here for fitness posts. Also – I’ve said this before, and this will always be the case – posting pics of myself working out is just a solid way for me to critique my own form so I can know what needs improvement.

As always, I must plug Les Mills On Demand+, as without Les Mills’s awesome streaming workout service, I wouldn’t be working out at all. For Body Pump I’m still using the dumbbells that I had pre-pandemic, rather than springing for a barbell set. Barbells are fun, but it’s not necessary to have one to do LM Body Pump classes. In fact, you don’t even need weights at all, as everything in LM Body Pump workouts can be done isometrically.

Without further ado:

Getting started.

All the time spent in a wide squat stance at the bottom of the movement contributes to glute work. This workout has a lot of that.

Bottom of the squat.
Squat, wider stance.
Squat, top of a pulse.
Suffering through squat pulses.

For the posterior/athletic chain portion of the workout, the routine incorporates single-arm rows, dead lifts, and clean-and-presses.

Stance for single-arm row.

(If it looks like I’m knock-knee’d, it’s because I am.)

Single-arm row – you straighten back up to a standing position after each rep.
Stance for dead lifts.
Dumbbell dead lift.

The dead lift prepares your body for the clean-and-presses.

Dumbbell clean.
Dumbbell press.
High pulls.
Stretching: child’s pose.
Stretching: cat.
Stretching legs.
Stretching legs, focus on quads.

These pics are poor in quality, I know, but hopefully they can give you an idea of the effectiveness of the workout. Les Mills is my jam, and you may find that it’s yours, too. Regardless of the type of fitness program/non-program you do, happy working-out to those of you who commit to keeping your bodies in shape!

On that note, I wish you all a happy Friday/weekend eve, my friends. Rock on.

Found my fuel. (Living room gym post: workout therapy!)

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When a shadowy face of evil looms ahead of someone you love, littering their path with the equivalent of mental nuclear waste fallout every step into the future until their last breath, there’s only one thing to do: join the fight.

A person I love has been compromised as such. They fell through the trap door laid before them, experienced the false nirvana within, and eventually found escape to be impossible. Now they are infected with demons, and I am livid.

Thus, I threw down a particularly intense workout on Monday in the late afternoon. Les Mills Body Combat, my friends. I’ve been raving about Les Mills since 2014, as some of you may know, and I will always rave about them. Les Mills is fantastic, and Body Combat was my first Les Mills workout love. It’s more than cardio kickboxing. It’s cardio kickboxing, cardio Karate, cardio Muay Thai, cardio capoeira, cardio Tae Kwan Do, cardio Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, and cardio Kung Fu.

For you who’ve been wronged: Your fight is my fight.

So on Monday after work, I hit “play” to begin 55 minutes of Les Mills Body Combat.

And I had the above-mentioned person in mind for my target. A name, only. A face I’d seen in photos, only. A willfully duplicitous person whose trespasses on the innocence of someone I love (and others, no doubt) feel unforgivable because of the havoc they’ve wreaked.

Fury in unflattering light is the best kind.

Fitness updates on my end:
I’ve just started up with my workouts again since my long hiatus pre- and post- hand surgery. So far, so good.

The last time I worked out with weights (dumbbells) was on December 11; after that point, the pain in my hand became too extreme to tolerate it, and it just got worse and worse up to my surgery on February 14. I’m well past surgery recovery and feeling normal again, but I still haven’t gotten back to weight-training. It’s been over four months. Literally the only thing keeping me in shape is my job.

So it’s back to regular Body Pump. Back to regular Body Combat. Monday was great. I kicked serious ass with the image of the evildoer’s face emblazoned behind my mind’s eye. I mean, I was feeling the fury in any case, so it was just as well that I also had a workout to do.

Happy Friday Eve, my friends. Blessings to you on your fitness journeys!

Street clothes workout! (First living-room gym post of 2022!)

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Hello there, my friends. I thought I’d start out the new year with a fitness-related post, as I did last year, so today I’ve got a living-room workout post for any of you who are here for it!

Monday’s workout was the first of 2022. At the last minute, I decided to do it without changing my clothes – as in, I came home from work and stayed in my work attire. My daily winter work uniform consists of jeans, three layers on top (tank top, turtleneck, t-shirt), a thick, oversize gray hoodie I found in the men’s section at Ross, long thick socks, and winter hiking boots. (I work in a warehouse, which, like many warehouses, is not heated.)

And as you know if you’re along for this ride, I’ve now somehow (inexplicably) committed to keeping my house cold this winter. I turn on the new electric fireplace in my office only when I’m in here at night. The rest of the time, it’s in the low-60’s throughout the house.

So the house was 62 degrees F when I got home on Monday, and I didn’t want to get undressed to change into gym clothes. Then I thought, but who says I have to? The workout on the agenda was, of course, Les Mills Body Combat. It’s a cardio workout, but the way I’ve always seen it, it’s a fighting-arts training session, an opportunity to practice my technique. It would be good to train in my street clothes, went my thinking. After all, if I were to find myself in a situation, it would be on the street, and I almost certainly wouldn’t be wearing workout gear.

Also, I had to pee, but I didn’t, for the same reason. In a real-life situation, I’m not going to tell my attacker to hold off while I run to the bathroom. And again for that same reason, I didn’t drink water before the workout, even though I was thirsty.

I’ve always been like this. I get random ideas in my head, test the proverbial waters, and then go all-out with the ideas until they’re strange. Challenge: See how long I can wait before turning on the heat. Plot twist: Don’t turn on the heat at all! Challenge: Work out in street clothes rather than in gym clothes. Plot twist: Don’t use the bathroom or drink water beforehand, either!

I love simulations of real-life scenarios as a method of skill-testing. My first memory of such a test comes from the day I graduated from swim lessons, when Hank-the-instructor threw me into the far end of the pool with all of my clothes on, including my shoes, without warning. I found out that swimming the length of an Olympic-size pool wearing clothes and shoes is not the same thing as swimming across in a bathing suit. Clothes and shoes in the water are heavy and restrictive. There was this new, foreign resistance in the water, and it was trying to hold me back. I was totally blindsided when Hank threw me in, but I thought it was hilarious. I was six.

So it was like that on Monday. I jumped into the workout fully dressed in my street clothes, hair down and everything. I was glad that I did it, because yeah, throwing kicks and knee strikes and all other strikes in jeans and multiple layers is not the same thing as throwing them in gym clothes. My jeans were soft and worn and had some stretch to them, but still, they were restrictive compared to workout gear. I’m grateful to the cold house for prompting this new, realistic angle in my fight training.

I did change into my indoor gym shoes, though. I drew the line at messing up my floor with my dirty warehouse boots! I also put on my gel-padded gloves, reason being that I needed to protect my mangled left hand in the event of push-ups, mountain-climbers, or burpees (indeed, I did all of the above in the workout).

[Aside: I don’t believe I’ve spoken of my mangled left hand. I swear, so much in the way of medical crap happened in 2021, it would’ve been boring and repetitive to tell you about all of it. More on this to come, as I’ve got surgery in my near future!]

When I did the same workout again after work on Wednesday, once again in my street clothes, I filmed it so that I could get screenshots for this post.

Without further ado, then!

Let’s go.
Let’s GO.
In it to win it
Call it a fist bump, because I’m not in any kind of a fight stance, so I’m not sure where this was coming from, haha
Duck

Weird angle, but here’s the bottom of my shoe
Punch
Hook
Uppercut
Something.
Making friends…?
TF haha

And that’s a wrap for this gym post, my friends. One of the benefits of home workouts is that you can wear whatever you want, right? Whatever you want, for whatever reason.

Here’s to all of you and to fitness year 2022!

Bringing it inside, keeping it inside. (Living Room Gym WORKOUT! Les Mills BodyCombat!)

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Hello! I’d originally planned to write about our upcoming total lunar eclipse, but I figured it would make more sense to offer that post closer to the event, as in, the night before. Look for that post on Tuesday night!

Today, I’ve got a workout post that’s long overdue. I’d intended to do this about a year ago. I believe that I did post some sort of living-room workout before that, but I can’t find it now! As I recall, the notion was “this is to give you an idea of it, but I’ll come back with a real living-room workout post soon.” By “real,” I was thinking “with five thousand pics.” So here, finally, is that workout post.

We have NutritionalDirect to thank for this, as they featured one of my garage gym posts on their site last week. It was the nudge that I needed. I was reminded that many of you are here because of the garage gym/fitness/martial arts aspect of my blog, and I apologize for my neglect in this vein, my friends. This post is for you, as well as for anyone else who may be interested.

I got right to it. I saw my post on NutritionalDirect on Monday, and on Wednesday, I set up my phone to record my Les Mills BodyCombat workout.

The thing I’m happiest to show with this post is the sort of workout that can be done in a small space. BodyCombat is a dynamic, varied, and fast-paced workout, and it requires no equipment other than a yoga mat (if you have a hard floor). I do the full one-hour version in this little space between furniture and the window wall – we’re talking a 9′ x 8′ space, roughly.* I do have to make modifications when advancing in any direction, but that’s totally inconsequential. Anything that involves advancing to cover space can be done just as effectively in place!

*Granted, I’m 5′, 4″. A taller person would have a harder time in this small space, to be sure.

Please pay no mind to the wild fluctuations in lighting throughout the hour. I do not have an actual camera or lights for filming, so I’m working with daylight and my overhead light. Light fades in and out. The lower I am to the floor, the darker it gets.

Let’s get into it!

shoots (MMA)

knee strikes

(between strikes)

side kick (Why do I never pivot my standing foot enough?!)

squats

running – high knees

some kind of plyo – I think this is just leaping up from a shoot

sprints – impossible to capture in a still from a video, but for what it’s worth!

jump kick in process – limited by space overhead (ceiling fan) and in front (wall), but still.

ginga (Capoeira)
Muay Thai

Muay Thai

Muay Thai

still Muay Thai, I think

elbow strike (Muay Thai)

[NOTE: my guard in all of the above Muay Thai pics is WRONG! I know better. It’s good to review my form like this every once in a while]

running man knees (lame-ass pic, I know, but that’s what was happening here.)

push kick (still Muay Thai!)

more running

push-ups
C-crunches

back lifts/raises/supermans/whatever they’re called

Jumping in to switch legs during the stretching

cool-down kata

quad stretch

OG readers, remember “walking-off” pics at the end of garage gym workout posts? This is the living-room version, I guess. I didn’t have far to walk!

If you’re interested in doing this Les Mills BodyCombat workout (this one was release #64) or any of the other hundreds offered by Les Mills, click here to explore Les Mills On Demand. Les Mills’ workouts are world-class. They are amazing. Every workout I do is on this app!

Happy new week to you, my friends!

Workout motivation 2021! (Music and a thought to self-motivate.)

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Working out is for fitness and optimal health and mental wellness and (yes) fun. It’s also for when the world makes even less sense than usual and events form around alien shapes that are pure menace and hatred and lunacy and have no names and the shock and magnitude of it all defies articulation and you just want to throw your whole being into the next universe over to escape for a little while so your mind can recover after having been blown to smithereens. (I had an epic one-hour Body Combat workout this evening, my friends. January 6, 2021.)

But all I really wanted to say tonight is that I come bearing a gift, which is a lofty way of announcing that I put together my current workout fuel music playlist on Spotify, and now I’m going to share it with you. Because some of you might find this music to be as mood-setting as I do. You might be an athlete or a gym rat or a general workout and fitness junky. You might be a resolutioner (having made a New Year’s resolution to get into shape) or a patient (having had a medical professional issue strong advice to lose weight). Whatever the case, if this music offers anything of use on your journey, I’m honored to contribute in this small way.

As a reminder that I’m not a delicate Asian flower, I’ll mention that this playlist is tough love, which is what works for me when it comes to improving my gym (living room) performance. Achieving levels and goals is a mental endeavor whether you’re aiming to work harder or to walk outside to the mailbox and back (both legit, along with everything in between). It’s even more of a mental endeavor if you’re working out at home. Self-motivation can be tricky! This playlist fires me up. I listen to it to boost my determination before doing my Les Mills workouts, but I would also listen to it while walking or running on the treadmill for an hour, or lifting weights for an hour, or doing whatever (fitness activity) for an hour. Because the playlist is one hour and two minutes long.

So what I did was I took some of my favorite battle cries and alternated them with favorite songs that rely on beats and bass drops rather than vocals. The battle cries are to light a fire under your ass. The instrumentals are to keep it lit. Have at it!

 

 

While I’m at it and before I sign off, I’ll also share a thought that motivates me greatly during my home workouts. It’s just five words:

Work out like someone’s watching.

With this thought in mind, I go harder, and I make maximum effort to perfect my form. I empty the tank. Because I wouldn’t dig someone watching while I merely go through the motions with sloppy form. Would you? Putting someone in the room even when there’s no one works for me, anyway.

That’s all I’ve got for now, my friends. I’m wiped out. Until the weekend, then!

 

 

One year anniversary of my ridiculous accident. (+ a few pics)

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Three days ago on the 25th of July I sort of “celebrated” the one-year anniversary of me slamming a steel door on the back of my ankle. It was a dumb accident followed by a dumb action plan that resulted in no cardio for over six months. I’m linking to the posts in case you’re new and you’re interested in reading of these follies of yore.

Seriously can’t believe it’s been a year. Really. It seems like a whole forever ago!

The wound healed poorly, of course, because that’s what happens when you fail to go to the E.R. within six hours of cutting your foot halfway off. The scar still intermittently burns with pain and itchiness, but I got my doctor’s permission to ignore it after she had it thoroughly checked out in February. It hasn’t kept me from my workouts since.

Today, I grabbed some screenshots from the video clips I recorded during my Body Pump workout. Please excuse the lighting situation here. I’ve got a huge window in front of me, with light oddly filtered through its closed gray blinds.

I didn’t record more than a few minutes of back, biceps, and shoulders, and the recordings weren’t great. They were tests, more or less, and these few pics are more vanity shots than workout shots. I’ll get a proper LIVING ROOM GYM WORKOUT post together at some point.

First, though, we have short hair!

 

Back to short hair and loving it, and yeah, I’m working out in the living room these days, which is rad.

 

Next, we have deltoids we never had before, thanks to the gym shutting down and forcing me to work out with dumbbells at home. (I’d rather say “thanks to the gym for shutting down” than “thanks to the virus for creating a pandemic.”)

 

Pandemic delt gains. I’m looking at the T.V. on which I’m playing my workout streaming on the Les Mills Roku channel. [28 July 2020]

 

 

Next, we have a glance at the phone (camera) to see whether it’s recording.

 

Testing, testing. [28 July 2020]

 

 

Now I know where I’d situate the phone for said forthcoming workout post, right?

Then we have clean and presses, 15 lbs. (Body Pump is high reps with light weights. I have no idea what weight I’d be able to lift in a bodybuilding workout scenario.)

 

[28 July 2020]

 

 

Aaand we have the biceps track about to start (10 lbs) and I’m still looking at you guys, apparently. I wasn’t smiling like this at the end of the biceps track! It was awesome, though.

 

[28 July 2020]

 

 

By the way, if you’re familiar with Les Mills Body Pump, this was release #104, my new favorite.

A splendid week to you, friends. If you suffer an injury that creates a bleeding wound, please go to the E.R. in a timely manner. I learned my lesson so you don’t have to.

 

 

Coronapocalypse quarantine week 8. (Fitness updates!)

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I finally have fitness updates for you who’ve asked for them, and for anyone else who’s interested!

Our garage gym is at the top of the list of things for which I’m incredibly grateful during this quarantine. The virus has changed everything about my fitness regimen, and in a good way. I’m still doing Les Mills workouts via their On Demand (online) home workout subscription, but I’m using different equipment and lifting heavier than I was before. On the cardio side, I’m solidly back into Body Combat, and I’ve added a new class. I do three days of weights and three days of cardio per week, minimum.

It’s heating up outside, but that’s what the living room is for when I go to do my afternoon cardio workouts! Mornings are cool enough to comfortably lift weights in the garage.

I’m loving doing three of my six weekly workouts “with” my friend Jessica. Since our gym closed and we haven’t been able to hang out in Saturday morning Body Pump, we’ve been hanging out on the phone during Saturday morning Body Pump, instead. We both have home gym set-ups and Les Mills On Demand. We get on the phone in front of our online class and hit “play” at the same time and put our phones on speaker. We don’t talk during the workouts. It’s an invisible companionship and accountability thing. We have to show up, because the other one is expecting us. It’s rad.

Other changes:

–The new cardio class I added to my regimen is Body Step. (Thank you for suggesting it, Jessica!) The step and four risers are the only equipment I’ve had to purchase.

Those of you who’ve been here a while, remember when I tried to establish myself in a Sunday morning step class? I made the effort because it was the only other cardio class that fit into my schedule, but I didn’t love step enough to want to give up my Sundays. It’s different now that I can customize my schedule, and also, my new step aerobics experience is insane in the way that I like my cardio. The reason, of course, is that it’s Les Mills.

Step aerobics: We’re going to kick your butt with our hardcore workout!
Les Mills Bodystep: Hold my water.

Les Mills incorporates squats, lunges, regular burpees, snatch burpees, push-ups, mountain climbers, jumping jacks, and variations of dynamic planks into their step choreography… and that’s just what I’ve seen so far. They also have you pick up a weight plate or two from time to time.

In other words, Les Mills Body Step is not your grandmother’s step aerobics class.

–Body Pump: I’ve ditched the barbell, and, along with it, my February whim of sticking with light weights. I’m now lifting the heaviest dumbbells possible in our barbell-less garage, as in, “to failure” in every Body Pump track. We have dumbbells up to 30 lbs, so I can start heavy and quickly drop my weights down to lighter ones when I need to.

The luxury is that I no longer have to decide beforehand what weights I’m going to use in the next hour so can bring them to my spot on the floor. If I want to change my weights during the track, I don’t have to run back and forth to the equipment area, disturbing others while weaving around them. Body Pump is fast-paced lifting (which is why light weights are also effective), so the track would be over by the time I’d get back to my spot with the new weights. Neither do I have to worry about being that person spreading into neighboring peoples’ spaces with my cluster of weights.

All of the weights are within reach, and they’re dumbbells, so I don’t have to waste time messing with the barbell. I can do drop-sets easily, and so I do.

Dumbbell-only Body Pump is also intense and challenging because it involves more in the way of stabilization, I’ve noticed. I feel like I’m working my core a lot more with the hand weights.

 

Post-workout selfie [05/05/2020]

 

 

Bad lighting, I know. I’m totally washed-out here! I can’t technically explain the blinding whiteness of my right leg, but my apologies to your eyes. I’m standing in front of the open back door, peering down into my phone that was situated on a case of emergency water at about stomach-level. I’m rarely thrilled with the lighting in my pics, but I’ve yet to develop an interest in learning how to fix it, so that’s on me.

ALSO, I cut my bangs again, and I’m not hating it.

April Favorites coming Thursday!

 

 

Coronapocalypse quarantine week 4. (Quick FUN tip: planks!)

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The hour is beyond nigh for this post, and my brain is wrung out.

Hello. I’m writing this from a forearm plank position… just this one sentence. Did you know that this was possible? Neither did I. It never occurred to me before, anyway. I’m not sure why it did now. I’m going to blame it on the virus, which I don’t have, by the way.

(I’m in a weird mood. Please bear with me.)

If you’re not familiar with the plank position, then this is for you:

What you do is you set your laptop on the floor and lie down in front of it on your stomach, like you do, all stretched out and comfortable, your forearms resting on the floor. [<– That is not a part of the plank position. This next part is. –>] Then you flex your feet forward so your toes (actually more the balls of your feet) are planted on the floor, and you raise your body up so you’re supported only by your forearms/elbows in the front and your toes/balls of your feet in the back. Your fingers would be left free to tap the keyboard. Except I’m not suggesting that you do that. That is not a part of the position.

I won’t be writing in the plank position, either. It was just an interesting thing to try. It got me thinking, though, that it might be cool to watch something on the computer while lying on the floor and holding a plank every so often.

I grabbed this image in a hurry just to show you what I’m talking about. This is not an ideal demo pic. The quality and lighting are lacking, for one thing, and for another thing, I’m wearing this big, baggy shirt that’s draping to the floor. It’s rather unfortunate, but just to give you a general idea:

 

forearm plank shenanegans [09 April 2020]

 

 

Right?!

Watching videos or episodes or movies or whatnot is a sedentary activity, but if you lie on the floor with your computer and elevate yourself to a plank position for even one second, you’re suddenly doing a one-second, full-body strength-training workout while watching whatever you’re watching. You’ll feel your entire body working to keep itself propped up. This is not easy. If you can do it for even one second, you’re a rockstar.

It may not seem fun, but it is! What if you were to try it and hold the position for one second, and then, a little while later, decide to do it again? What if you were to continue doing it every once in a while, holding the position for just a second each time? You would soon notice that you’re holding the position for two, three, four seconds at a time. At some point, you would challenge yourself to hold the position for ten seconds, and then longer, because you’re a human, and humans like a challenge.

Humans like a challenge, and humans wouldn’t enjoy eating snacks in the plank position. That was the thought that struck me. I’ve eaten way too much in the way of snackery while watching T.V. or whatever. Doing this plank thing would be a satisfying diversion. Really!

I just thought I’d offer a fun suggestion for all of our housebound butts. Everything is different and weird now, anyway, so why not?

 

 

Cicadas are rad, and other random thoughts. (Plus a mini gym update!)

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Sorry again about Tuesday’s late-night post, guys. Today is a new and better day, because today, I’m not operating in crisis mode. All is well, and I have a few thoughts to share. I also have gym updates.

Thing 1: It was 112 degrees today, and it’s been thereabouts for weeks now. This kind of heat ushers us into the cicada season part of summer in the desert. Cicadas hold a special place in my heart because I associate them with life in Arizona; to me, they’re emblematic in that way. I find them enchanting with their beautiful, diaphanous wings, their benignly short antennae, and their large, round, wide-set eyes that give them those adorable little faces. I’m delighted by the way they rattle their songs without care or concern that they sound like loudly malfunctioning electronics. Cicadas are nature’s industrial music artists, and as appropriate, they crank it! I love them.

Thing 2: I crawled out from under my rock to find that Jake Gyllenhaal is in the new Spider Man movie. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Thing 3: Netflix drops Money Heist Part 3 on July 19 – next week Friday!!! Money Heist (La Casa de Papel) is my second-favorite series (the first being The Americans). If you enjoy the crime thriller/action genre and haven’t yet seen Money Heist, I highly recommend it. Watch it in its original Spanish with whatever subtitles you need. This series is abjectly brilliant.

I enjoyed the season 3 trailer this morning:

 

 

Thing 3: I keep thinking that today’s Friday because I didn’t need to be anywhere, and I went to Body Pump yesterday morning. It feels odd, switching up a gym schedule I’d had for so long. It’s invigorating. Change is ultimately good, even if I balk at the idea of it sometimes.

Tomorrow is Friday, so it’s Body Combat. The next morning will be Saturday-morning Body Pump, as usual. This works well. I’d rather do Pump the day after Combat than the day before.

I’m so grateful to be able to incorporate such a schedule preference.

(Cue gym updates)

It’s been a good gym week! Monday, we had a sub who challenged us to go up one weight increment on the all-dumbbell biceps track she’d chosen, and I did, and I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t have to drop down to my regular weights. I suppose this means that I should always use the higher weights…? I know that’s what it means. I’m just a bit daunted. I’m doubtful that I can maintain that weight through every biceps track, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t start out with it.

For Body Pump yesterday morning, I went to a location I’d never visited before. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was that its floors are gorgeous, which seems like a weird thing to admire in a gym. The Body Pump instructor had his unique personality and teaching style, which I thought was interesting. It was a good work-out. I’m glad, because that’s going to be my regular Wednesday morning class.

I took a selfie in the locker room beforehand:

 

Body Pump at a new-to-me gym location

 

Everything isn’t different, though! I’m fortunate to be able to keep my former-gym Tuesday/Thursday Pump instructor, as she teaches my Monday class at the new gym!

I like to stick with professionals with whom I click in both formal and friendly ways. A hairstylist who knows how to cut my hair. A tax preparer who knows how to make filing taxes painless and fun. A realtor who’s always, unequivocally the best. And inspirational, authoritative group fitness instructors who set challenges.

Happy Friday Eve, all!

 

 

Posting on the 4th of July. (Gym updates, because.)

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First things first: Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans!

Trivial things second: gym updates, to duly relay how it went when I did the back-to-back Combat/Pump class thing again last weekend. How it went was, it didn’t. I got real with myself at the last minute and admitted that I’ll never have 200% to give in two hours, so it wouldn’t make sense to waste my time and stress my body.

This morning’s workout rocked. Our instructor put together a 4th of July-themed tracklist, and somehow, she motivated me to increase certain upper-body weights yet again. On my way out, I CANCELLED my membership at that gym. My second gym is now my only gym! I’m not sad about it. It was a great five years overall. I won’t have to miss anyone, either… I may have cancelled my gym membership, but I didn’t cancel my gym friends. Most of us have migrated to the same new gym. ALSO, I get to continue taking Body Pump with the aforementioned badass instructor, because she teaches at my new gym, too!

Starting next week, my new workout schedule is going to be M-W-F and either Saturday or Sunday. Two of the classes will fall on consecutive days, but it’ll be better than the three days in a row I’d done for so long.

For our pic today, here’s Yours Truly using a wall as a headrest and repping a favorite metal band. I live in jeans and oversize t-shirts.

 

In my natural habitat

 

That is all. Have a safe and fun weekend, my friends.

 

 

Fitness Updates check-in, because I am a rocket scientist.

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Consider this to be Part 2 of last Thursday’s post. I didn’t think I’d have much to report, but here we are!

I went ahead with my crazy idea to do Body Pump immediately after Body Combat, and now I’ve got documentation for myself (which I’m sharing with you) regarding how that went: it was really, really, really hard. End of documentation. Not exactly the notes you’d find in a rocket scientist’s journal.

Conclusion: Sunday’s double-class combo was a learning experience.

Body Combat was the first class. I threw myself into it, as usual. I always feel like I have energy to spare after a workout, but now I know that whatever’s left is not enough to fuel another 50 minutes with the same drive I applied to the first class. It was a struggle to get through Body Pump without decreasing my weights, and I was amazed that I did it! I’d just never felt so tired during a workout. Even more disconcerting, I was hungry during the workout. How does one deal with hunger during a workout?! It was a strange sensation. It made me feel weaker.

On the way home from the gym, I stopped by the water store to refill six five-gallon jugs of water. It probably wasn’t the brightest idea to haul 30 gallons of water home at that point, but I really thought it would be okay. My mind insisted, the classes are over! You’re not at the gym anymore! You can do the usual stuff! One of those three statements was a lie. My mind lied. It was not a good idea to do “the usual stuff.”

I shuffled slowly through the rest of the day, stopping to rest between steps. I had to gather energy for the next few steps. I had to take a few breaths to overcome dizziness. Oh, and the pain! Weirdly, all of my lower-body joints flared at once.

I felt like I was going to pass out as I did the laundry and some minor household tasks, yet somehow I managed to assist Callaghan in moving some Very Heavy Things in the house. It had to be done, and again, my mind said, Drive ON, Soldier. Since my week at the War-Related Illness and Injury Study Center, I’m now very aware of how my mind does this… but I don’t think of it until after the fact.

The next day was yesterday. I felt that I had energy, but the day ended with no alleviation of the joint pain. Muscle soreness also became a factor. I finally took some Advil and flopped onto the bed with my phone. I had a feeling I would report on my experiment in today’s post, so I took a selfie there in the moment of grade-7 pain.

 

Joint pain everywhere from the waist down. Just lying here waiting for the Advil to kick in.

 

I do pride myself on how well I can flop on the bed and stay there when I’m in pain. Haha!

I took more Advil the next morning – this morning, that is – and I went back to Body Pump and I smashed my workout, because today is a NEW DAY. Last night’s pain? Ancient history, thanks to sleep and ibuprofen! Today’s Body Pump workout went well. It was kind of awesome to note the difference in how strong I felt this morning compared to how I felt in Sunday’s class post-Body Combat.

This leads me to my spin-off experiment plan, which is to do the double classes again this Sunday with just one change: I’ll skip the last track in Body Combat (core, aka ab-work), and I’ll take that time to sit and eat a protein/energy bar. I’m hoping that a little break for rest and food between classes will be restorative enough! I don’t see a need to do TWO core tracks, anyway. The one at the end of Body Pump will suffice. I do Combat for the cardio; why work abs twice in two hours?

 

 

Dreaming of a greener day (Fitness updates!)

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I’ve had this glute/hamstring issue on my left side for months now. It’s still there, even after taking two weeks off. In fact, it’s getting worse! I finally said to myself, Self, wouldn’t it be great to get in your four workouts per week without doing consecutive days?

The only way to do four workouts per week with a day of recovery between workout days is to double up classes.

Thus, I got the insane idea to do what a lot of people do and slip a day of back-to-back Combat (cardio kickboxing) and Pump (weight-training) into my schedule. This is a scenario I’ve avoided for years. IT JUST SO HAPPENS that my schedule needed re-vamping, anyway. My “primary” gym (whose name rhymes with LA HOT MESS) finally dumped Body Pump from their schedules. Hoards of Body Pump orphans flooded out into the streets in search of new classes, bloating the available ones at the OTHER gym’s various locations. (I haven’t gone to a weekend Pump class since the last one on June 1st, but I’ve heard reports of the over-crowding at these other gyms.)

So I looked at those gyms’ schedules to see where weekend back-to-back Combat/Pump classes are offered, and I decided on one to try. It’s a bit further away going south, but that means that I can skirt around the construction zone that is my entire neighborhood here in NW Tempe. I’m fine trekking out to a south Tempe class! I was specifically looking to go either north or south; I found both, and they’re both on Sunday mornings, which is also fine.

I chose the south location because its first class, Combat, starts at 9am, which is what I’m used to. I’m looking forward to it. The instructor (easily findable in the local Les Mills crowds on FB) looks to be a complete badass, also in keeping with what I’m used to.

So that’s the main fitness update this time. It’s more a gym update than a fitness update, but it’s a big change and a big deal for me to try the back-to-back class thing. I’m dropping my recently adopted Friday morning Combat class so I can take a rest day after Thursday’s Pump. Maybe this will help the situation in my left glute/hamstring. I don’t think that doing Combat and Pump one after the other will aggravate the problem, but we shall see.

As for last week in Palo Alto, I didn’t get to work out, after all, because the on-site gym was closed the whole week. (I found out when I got to its doors.) There was a lot of walking and stair-climbing in my day-to-day, though, so I did get to get moving!

 

 

L’amour est bleu. (Fitness updates!)

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Today’s post is brought to you by a “fitness updates” request. It’s been a month since my last one, anyway!

In short and in summary, I’ll just say this: If you’re looking to start working out, consider trying a Les Mills group fitness class, if you can get to a gym that offers Les Mills classes. I’ve seen people of all ages and levels of fitness in those classes!

For the at-length, actual “fitness updates” version, I’ll start with…

Les Mills Body Pump (strength-training with weights): How about I think back on today’s class, just for fun? Our leg track was set to a song that’s also used in Body Combat, which is why I thought of Body Combat while doing squats this morning. It also came back to me how in the On Demand video, the male lead announces that his female co-lead is “the only monster on the stage,” and how I thought this to be an odd thing to proclaim. It’s definitely a strange remark to hear if you’re oblivious to the fact that the song’s refrain begins with “She’s a monster.” I don’t pay much attention to lyrics in these classes. Context is everything, right?

This morning’s chest track was a Guns N’ Roses song. [-nothing further-]

The back track was one I didn’t remember at all. From the music to the moves, I recognized none of it. It was like doing a new release back track! Loved it.

I’m unable to bring the triceps song back to mind, though I can remember the workout combination.

The biceps track was set to a song by Pink, whose songs in Body Pump challenge the part of my brain that finds the beats. I’m not sure why this is the case with Pink and only with Pink. It’s like her vocals are so powerful and independent, they leave the beats behind. I always pick up on them or sense the timing eventually, though. It happened to be easy today.

I don’t remember this morning’s lunge track song, but the workout involved a little plyometric action, which I enjoy.

And the shoulder track? It was that one with the French vocals, “L’amour est Bleu.” It’d been a while since we’d done that one, and it was interesting to revisit it after my weight increases. I could note how my shoulders have strengthened since the last time we did that track.

This brings me to the update part of the “updates”: I’ve increased some weights since my last fitness updates post a month ago. I’ve gone heavier on legs, back, and shoulders.

Body Pump’s effects are most notable to me in terms of strength, but clearly the workouts change your physique, too. When you turn around and catch someone staring at you as you’re walking away and he gets all flustered and says, “Nice backpack!” you know that there’s something other than your backpack going on back there. (Either that, or the car wash guy just really admires my backpack.)

[I just realized that my account of this morning’s class was more about the music than about the workout. Ah.]

Les Mills Body Combat (cardio kickboxing): I did this class at my (new) second gym for the first time last week. It was cool, literally. Between the superpowered A/C and a huge, noisy fan, the room was so chilled that I hardly broke a sweat! It was a good workout. It was a new release, so that’s always fun, but I must admit that I’m not going to be sad to say allez, au revoir to this release. To me, it’s death by mountain climbers, and that isn’t fun. Of all the moves I’ve done while working out EVER, mountains climbers are my least favorite. They’re great for conditioning, but UN-FUN.

Step + Abs (cardio/aerobic): I haven’t gone. The last step class I did was on March 17. I always intend to go, but there’s always something or other, and now it’s been five weeks since I’ve worked out on a Sunday! I only managed to make up for it once. Life has been happening, as life does.

And that’s okay. I’ll keep trying to get to Sunday morning step.

Even one workout a week would be better than none. 20 minutes of exercise (i.e. brisk walking) would be better than no minutes of exercise. File this in “habits worth developing.” Also, “things that are fun before we know it.”

 

 

What’s new at the gym? (Fitness updates!)

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Mercury retrograde ends in two days. I’m getting ready to throw confetti.

[…]

Fitness updates!

Me (one week ago): I’m not joining a second gym for just one class. That wouldn’t make sense. No.

Me (yesterday):

 

Second gym.

 

Who even am I?

Body Combat is leaving our gym for good, so I went looking for a replacement. I wanted to find a Combat class that’s held on a weekday morning… my one requirement. The so-called silver lining to Body Combat’s departure from my gym is that I’m DONE fighting traffic through downtown in the evening, when a 12-minute drive takes 50-55 minutes no matter the route. This is not normal. I do not live in L.A., and I don’t have to play that game, I say!

Not to mention that it’s been a long time since evening classes made sense in my schedule. Body Combat was my one and only.

With this second gym, I have more options than ever all over Phoenix. Hey! Maybe one of the two gyms will open a location specifically in NW Tempe. I figure it’s a matter of time, considering that everything else is being built here.

In Body Pump news, we did the new release (#109) on Saturday, and I’m intrigued. There’s an unusual challenge: a new move with a mysterious timing relationship to the music. I wasn’t able to decode it during that first run-through. How do the beats work with this move? I hope to feel it this Saturday! It’s a great workout, 109. It destroyed my shoulders.

As for Step Plus Abs, I’ve settled into making that class a martial workout, as that’s a surefire way for me to burn up some energy. I quietly go beastmode in there. If she offers a fancy variation to a move, I don’t take it… I stick with the basic version and just do it hardcore. There’s enough footwork happening as it is, and there aren’t too many variations throughout the workout, anyway, so I’m still getting in that agility training.

Them’s my updates! I’ll sign off on a note of fitness motivation (I love this one):

 

 

 

 

I went to a step class. (Fitness updates!)

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I did a step class on Sunday morning because I wanted to add another group fitness workout to my workout week. It had to be cardio (preferably kickboxing; definitely not Zumba),* and it had to be on Sunday morning. I combed the schedules for all of my gym’s Phoenix locations and found the Sunday morning “Step Plus Abs” at a location as near to my house as my regular gym. Yay!

Turned out that the class title on the schedule is a misnomer, as there are no Abs in “Step Plus Abs.” It’s just Step Plus. The instructor let me know at the beginning that it was “advanced” step.

I’ve taken step before, but I went to Sunday’s class assuming that I’d forgotten how to do it. I was right. The only familiar moves were “basic right” and “basic left,” so BASICALLY I remembered nothing.

The first person I saw when I walked in was a woman I recognized from Body Pump, who asked whether I’d ever done step, to which I replied, “Yeah, but it was a really long time ago.” She smiled mirthfully and said, “You’ll be fine, then.” I answered with “We’ll see!” while looking into the future and seeing myself clueless. Because when I say I did step “a really long time ago,” I’m talking about 25 years ago, as in, decades ago. 25 years ago, I was 25 years old. 25 years is long enough for me to forget how to do step.

The class was kind of fun. Weirdly enough, I worked up a decent sweat (not Body Combat-level sweat, but enough to roll down the sides of my face), but I still had a full tank of gas at the end of it. I was breathing normally. I was speaking effortlessly. I felt like I’d exerted no energy at all. How is it possible to sweat and also feel fresh and energized after a workout? I didn’t feel anything the next day, either. My muscles gave no indication that I’d moved my body in ways it’s not used to moving. I felt nothing.

It wasn’t a challenging cardio workout for me, but it was still cardio. Any cardio is better than no cardio! I kept going with step-knees and step-kicks when I got totally lost, so I did maintain continuous on-and-off-the-step movement for 50 minutes, or whatever it was.

I’ve decided that I’m going back to that Sunday morning step class because:

  • There’s no regular Sunday morning kickboxing class at any of my gym’s locations
  • Step isn’t high-impact, but it’s a sweat session nonetheless
  • It’s easier getting myself to a group fitness class than onto a treadmill
  • Step class amounts to some crazy-ass agility training

Agility training is an important component of fitness, I feel, and step class is nothing if not that. The instructor had us skittering all around the step bench and up across it every which way with intricate footwork in complicated patterns and switching directions and feet straddling the bench and turning and turning back and up the step and down the step and now do the same thing on the other side and so on and so forth. There’s choreography, and it’s fast. There’s terminology, and you have to know it. Your brain has to be fully engaged in order to keep up.

Step is sweat-inducing physical and mental agility, and totally different from what I normally do.

I’d still like to find a morning kickboxing class somewhere in the week, though! (And not on a Body Pump day!) I’ll keep looking through the group fitness schedules for my gym’s nearby locations, in case anything changes.

In lieu of a pic relevant to this post, please enjoy this ridiculous pic from the day my hair freaked out after I washed it and it ended up complimenting my t-shirt.

 

Basking. [18 Jan 2019]

 

The End.

*I’m not dissing Zumba. It’s just not something I’m interested in trying right now.

 

 

Finding the fury. (Fitness post)

That Asian-Looking Chick 3 Comments

I don’t love cardio, but I need to do more of it – my fitness refrain over the last 12 months or so. Followers of my group fitness endeavors, remember when it was the opposite? When cardio was all I did, and I wanted to add strength-training? Now it’s strength-training (Body Pump) three times per week, and one cardio (Body Combat), the latter being consistently sporadic for one reason or another.

I don’t love cardio, but I do love combat sports training, which happens to be straight-up cardio when you do it as a group fitness class. I made it to Combat this week and realized why the focus there feels so different than my focus in Pump: it’s because my focus in Pump is inward. In Combat, it’s outward. It’s the same degree of focus, but projected in opposite directions.

This realization adds a dimension to my “I need to do more cardio” refrain. The balance of strength-training (Pump) and cardio (Combat) attracts me more in an energetic sense than a physical one. Eastern Philosophy 101.

My mental focus is different in Combat because in combat sports training, I’m focused on an opponent (hence the outwardness of it). This means that I have to first work myself up into a state of anger, or at least strong annoyance. That’s my pre-Combat prep: hone in on an opponent so I can direct my energy at a specific target. Sometimes, I’m mad at more than one entity or situation, and then I’m fighting multiple opponents.

Thus, my best cardio workouts are fueled by rage.

I get the most out of cardio when it’s combat-oriented and I’m fighting to the death. By the time class is over, I’m flying high on victory. I’m a finisher, and I won. It’s a post-workout euphoria that’s different than the post-workout euphoria I experience after a good Pump class; I need equal amounts of this euphoria in my life, and that’s the actual reason “I need to do more cardio.”

Everyone has a fitness epiphany in them somewhere. Find yours… find it to get your fitness journey started, or to refresh your fitness mojo. Whether you need to get off a couch or a plateau, finding what drives you to action can help.

 

[30 Jan. 2019, post-Combat water-guzzling]

 

Happy Friday Eve, everyone!

 

 

Back at the gym again. (Fitness update!)

That Asian-Looking Chick 3 Comments

I worked out over the weekend! It was great. Our Saturday Body Pump instructor happened to choose one of the easier workout releases… one that was awesome to do after being out for a while.

My legs, though!

I expected to feel the workout after having done nothing for a month, but I didn’t expect to feel it only in my legs. I used my warm-up weight for the entire workout, too. Dropping my heaviest bar weight – legs – all the way down to 5 lbs should have benefited my lower body more than anything, but noooooo. (Channeling John Belushi in Saturday Night Live.)

On Sunday, I could hardly walk. Yesterday was the same. This morning, I got up and thought, geez, how could my legs forget completely after just one month of sedentary life?! My legs are acting like they’ve never lifted a thing in their lives. It’s like my legs spent a month chilling on a beach in Rio, and now they’re mad that I yanked them off their lounger and put them back in the gym.

I popped a handful of Advil for the pain before I went to the gym this morning, feeling hopeful because I was walking a little more normally than I had been in the last two days. I was ready for whatever our Tuesday/Thursday instructor would throw at us, which turned out to be release 106.

Then class got underway and I found that I didn’t just yank my legs off a beach lounger in Rio and put them back in the gym on Saturday. I also sent them to an overzealous grocery store butcher who just couldn’t wait to run my quads through their new meat tenderizer.

In class this morning, I could bend my knees slightly. That was it. Those were my squats. My range of motion was basically zero, and the pain was intense despite the Advil.

There was a pretty rad bright side, though: I put more weight on the bar for upper body when I realized that my legs were out of the picture. Doing clean and presses and power presses using only upper body strength revealed that my upper body is stronger than I’d thought it was. My thing about overhead shoulder presses with the bar really is psychosomatic. The back track in release 106 involves a lot of overhead shenanegans, and I had no problem doing it without lower body assistance using a heavier bar than I use for shoulders.

Also, I figured out my Saturday mistake right away: I’d gone as deep as I usually do in the leg track. This was apparently the wrong answer for my first time back.

As for my upper body after being out for a month? Nothing. I’ve felt nothing. As far as my upper body is concerned, it never left the gym. Weird, right?!

I’m so glad to be back.

November Favorites post coming on Thursday!