HIIT

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!

Turbo heart rate – Body Combat Release 68 (Informal Review!)

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Les Mills Body Combat 68 is fun. It’s a killer. There’s one part that’s a struggle for me. There’s another part that knocks the wind out of me. I love these challenges.

The music set is probably my favorite of all the releases I’ve done, not because of any particular song, but just the set as a whole. The beat match from start to finish is pretty decent, there’s a great bassline in each track, and none of the tracks annoy me too much. (The tracks have strong hooks, which means they can be either very awesome or very annoying.) That’s one thing this set has going for it: the beat manages to override any vocals that might otherwise make me want to stab myself in the ear. I do like most of the tracks, though.

You move through the cardio set in the hardcore electronic dance/club genre with flavors of drum and bass, trap, dubstep, synthpop, Eurodance, and the like, driven by an aggressive pulse with some cool remixes. I like the set’s cohesiveness in contrast to the releases whose sets take you all over the map with metal, electronica, rap, pop, hair band hard rock, etc. (I dig most of those genres individually, but mashed together in a single workout release? Not so much.) The cohesiveness of 68’s sound set keeps my momentum going; I don’t have to drastically switch gears from track to track. I looked up the music and noted that some of it hails from Down Under, home of Les Mills International. Great job, Les Mills DJ!

Workout-wise, I like 68’s footwork (agility), plyometrics (explosive power), and level changes (reflex and compound exercise). [ETA: There’s some great H.I.I.T. in this release, too.]

So let’s go.

 

Let's do this.

Let’s do this.

 

(Grainy screenshots Callaghan and me in this post are courtesy of video footage taken in bad lighting.)

 

*****

Les Mills Body Combat 68

Track 1a: Upper-body Warm-up (“Freak” – Steve Aoki, Diplo & Deorro feat. Steve Bays)

  • Music: No-bullshit, high-octane club music for the upper-body warm-up; there’s no easing into this release with souped-up Katy Perry or Taylor Swift. It might be annoying to some, but it does the job.
  • Boxing combinations with uppercuts, hooks, jabs, crosses.
  • The level changes and small footwork involvement are cool. My upper-body is most definitely warm after this!

Track 1b: Lower-body Warm-up (“Break The Rules” – Anonymous Hotel)

  • Music: Same vein as 1a above. You know this excessively bright and happy music for the lower-body warm-up is meant to lull you into a false sense of security. It can only portend major lower-body mangling in the rest of the workout. And it does.
  • Knees and more knees!
  • Kicks (front snap kicks to push kicks to roundhouse kicks).
  • Down for push-ups… in the warm-up?!
  • These aren’t static push-ups, either. This is a lower-body warm-up, remember… there’s active leg involvement here.
  • Yep. The dynamic push-ups became MOUNTAIN-CLIMBERS. In the WARM-UP.

Track 2: Combat 1 (“Push” – Kronic, East Movement & Savage)

  • Music: Trap, and heavy on the drums. Great track for Combat 1!
  • Switch kicks (knee to kick). Jump kicks. Jump kicks on repeat.
  • Knees and lunges.
  • More knees and lunges.
  • Lower-body burn-out, check.

Track 3: Power Training 1 (“On My Way” – Jupiter Soliloquy)

  • Music: This could be a track that annoys me too much, but it’s saved by the beat.
  • Hard and fast upper-body combinations… uppercuts, jab, crosses.
  • Footwork (scissors) incorporated into the upper-body combos.
  • Running in place – but it’s not even the halfway point!
  • More.

Track 4: Combat 2 (“My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light ‘Em Up)” – 2 Chainz)

  • Music: 2 Chainz remixed Fall Out Boy’s song, and it’s kickass. This song actually deviates from the set’s general character, but it still fits in there nicely. Great jam for Combat 2.
  • “Bring your mat close-by” is a euphemism for “We’re doing push-ups in the middle of this cardio track.”
  • Low-mid-low block combination.
  • Roundhouse kick add-on to the block combos.
  • Side kicks with a floor tap in between.
  • Double kicks, and here I face the fact that my balance has gone to shit. The tap in between the double kicks becomes a quick squat to involve more leg.
  • This is the part that’s a struggle for me. I don’t get it – my balance has never been so bad. But this gives me something to work on.
  • Double kicks become triple kicks.
  • I don’t feel the burn I’m supposed to be feeling in my standing leg, probably because I completely fail to hold my balance.
  • 2 Chainz takes over the song and we drop down for push-ups (with the same lower-body involvement we saw in the warm-up) in increasing reps.
  • Mountain-climbers. Of course.

Track 5: Power Training 2 (“Dirty” (Metrik Remix) – Dirtyphonics)

  • Music: Drum & Bass. Great vibe, and again, great music for this track!
  • Striking combos with level changes.
  • Plyometrics: Squat jumps, then lateral squat jumps.
  • This is a short but intense track.

Track 6: Combat 3 (“She Got It (Club Mix)” – Vandalism & Angger Dimas)

  • Music: Sick beat. Not my favorite track, but clearly this DJ knows what’s what.
  • Side kick, front kick, back kick combination.
  • Back kick repeaters.
  • I couldn’t count the number of kicks in this release if I wanted to.

Track 7: Muay Thai (“The United Vibe” – Scooter)

  • Music: Okay, after two years of Body Combat, I’m now used to practicing Muay Thai moves to music other than death metal and gangsta rap. Thus acclimated, I can get into this techno/Eurodance jam for the Muay Thai track.
  • Jab, up elbow, double knee combination.
  • Four knees. Two knees. Running man knees.
  • Four levels of running man knees!
  • Downward elbows.
  • This is the part that knocks the wind out of me: Downward elbows IMMEDIATELY following level 4 running man knees.
  • Level 4 running man takes a lot out of me. Downward elbows take a lot out of me. I need a brief pause to recover between the two, but there’s no such thing. So here’s the second major area I need to work on (the first being my balance): Breathing management to get through this track.
  • Ground and pound.

Track 8: Power Training 3 (“Out Of My Hands” – Olympic Daydream)

  • Music: I like the instrumental sequence, and it makes sense for this last cardio track.
  • Jabs!
  • Hooks!
  • Jacks!
  • More jabs!
  • I always like track 8. It’s an opportunity to use everything up, if anything is left.

Track 9: Conditioning (“Turn Down For What” – DJ Snake & Lil Jon)

  • Music: A classic. Great song for a killer ab track.
  • Laying on back: Criss-cross legs in the air.
  • Crunches added to the legs.
  • Laying on side: side crunches (side plank)
  • Flip back over: More. Just more. And flip over again. And again. Maybe I’m exaggerating at this point, but I don’t think so.
  • My abs hate me.

Track 10: Cool-down (“I See Fire” – Sol3 Mio)

  • Music: I looked up this song, and sure enough, it’s famous for representing the All Blacks, New Zealand’s rugby team. (Les Mills is a New Zealand company.) The vocals are beautiful.
  • Stretching.

 

 

*****

In summary: 68 is an intense release.

 

Us being us.

Us being us.

 

I’d give it an 8.5.

Body Combat Release 67 – Informal Review!

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

1). I’m stoked to be here talking about the new Les Mills Body Combat release (#67), because that means the class still exists at our gym! So far, all is well in the aftermath of the great gym take-over.

2). I’ve done the new release a few times at this point, so I can say with zero hesitation that this tracklist is my least favorite of them all… of all the ones I’ve done, that is. I enjoy the workout, itself, but… the music.

I can train with no music at all, but if there’s music and it’s unappealing to me and it doesn’t motivate me, that’s a challenge. The first time I worked out to music was in Army basic training, where drill sergeants yell melodic cadences at you and you have to yell them back. The “songs” are meant, among other things, to motivate troops during company runs and marches, and they inspire a strong esprit de corps among the ranks. That experience set my standard of a motivational training soundtrack. I’m beyond hope with Body Combat #67’s music. Dear Les Mills Body Combat music-selecting team: It’s not you, it’s me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still getting in a kick-ass workout with #67. I’m just having to reach deeper to seize motivation from within, which, actually, is probably a great exercise in and of itself. So really, no complaints. I’m just saying.

3). Since the music does nothing for me, though, I’m not going to list the names of the songs and my thoughts on them in this review.

4). Someone on Facebook posted a handy meme with the number of techniques done in release #67, so I thought I’d share the info here. Within an hour, we do:

720 jabs, 294 crosses, 389 hooks, 432 uppercuts, 30 circular elbows, 36 ascending elbows, 43 back fists, 80 karate punches, 418 knees, 56 roundhouse knees, 118 front kicks, 44 side kicks, 29 roundhouse kicks, 32 jump kicks, 30 shoots, 32 lunges, 32 scissors, 88 jacks, 64 plank climbers, and 32 push-ups.

And that doesn’t even include the ab track with that one move that always makes me feel like I’m going to throw up. You know the one. That side plank thing where you lift and lower your hips a million times.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Les Mills Body Combat 67

Track 1a: Upper-body Warm-up

  • Jabs
  • Combinations: hook/cross, jab/cross, double uppercuts
  • Lateral shuffle to scissors (I like how they always finish the upper-body warm-up with a move to segue into the lower-body warm-up)

Track 1b: Lower-body Warm-up

  • Shoots
  • Kicks: side kicks; double front kicks; roundhouse kicks
  • Down on the floor? During the warm-up? Plank climbers. Gah.

Track 2: Combat 1

  • Double upper/hook combo
  • Roundhouse knees
  • Back fists; back fist/roundhouse kick combo

Track 3: Power Training 1

  • Jabs, crosses; double jab combo
  • Hooks; hook/jack combo

Track 4: Combat 2

  • Karate punches
  • Roundhouse knee/side kick combo
  • Roundhouse knee/side kick/repeated front kick combo
  • **Dying**
  • Down on the floor for push-ups/plank climbers

Track 5: Power Training 2

  • Uppercuts
  • Upper/cross combo
  • High Intensity Interval Training (H.I.I.T.): running/wide-stance running/4-second sprint intervals

Track 6: Combat 3

  • Back knee/front kick combo
  • Jump kicks
  • Lunges and jump lunges

Track 7: Muay Thai

  • Circular elbow/front knee combo
  • Ascending elbow/knee combo
  • Double knee/single knee combo
  • Running man knees

Track 8: Power Training 3

  • Jab/cross combo
  • Jab/cross/hook combo
  • Jabs (variations)

Track 9: Conditioning

  • Abs: Pulsing side planks super-setted with another torturous plank exercise, then
  • Ab-work lying down
  • Admittedly, it does help that this track is Rihanna. Rihanna makes abs easier somehow.

Track 10: Cool-down!

*****

In summary, #67 is a great lower-body destroyer and upper-body stamina squeezer… shoulders, in particular. I also feel my calves more than usual (during Track 4). The release is heavy on knees and kicks, but light on footwork. The H.I.I.T. sequence in Track 5 isn’t as killer as the H.I.I.T. in the last few releases. #67 brings new challenges, and that’s what’s awesome about it.

For lack of a pic that makes better sense here, I’ve got a selfie I took yesterday morning. This post was in progress and I was thinking how great it is that we still have Body Combat at our gym!

 

T minus 8 hours before heading to the gym.

T minus 8 hours before heading to the gym.

 

BC #67: Great release overall!

The last bro standing. (Perceptions of fitness.)

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

At Body Combat a few days ago, Rebecca, our Wednesday night instructor, went to close the door before starting class. She called out to the group of guys gathered on the other side: “Are you coming in or staying out?” There were five of them.

“What kind of class is it?”

“Kickboxing.”

After some hesitation, they gamely filed in and arranged themselves in the back of the room.

I don’t usually look at others in the mirror during a workout, but this time, I couldn’t help but glance in their direction every once in a while. I was curious to see what would happen. The guys seemed to be in their 20’s, and looking at them, you’d assume that they work out. But how would they fare in Body Combat?

 

thatasianlookingchick.com-beastmodeorawake

 

They started out on point, striking, kicking, and keeping with the pace, doing pretty well considering they didn’t know the material. They were killing it, actually.

At the end of the lower-body warm-up, I cast an eye back there again and saw the first visible signs of fatigue. The guys started falling back as we worked through the tracks. Soon, each one was going at his own pace, which is normal… it’s how anyone, at any fitness level, can do Body Combat.

Release 65 is intense. If you go full-power when your muscles aren’t used to Body Combat, you’re going to feel it fast. The first guy to give up left the room during the second half of track 2 (Combat 1).

A little while later – I want to say it was after the H.I.I.T. session Les Mills planted in the middle of the workout – another guy fell out and left.

By then, I was totally entertaining myself watching to see who would leave next. I think it was during the capoeira track that two more made their escape.

The last bro standing started taking longer rests, and more frequently. I was rooting for him to make it to the end. The capoeira track was a quad-burner, but the Muay Thai track required more energy, and it looked like he’d exhausted his stores. Still, he powered through. During track 8 (Power Training 3), he finally waved his white towel in defeat (I say figuratively – he had a towel, but he didn’t wave it) and departed. He almost made it through that last cardio track! He’d been running on fumes, and he had nothing left; he didn’t know Body Combat, so he didn’t know that there was less than five minutes of cardio left. If he had stayed, he would have been rewarded with the abs conditioning track and the cool-down. It was impressive that he lasted that long, though!

Maybe these guys mostly just lift weights, and they’re less into cardio. Or maybe they used up all of their beast-mode at the beginning of the class, so they ran out quickly.

 

thatasianlookingchick.com-beast-mode-300

 

In any case, the moral of the story…

Q: What do you get when reasonably athletic-looking bros spontaneously jump into a Les Mills Body Combat class?

A: A reminder of how Body Combat is a no-joke, super intense workout… and also an appreciation that you can do it.

The second and most important moral of the story? “Don’t judge a person’s fitness level based on appearance.”

In other words (I’ll say it again), someone’s body size or shape is no reliable indication of his/her fitness level.

You can look strong and fit, but have poor endurance. You can be overweight, but be in better shape than a thin person. You can be a thin person and have a higher body fat percentage than a heavier person. You can be a skinny person with a high enough body fat percentage to land you in a not-healthy category. You can have a Body Mass Index score that designates you as “obese,” but you’re actually a super strong power-lifting athlete or a football player or a body-builder or a fighter. You can be big and bulky, but extremely flexible. You can be “fat” while being exceptionally strong and fit cardio-respiratory-wise. And so on.

Just because you’re young and in shape doesn’t mean that you can make it all the way through your first Body Combat class as a drop-in.

The parameters we have to measure someone’s fitness level are loose at best. The fact is, we don’t know the story behind the exterior we see when we set eyes on someone’s physique, so it’s useless to judge a person based on his/her weight.