Apr 26, 2012

RPM 54

By · 5 Comments

I haven’t had a chance to do all of the latest Les Mills releases other than BodyPump and RPM (and a sneak peek at BodyAttack) but so far, so good.

I did RPM 54 on Tuesday morning and it’s probably my favourite of the last few RPM releases. The music is fun for the first half of the release (I’m loving “San Francisco”), then ventures into some weird territory during the interval track. Check out this song:

A lot of RPM instructors and participants have been complaining about how dreadful this song is, but I didn’t hate it that much. Sure, it’s not the kind of song I’d jam to on my drive to work or anything but for 7 minutes of intense intervals? Why not?

Nothing really stands out in terms of choreography, except for the power climb track. There are only two blocks of work but they are much longer than usual. Overall, a challenging release (my legs were jello when I hopped off my bike) but fun enough that you don’t notice.  Definitely a good way to pre-emptively burn off the decadence that would later ensue on Tuesday evening.

In other news (well, it’s not really news), I made a cool fritatta last night:

It’s a mix of brown rice, sesame oil, sesame seeds, peppers, soy sauce and eggs. For anyone who’s ever had bibimbap (a Korean dish of fried egg, vegetables and rice served in a stone bowl), this tasted really similar, especially since the rice got all brown and crispy at the bottom like it does in the hot pot. Yum!

I’m looking forward to the weekend – I have plans to see a couple of girlfriends I haven’t seen in awhile on Saturday and Sunday so should be a nice, relaxing weekend.

Anything fun planned for the weekend?

Filed Under: Cardio, Recipes · Tagged: , ,
Apr 20, 2011

Post-RPM Munchies

By · Leave a Comment

I did the latest RPM release tonight and even though I ate dinner an hour before (no-butter chicken with zucchini and brown rice) and had a post-workout snack (a banana with a tablespoon of peanut butter), I am still ravenous. I’m currently munching on some popcorn to tide me over until morning because I don’t believe in going to bed hungry, daily calorie allotment be damned.

RPM 50 is lots of fun. I find with RPM, the music is more important than the choreography because you’re riding to the beat of the music throughout the workout. If I’m not feeling the music, I’m not as energized and therefore don’t work as hard.

Luckily, I enjoyed every song in this release except Track 4 (U2… bleh) and Track 6 (some monotonous, wordless song that seemed to go on forever… zzzzz) but since these are recovery tracks, the boring music didn’t throw me off my game too badly.

My favourites in this release are the warm up track (“Club Can’t Handle Me,” which used to be on my running playlist) and the mountain track (“Sweet Dreams” by La Bouche - did somebody say nineties dance music?!? What more could one want in a new release?). So, overall, I’m liking this one.

One thing that occurred to me while reviewing the latest Les Mills releases is that I seem to enjoy working out to really terrible music that I would never listen to in any other context. Anyone else suffer from this problem?

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: ,
Apr 15, 2011

New Release Week at GoodLife

By · 1 Comment

Today marks the beginning of New Release Week at my gym, meaning brand new music and choreography for all of the Les Mills fitness classes. As a bona fide Les Mills groupie, this is always an exciting time of year for me (pretty lame, huh?).

This morning, I did Body Attack 72. I love the choreography in this release; there are lots of changes in direction in several of the tracks, which keep things from getting repetitive. There’s also a really fun part in Track 8 where the music slows down then gradually picks up again and you have to jump to match the speed of the music. Track 4 is definitely the hardest (no surprise there!) with a killer sequence of stride jumps at the end. Track 7 features some football inspired moves, a nice change from the last few releases.

While I enjoyed the choreography, I’m not so crazy about the music in this release; both Body Attack 70 and 71 had a lot of fun songs, but nothing really stood out for me in this one, except for Track 7 (“It’s On” by Amanda Myers). Maybe the music will grow on me as I get to know the songs better.

On Monday and Tuesday, I’ll be trying the latest Body Pump and RPM releases. I’ve already had a peek at the new Body Pump music and it looks good; I have no idea what to expect for RPM though.

After Body Attack, I planned my meals for the week and headed to Whole Foods to buy groceries. On the menu this week: home-made pizza, more no-butter chicken (I want to use up the leftover ingredients from last week), chicken cacciatore and bean pasta. Tomorrow, my sister and I are going to team cook something for the boys; we are both good cooks but have never combined our talents in the kitchen before. We still have to pick a recipe, but I’m looking forward to this little experiment.

For lunch, I was craving avocado, so I threw together this pita: 

I realize it looks like there’s nothing but avocado in there, but there are also some turkey and tomato slices; you just can’t see them because I went a tad overboard with the avocados! For dinner, I’m going out for Japanese, which I haven’t done in a while and am pretty pumped about… overall, a great day of eating!

Filed Under: Uncategorized · Tagged: , ,
« Older Posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 97 other followers