From managing interruptions to juggling the demands of a busy life, I’m walking you through my personal journey towards making home workouts a lasting habit. You’ll get insider tips on the equipment I use, my flexible workout schedule, and how I balance intensity and time.
Whether you’re a seasoned fitness enthusiast or just starting, there’s something in this episode for you. Tune in and discover how to make exercise a sustainable and enjoyable part of your routine. Plus, you won’t want to miss the touching DM from a listener that truly captures the essence of this journey.
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica Packer: Do you struggle getting to the gym? Do you find it hard to carve out the extra time and money that requires? Not to mention the logistic gymnastics with family and home life. You are not alone.
One of the most common habits women come to me wanting to work on is exercise. And the reasons abound on why it’s so important to them, but also why it’s so difficult for them to prioritize from having a newborn baby, to having a new chronic health problem, to having many varied responsibilities that are stretching them far too thin, to even the difficulties of finding good childcare at a gym.
For I am not immune to these struggles. I have them too. I think about after my last baby was born and it being a few months in and him starting to do a little bit better about Napping, but not really and I was finally ready to do more than my 10 minutes of stretching and yoga for my baseline And I pulled up a very easy in quotes 20 minute workout video that I thought would be very doable Well, it took me three and a half hours to do 14 minutes of my 20 minute workout video.
Why? Because I kept getting interrupted. The baby woke up not once, but twice, also interspersed with the pest control, letting me know they were coming. So I had to stop everything and hurry and tidy certain spots that I wanted them to be in, just so they could reach the floor in order to spray those areas.
And then them coming and me talking to them. And by the time I finally threw in the towel, I just felt really overwhelmed and also defeated. The fact that it took three and a half hours to do 14 minutes of an easy workout, why even try? If you can relate to that, then I hope you can also relate to the Instagram series I’ve been doing on my stories of me showing my workout first thing in the morning.
Now I share those there, not because I have exercise all together or that I’m a fitness instructor or a fitness account, or to kind of shove it in people’s faces. I share it there to show that it is something I am prioritizing in my life, however imperfectly, and One of the things that has surprised me the most about those Instagram stories shares are the DMs I get from women who tell me how motivating it is to see them, but also for them to see that I don’t do my workouts perfectly, that I often have to break them up, do half of a workout before the kids go to school and half later, or that it takes me a lot longer to do a workout because of the interruptions that I get.
I wanted to share one of those DMs because it just came in this week.
This woman said, I just wanted to tell you seeing this series over time is so helpful to me. I started a weight training workout today and was almost done when the phone rang. It was a call I needed to take. I paused, answered the call, which ended up being long.
And instead of feeling like my workout was botched, I just unpaused and finished it. Which, little did I know, was just two minutes left until cool down. So I was basically finished with my workout, except the stretch anyways. I think I used to feel like I was constantly being interrupted, and I’ve shifted it to mentally, it’s just a pause.
No big deal, I’ll finish it when the pause is over. Thank you for this example. In today’s episode, I want to share with you one of the biggest ways I have successfully, consistently worked out is by almost exclusively doing so from my home. And I share this not because you should, but because working out from home is an option.
And also how I do so could perhaps give you some ways to do so yourself.
If exercise is a habit that you want to prioritize, whether that’s now or later, I hope this episode is just what you need to hear. That’s all coming up after a quick break for our sponsors.
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It’s that time of year, our podcast anniversary, and a golden one at that. November 8th marks 8 years of About Progress, which is honestly a milestone I wasn’t sure we would meet for big chunks of this year. But we are, and I hope to mark many more anniversaries to come. I always like to celebrate the podcast anniversary with you, seeing as we are a community, not a fan club.
To do so, I’m doing my eight year Favorite Thing Giveaway from mid October through mid November, giving away eight of my very favorite things in two thing bundles, with one grand prize winner getting all eight at the end a 300 value, including things like my favorite tea kettle, water tumbler, drink mix ins, glowy makeup, and more, all included with this amazing, vibrant red bag that I have loved so much.
How do you qualify? It’s the simplest thing ever. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you’re automatically entered. I am pulling from any new reviews left in 2024 and due to the rolling nature of the giveaway, the sooner you leave a review, the more likely you are to win. Winners will be announced on Instagram and shared in our weekly newsletter and a blog post I’ll share in a moment.
So leave your review now and continue to watch for how I’m announcing the winners. You can see all the items I’m giving away and those same details on how to enter at aboutprogress.
com slash eight years. If you’re hearing this later, still leave a review as I do a monthly drawing anyway, and it greatly impacts our podcast ability to keep going. Thank you so much for eight years of About Progress.
I have a whole free guide for you that lists a lot of what you’re going to hear me share here, with more helpful details, including links to equipment and the apps I use and more breakdowns. I
call it the Home Workout Musts, and you can get it for free at aboutprogress. com slash workout. Now before we begin, none of what I share here should be seen as a prescription. And I mean that both literally and anecdotally. Get medical advice, of course, for real prescriptions and professional advice where required and needed.
And always listen to yourself and your body. Give yourself your own prescriptions. I say that because exercise is one of the most layered and loaded habits women have. The pressures abound to exercise and exercise a certain amount. And in certain ways, those pressures are everywhere. And I honestly haven’t always had a healthy relationship with exercise.
And as you’ll hear, it is something I’m still working on, but there are multiple reasons why for me personally, exercise is one of my most important habits. Sleep is actually the first, and I’ll share more on that as part of a quick history of my own evolution with exercise, as I think it kind of lays the groundwork to why it’s such an important habit for me.
And, how I do so
growing up, I exercised a ton, but it was more for the things I was doing. I danced and danced a lot. I also did tumbling and things that went with that. I was very active in ballet and jazz and then later musical theater. I loved to dance and I danced from four to 18. And I would also exercise a little bit.
on the side with that, but typically just a few times a year when my best friend and I would run or do dance videos or rollerblade a couple weeks leading up to the dances. I don’t know why we decided then was the time to get in the habit. But in general though, movement of some kind was a big part of my life until I turned 18 and I stopped dancing.
And I went to college and all my activity basically stopped, but halfway through the school year, I picked up the habit of running thanks to having a really broken heart. But this is when exercise became an unhealthy habit for years. And I’m just going to be really honest with you. Exercise became one of the biggest ways I aided my eating disorders. It was a way for me to purge without necessarily purging, to have a sense of control, to punish myself and my body. And it really continued that way for many years. And it’s something I’m still working on all the time to see it as something that is there to help me And not to be something I hurt myself with.
While I’m not happy with how exercise became so unhealthy, I am glad I developed the habit while in college and that habit was able to continue into our young newlywed years. During these years, I was a very religious runner. I ran about four or five times a week.
And then on the other off days, I would visit the gym for the elliptical and maybe some light dumbbell work. I was a pure cardio queen. That’s what I thought it was to be healthy. And I’m sure many of you can relate. And once I had my first child, I continued to run with her while she was in the Bob stroller.
And then I would go to the gym, maybe two early mornings a week, Again, just for the elliptical. I didn’t do child care at the gym because we did not live in a safe area. My friend was a gym worker and told me and strongly advised me to not send my children to that child care.
And I listened to him. Then we moved into another area and going to the gym continued to be something that I couldn’t do with childcare, more for affordability. So I continued to run and run with my second child and then my third child until I faced a really dramatic issue. And you’ve probably heard me share this before.
I don’t know. You will soon in another episode I have on the pelvic floor, but. About a year in after I had my third child, actually, maybe it was less, maybe it was more like six months, I realized that my uterus was falling out. And it was mostly due to me running too hard, too fast, too soon after having my babies.
Now, I thought that I was being gentle to myself, but looking back, I can absolutely see I was not. And this all goes back to my issues of exercise and it just being almost a subconscious pull in me that I couldn’t get away from, especially thinking I had to hit certain standards.
And at all times, no matter, you If I was heavily pregnant or had just had a baby. So I do not recommend it. I’m not proud of it. And I, in fact, paid dearly for it. I have not been able to run really since then. Maybe a little here and there, some light jogging intermixed with mostly walking, but I haven’t really done so after having my fifth.
And it was a significant loss for me running was not only a huge outlet. It was something I tended to be pretty good at, and I was proud of, and trying to avoid a full hysterectomy and reconstruction surgery at 30 years old was A really hard pill to swallow, but I did it. And I’m proud of myself because I was willing to drop kind of my addiction with running and instead focus more on gentle exercise.
I think I never thought I could do before. I thought I could only do vigorous hard workouts to be fit. And that hasn’t been the case ever since then. I mostly have done a lot of walking. In the beginning, I wasn’t even allowed to do any strength training of any kind, like no squats, no lunches, no lifting anything heavy.
So I began with some at home, bar workouts, which is mostly reliant on body weight or one or two or three pound weights. Very small. And with time, I also took up swimming, which was really difficult for me because I’m definitely not a good swimmer and many of you were around. Then when I was trying to learn that and pick it up, And after a couple of years, I gradually got to the point where I could begin to do more strength training.
And I finally got my first weightlifting class. I learned how to use my pelvic floor in other ways and to strengthen it. And I got stronger and it felt so good to realize like, I don’t have to hurt myself. And I also loved the feeling of being stronger
now that I was regularly doing strength training. And then my fourth baby came and right before he came, we had signed up at another local gym that had good childcare and my other kids were starting to go to it before and they were liking it enough. And the reason we had to sign up for this is because shortly after the birth of our fourth child, Brad got a new job in San Francisco that required him to be out the door by 5 15 AM.
So that meant I could no longer do my early morning gym workouts a few times. times a week. And I also did not always love just walking with the kids that kind of got sick of it too. And only doing it on the weekends. So this is when it became official for me to be a home workouter, like almost full time, almost exclusively.
I still kept my gym pass to swim on Saturdays, but that stopped in 2020. And then since then I have only exclusively worked out from home the last four and a half years. So of the past, I would say if we’re going like since I had kids, I’ve mostly worked out from home for 13 and a half years and almost exclusively for seven, but for sure, exclusively for almost five of those.
And I love working out from home. I’m going to share some pros and cons in a moment. I’m so glad that this habit is there to stabilize me. I work out mostly to have time to myself. I’m actually an introvert. I really need time to myself to think, to do something that is interesting to me, something that feels good.
I think working out can be fun, especially if you have the time to yourself. The right programs to follow. You can listen to your own music, your own books. And mostly I work out because it’s a habit. I truly don’t think about it most of the time. I just get up and do it. And with that being said, I am still working on my relationship with exercise after having.
My fifth child. That’s when I really was the most gentle I’ve ever been in taking my time, getting back up to movement. And I did my best to not take it too much and too far. And I’m really proud of how I handled that and how gentle I was with myself because it was. And exercise can be another way to have an eating disorder without technically having disordered eating.
So I always try to pay attention to that and to make sure I’m balancing out harder days with gentler days, to not work out too long or too strenuously all the time to just be intuitive about it, to listen to my body while also challenging my body in ways that feel good too.
So now that you know my history with exercise, I hope it can give you a moment to think of your own. It’s going to be different from mine. Maybe you never worked out. growing up. It just wasn’t something that you did. Maybe you did it even more than I did, and you were an amazing athlete, and leaving behind that part of your life felt like a separation from identity, and it’s been really hard to get back to it.
Maybe you were modeled unhealthy exercise, and that’s really difficult to navigate. And I just want to let you give yourself space to honor whatever your history is, to better understand why you are where you are at. Whatever that looks like, whether it’s too little or too much exercise, or it vacillates between the two.
Because I want to help you better get in a consistent habit of working out, and the number way one, and the number one way I’m going to recommend that, is working out from home. So, After the break, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to walk you through how I do that including the pros and cons of working out from home, my schedule, what I do, what my programs are and how you can start too.
Again, that’s all coming up after a quick break for our sponsors. This episode is proudly sponsored by Lolavie, an award winning haircare line founded by the ever fabulous, ever iconic Jennifer Aniston. As the seasons shift to cooler weather, our skin shifts too, and if you have sensitive skin like I do, you’ll notice that all over your body, including your scalp.
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Have you seen your favorite podcasts dropping right and left, adopting subscriber only models or upping the number of ads in their episodes? It’s because podcasts have had a very rough year and a half, when it comes to having enough income to cover their costs. About Progress is no different, but we’re honestly luckier than most because we adopted a supporter model in January of this year, and the Supporters Club is Has truly saved about progress, making the bulk of my work free and available for all.
We are getting close to covering the most basics of our costs through supporters alone, and I would love to have you gift yourself a level of support at aboutprogress. com slash support. There are three levels in the Supporters Club, each with their own exclusive benefits. From my private reading diary, to bi monthly online meetups and in person ones too, to private workshops and book clubs, and more personal, my private premium, always ad free podcast where I lean into the personal side of personal development.
Here is what a recent supporter who just joined told me, Hey Monica, I just wanted to let you know. I just wanted to tell you that I became a subscriber and supporter to your podcast a few weeks ago, because I really wanted to hear your thoughts on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Ha. And I just have to tell you how much I love every episode.
You are doing an incredible job, and I’m so blown away by everything you’re doing. I just listened to the one about why are so many influencers Mormon, and I was nodding my head so many times. Anyway, I just wanted to say Anyway, I just have to tell you because I know it’s a ton of work and I’m grateful.
This is what it looks and feels like to be a supporter of About Progress. You are supporting my general work when you also get so much in return. Join the club and keep About Progress going as it is by going to aboutprogress. com. By going to about progress.com/support. With time, I hope to have more funds to expand our small team to bring even more to you in 2025.
Again, join the club at about progress.com/support.
Before we start the logistics, the practical tips I have for you before I share the practical tips of how to work out more from home by sharing what I do. I first wanted to begin with some pros and cons of working out from home. The pros are. that it is convenient to work out from home. You don’t have to go anywhere.
As part of that, it’s on your own time. You can do it when it’s most convenient for you, even if it’s in the middle of the day or early in the morning or in the mid afternoon, like you get to decide.
As part of that, you don’t have to go anywhere, which is also why it’s convenient. Another pro is that you can break it up. You don’t have to do your full workout and in a certain amount of time, you’re allowed to break it up. And I’m going to share more about that in a minute. Another pose that doesn’t matter what you wear.
After I had my first kid, I, after I had my last baby, I mostly worked out in my pajamas in the beginning because I just had a baseline of 10 minutes of stretching or yoga. So I didn’t even get sweaty. It just mattered that I exercised. And another pro is you don’t really need equipment, if at all, you can do it equipment free.
And I did for many years. Some cons to working out from home is that it’s on your own time, even though that’s one of the pros I shared. It also can be one of the cons because it can be so easy to dismiss it, to push it off, or to delay it somehow, to procrastinate it. So that can be a con. Another con is that you can more easily get interrupted by home and family responsibilities.
And a final con is that it could still require some equipment. And again, I would say could with time. I don’t think it necessarily does, but it does get easier if you’re able to get certain equipment over time. And I’ll share more about that in a moment. Now I’m about to share with you how I personally do this, how I work out from home and how I’ve done so consistently and almost exclusively for many years.
And just remember, there is no perfect way to work out. There’s no perfect time. There’s no perfect experience while you’re working out. And I don’t have any of those either. So with that being said, here is my main schedule. I work out six days a week. I work out Monday through Saturday. Now, before your jaw drops to the floor, cause that sounds really unrealistic.
Know that I alternate the intensity of my workouts, and I also alternate the time they require. And it’s a lot more flexible than it sounds. So don’t imagine me doing like the hardest workout of my life, six days a week. I typically do this by waking up at. between 530 and 6am on the weekdays. More often than not, it’s closer to 530, which I’ve been working really hard on this school year.
And on Saturdays, I either work out early, like at 6am, or I go a little bit later. It just depends on what my kids have going on. If we’re having a really busy Saturday, which, We definitely just did all through September and half of October that I do need to just work out early to get it done, but other times I just do a little bit later, like after Brad gets home from his run, maybe seven or eight, and I do less of it on that day, too.
On the weekdays, I just do what I can before my kids get up, and then I finish the rest after I drop them off to school. That is breaking it up. And this is something that dawned on me after I had my fourth kid. So I’ll tell you more about that in a bit as well. So that’s my schedule. And now let me tell you what I do with that schedule, because I do have certain days.
I do certain things. No matter what, I tend to have a combo of cardio and training. On cardio, I alternate the stationary bike I have with, I do the Peloton app. on my stationary bike from Amazon, or a rowing machine. And I also have a treadmill that I walk on. And with training, I alternate strength training using a couple workout apps that I love, or as part of that training, doing just stretching or yoga on the days where I am needing to rest more.
And With both of those, I would also say I have ideals and I have baselines. So I’ll share for my ideals, I would love to do between 35 to 45 minutes of cardio, or if I’m walking, I like to do four miles of walking. And for my strength training, ideal is 20 to 40 minutes. But now my baselines of both are like 20 minutes.
If I can fit in a two mile walk, great. If I can just do 20 minutes on my bike and that’s it that day, that’s great. And my strength training baselines are typically between 15 and 20 minutes. Like I can do that on the worst of day. But sometimes I’m like, yeah, 15 minutes is actually more of my realistic baseline for strength training.
Just so you know, my baseline again was 10 minutes a day for movement after I had my last kid. And there are different seasons in my life where I know my ideals are way too ideally, and my baselines may either be too hard or sometimes too easy. So these are flexible. So I kind of shared how I usually do a combo of cardio and training.
I actually do this on certain days, typically. These are also flexible, but most of the time, this is what I do. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I do a workout on my bike followed by the rower, and that usually amounts to 30 to 45 minutes between the two of them. If I’m tired that day, or there’s less time, I do 20 minutes on the bike and 10 minutes on the rower, or just 20 minutes period if it’s a pure baseline day.
But I try to not do too much more than 30 minutes on the bike, just because it’s one of those things I’m always trying to say, like, 30 30 is more than enough. You don’t need to be a 45 minute bike workout er, although maybe you can do that every now and then for fun. I just worry that will become the next standard for me, and that’s one of the ways I’m trying to work against the kind of lingering, controlling aspects of exercise for me.
So Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, that’s what I Oh, and then I do strength training and usually I do the strength training as much as I can before the kids are up and then I finish dress after if I’m able to wake up early or I do the full strength training after dropping off the kids while my toddler watches his signing videos, which I’m actually learning alongside with him.
And on Tuesdays, Thursdays, I walk while I work on my treadmill. Now, I love to be outside. Walking while I work is something that I’ve been doing exclusively this year because I have no child care now and I had limited child care before. And so it really is a great comfort for me to know that I have time to work.
on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings to work for an hour before the kids are up while I’m walking. It’s like a one two punch. And I walk like at three miles an hour, sometimes down to two if I am doing something that I just like, I can’t type easily for some reason while I’m walking today. So I just take it gentle.
It’s just a gentle walk. And then I do the same thing, strength training after I dropped my kids off to school. On Saturdays, I walk outside or I bike outside And depending on how busy of a Saturday is, I don’t do any training, like in terms of yoga or strength training. And by the way, those Monday, Wednesday, Monday through Friday, if I’m feeling tired and strength training just doesn’t seem like a good idea, I will do the yoga or stretching.
So I usually alternate those, like I’ll do a strength training two days, and then I’ll do yoga one day, then I’ll do strength training for two days, and then I won’t do the final six day. So again, that’s what I typically do. And I hope you can see the built in flexibility as well as how I try to be intuitive about it and what my body needs.
Like today, I just did a walk and then I did a 15 minute strength training workout and that, and I called it a day and I feel really good about that. Okay. So let’s talk about breaking it up, because this is something that a lot of women have told me that it’s been mind blowing for them to realize, Oh, I can break up my workout.
It’s okay if it takes a little bit longer on those Instagram stories. I tend to share, like I did this length of workout. It took me this long to do this length of workout. Like it took me 25 minutes to do my 23 minutes during training video, something like that. So another way to help with that is to break it up.
So this dawned on me after Brad started his job and I was pregnant with my fourth and there was no way for me to use a gym. I am not an afternoon and evening workout girl. I just cannot do it. My energy is the lowest then I would never exercise. If exercise weren’t somehow the first thing I do each day, then it really doesn’t get done typically.
That’s just how I work. It’s not the right way. It’s just how I work. So because of that. And I couldn’t leave home and I also wanted to get some exercise more in earlier in the day. Then I decided to, I could just walk on the treadmill or do the bike in our garage while the kids were still sleeping.
And then while the baby was sleeping, and then I could finish up my walk after dropping the kids off. Cause I tend to. Even then in California, I would walk my kids, like I would park my car and walk them in, and then I would just keep walking with the one or two, sometimes three children that I had at that time.
And then I’d do string turning when I got home. And just giving myself permission to break it up is one of the ways I’ve been the most successful. able to be consistent with my exercise because I know it’s okay. I’ll do the rest after I get back. And yeah, sometimes I don’t feel motivated to finish up my last 10 or sometimes 15 minutes.
Sometimes I don’t feel motivated to do the full strength training workout because I woke up a little bit later and I was only able to do like my baseline of cardio before the kids were up. And now I have. to do strength training too, but doing it and having those baselines in mind and knowing I can break it up with those baselines helps me actually be consistent still.
In terms of what I actually use, again, this is all linked for you in the home workout must guide at aboutprogress. com slash workout. I have some equipment I use that I’m going to share, and I also have programs. And I actually want to start with the programs. Cause this is one of the biggest ways I’ve been able to prioritize strength training.
Like cardio has always been, I can just go for a walk or I can use a stair stepper. I can make my own step, stair stepper. That’s what I meant to say. I can make my own stair stepper by just going up and down stairs in my house, or going up and down a coffee table on a coffee table. That’s one of the ways I’ve done a cardio too.
So you don’t actually need a lot of guidance with cardio typically, but strength training is something that was so foreign to me as being a cardio queen for so many years that I really needed a lot of guidance. And this is where I loved what is now named Wilma. The Wilma app by Meg Miles. It was formerly called MomStronk.
I love the Wilma app so much. I have used it for, I’d say maybe seven or eight years. Like since its inception, I have used it and worked out consistently with it. Wilma has a program where, an at home workout program, and it also has a gym program, and you can, Pay for both if you like both, I just do the home and with the home workout, you get two full workouts a week and then one shorter one.
So that tends to be one of the baseline ones I use out on a baseline day and then either a yoga workout or a high fitness workout too on Saturdays. Like, it might be different because I don’t typically do the high fitness ones. And so I love Wilma because there’s variety, but you get that week’s and you also get the two weeks prior.
So you get three weeks worth of workouts that you can reference and you can jump around on depending on the time you have. And I like that the timing is typically for the main workouts, 30 to 40 minutes, and the shorter workouts are like 15 to 20 minutes. I really love those short ones and make has really made me strong and confident.
And I really learned a ton about strength training from her. Another app that I use is Peloton. I love the Peloton app so, so much. I use it on my bike, my stationary bike that I got from Amazon, and that’s linked for you in the home workout must guide. And I love the Peloton workout for the cycling workouts.
How that works is you do I’ll share more in a moment, actually, let me share, I’ll share in a moment more how that works with your equipment, but you can use the Peloton app for cycling, but they also have strength training in there and a whole variety, like. Pick kickboxing or weightlifting.
They also have bar and they have yoga and stretching and dance workouts. Like there’s such a big variety and you grow to know which instructors you like. And you can also very easily filter out based off of the time you have under the type of workout that you want to do. So I have adored the Peloton.
app so, so much. And I don’t own anything Peloton besides the app. Another program I’ve used and loved has been Bar 3, but I don’t, I haven’t paid for that for many years. Once I was able to do more strength training with weights and my weights are light, by the way, Wilma’s light weights for the home workouts are five to 10 pounds and a stretch band, and that’s it.
I have really, I really loved the Bar 3 though, when I had to do really gentle exercises, kind of like dance strength training, like a lot of Pilates. So those are the programs I’ve used and loved. For equipment initially, I didn’t have any like I had a 10 pound weights that my neighbor gave me that she didn’t need anymore But I rarely used those until I started to strength train So just so you know if you don’t if you’re not in a place where you can afford it yet You don’t need any equipment.
You can just walk outside rain or shine You can make the stairs or the coffee table your stair stepper You can use milk gallons filled with water as your weight So, don’t feel the need to go out and buy a lot of stuff if that’s preventing you from working out from home. You don’t need any equipment.
And if you’re ready, though, to have equipment, you definitely need some free hand weights and I really only had the 5 pound and 10 pound weights for years. It’s only this year, I had a couple 3 pound weights too for Barr, but only this year Brad bought me 15 pound and 20 pound weights for Mother’s Day, free weights.
And I’m gradually using those more and more. They’re actually a lot harder. that I thought, and I’m like working up to them. And but Facebook Marketplace is your friend. Like you don’t need to buy fancy new weights. That’s where a lot of ours came from. Another equipment I use and love is a treadmill that’s just for walking.
I didn’t get out, I didn’t get the fanciest treadmill. The first treadmill we had, I got it for free from a friend who got it for free from another friend. And it was just in our, it was just a crappy one. All I needed it was to just go on a little bit of an incline and to be able to walk. And. Once we moved, we gave that away.
We gave a lot of things away when we moved from California, but before our baby was born, our last baby, I told Brad, I have to have a treadmill. Like we’re going to have a baby in the middle of winter. And I, I don’t know how I’m going to stay sane. If I can’t somehow move and have that time to myself.
So when he was two weeks old, we went to a warehouse called the Soul Warehouse in Salt Lake City. I don’t know if that’s the actual name of it, but just Google Soul Warehouse in Salt Lake City. And that’s S O L E and they have refurbished and heavily discount workout equipment. Like some of them have been dented or, something’s wrong with them, but I don’t, I honestly can’t see what’s wrong with my treadmill.
So I got a really good treadmill at a really great price. This is not one I run on. So it, it doesn’t have like fancy. tread or anything like that, but it works so well. I’ve loved it. And while we were there, by the way, I also got a rowing machine and I had been so excited about that and have loved my rowing machine.
So a crappy treadmill works. Again, make Facebook Marketplace your friend. Costco has good ones as well. For years, I’ve also had the stationary bike from Amazon. I got that, I think shortly before my fourth was born. I’ve had mine first. Oh, actually I looked up my Amazon order list or history. And I got it six years ago and It wasn’t simple for Brad to put together.
It was about 300 and I think it’s still around the same price, but I’ve had zero problems with it ever since. You do need treadmill lubricant to put where the brakes go in the beginning. And here and there, like when it just gets harder to pedal or things are creaky. And if you want to do the Peloton app, you just need a cadence monitor that you attach to the pet to the pedal.
But that’s it. Like you just need a cadence monitor and then you can do Peloton without the Peloton. I have loved my stationary bike from Amazon. And again, that’s linked for you in the home workout must guide at aboutprogress. com slash workout. Yeah, so that, that’s it. Treadmill and rowing machine really were sanity savers for me.
And and with time I would like to get a bench and a rack. I want to do more weightlifting. I would like more variety of handbell weights, like in between numbers, I want like a 12 pound weight and like an 18 pound in between to try to help me gradually work up, but at the end of the day, you don’t really need that much.
So there, that’s what I do. So that’s what I do, not how you have to do things. But what I want to end with is tips on how you can start. How could you start to work out from home? And this is going to be quick, just a couple tips to help you do so. I would first consider how do you like to move your body?
If you don’t know how, embark on a period of exploration. Find out if you like gentle movement, like yoga and walking. Maybe you like dancing. Maybe you like hardcore body pump kind of classes. Maybe you love strength training. Maybe you like group fitness. What do you like to do to move your body? That’s where you need to start.
How do you like to move your body? The next thing I would consider is when can you most easily exercise? What are the variables, obstacles to your exercise at their lowest? Again, that’s why I work out really, I tend to work out early in the day and earlier in the morning before my kids are up. So think about the when, because one of the clients that I’ve worked with she had to do it always during nap time and that was the best time for her.
Other times it’s been for other clients late at night or after work or very early in the morning. There’s no right time. It’s when is it most easy for you to do? And as part of that, the next tip is what can you attach exercise to? If there are some other existing habits or. Ways that we can habit stack here.
That’s what I would encourage you to do. For me, it’s waking up and doing it. And I have other habits that kind of help me do that. Like I always pour my LMNT mix into my water. And for some reason that gives me a little bit of a happy dose feeling to go and do my workout then. But how can you attach this habit to something else?
And the other tip I would include with that is also pay attention to what the obstacles are and how you can avoid them. So an obstacle for me is getting stuck on Instagram. Or fiddling around my house. So I don’t open Instagram at all in the morning, and I just walk straight to where I work out. And a couple of final other tips.
When you do begin to work out from home, make sure you know what your ideals are, like how you want your exercise to look, but also have baselines and start there. The baselines are the smallest and simplest version of your ideal habit that you can do on a non ideal day. As part of that, to make this workout feel good, pair it, meaning P A I R.
Pair the blah feeling with the yay feeling. Okay, so if you don’t love to work out or you don’t, you’re not feeling like it today, how can you make it feel good? One of the ways I do this is I love the podcast. It’s a pop culture podcast, but I only listen to it while I’m doing strength training because it makes it feel good, especially in the days where I don’t feel like it.
So listen to something that you love, whether it’s really motivating music or audio books or certain podcasts whatever it is that helps you feel good. feel better. There’s other ways too, like lighting a candle. Another way to pair something is to just reward yourself after. Maybe that’s putting a check mark on a chart giving yourself a sticker, whatever it may be.
And the final tip I have for you is to be kind to yourself. Working out from home isn’t for everybody. Working out, period, isn’t for everybody. And for certain reasons. Seasons of life, if you are in one of those, I especially want you to be kind to yourself, but if you’re not now and you’re ready to move forward, still be kind to yourself because these things take time and it’s okay.
It’s okay to learn what works best for you. I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants you need to grow. This is it for our main episode. I don’t have any progress pointers for you today. Just a push to get the free home workout must guide at aboutprogress. com workout. Again, it includes a list of.
All the things that I do, including my schedule and the apps I use, the equipment I would recommend, and a little bit more of breakdown on things. And it also includes a list of other podcast episodes you can listen to on this topic, topics that range from deep to practical though. We talk about how to change your relationship with movement.
We also give you some practical, there’s practical episodes on how to actually move your body and more. So that’s all at progress. com slash workout. This show is listener supported. Members of the Supporters Club get access to three levels of exclusive benefits, including more content and more time with me, starting at just 2 a month.
My favorite benefit is more personal, my private, premium, always ad free podcast where I lean into the personal side of personal development. I recently shared my monthly book report with some of the best reads I’ve had, not just this year, but honestly, ever. You can check out the club and its benefits at aboutprogress.com slash support. You can always support the show for free. Make sure you’ve subscribed and are following, share the show with a friend and leave a rating and review. We truly could not do it without you and these things. Thank you so much for listening. Now go and do something with what you learned today.
