Give It a Second Try
I said I'd never buy another piece of gym equipment for my house again.
The plan was to put my new elliptical in the lower level room of my 4-level townhouse in Arlington, Virginia, and watch TV while I used it. After oddly positioning it in the room, which seemed to be a good size pre-elliptical and then suddenly appeared small and cramped, I hardly used it. After having the best intentions of waking up early to catch up on the news while on the elliptical or using it while watching my favorite shows at night, it just never worked for me. After this experience, I felt I knew for sure that working out at home does not work for me. My home was my relaxation place after long days at work and awful commutes, which I had back then. Going to a gym and working out with a trainer and among others worked better. That was the place to exercise. After the elliptical gathered enough dust and sat lonely for who knows how long, I sold it and decided to never again bring this large equipment back into my home.
Many years have gone by since I had that elliptical. Fast forward to today, and I am the proud new owner of a Peloton bike. It sits in my Virginia Beach home office, which now doubles as my spinning and yoga room, so I see it every day. Luckily, its a nice, open office and there was plenty of room to make small adjustments and welcome my new piece of exercise equipment. It is slightly in view when I am on video conferences, and I'm perfectly fine with that. It is the COVID-19 era after all. It makes my background interesting and shows my commitment to staying healthy and fit.
So far, I'm enjoying it. The instructors are motivating and inspirational, and the playlists make it fun. My intention was not to use this bike every single day and as my only source of fitness, as I still enjoy going to Orange Theory and doing all of my outside activities like biking, running, hiking, and paddle-boarding, but I felt I needed an option for my house. I thought about getting a Peloton ever since gyms shut down due to the pandemic but decided not to rush out and get one right away. I decided to make do with outside running, outside biking, and at-home workouts using a few random and creative weights from around the house. Then the 90+ degree days of summer came, which made my outside activities harder to time right and a little less enjoyable. I knew the colder days would soon be here too. That plus my driving time to and from exercise classes is what made me think about Peloton again, and I decided to pull the trigger.
The confirmation that I made the right decision came recently when I had only an hour or so to fit in a workout for the day. I could have never scheduled an Orange Theory class during this time, as it takes too long to get there and back. I easily changed into my workout clothes after a call and took a 30-minute cycling class within my air-conditioned house. I had enough time to get myself cleaned up and changed for a virtual networking happy hour call that I had in the evening. I felt great about my decision. It is good to have an option for home.
I'm also focusing on plant-based eating, which is essentially another try at something I had done before. I was a vegetarian for several years a while back too. It didn't go well for me, as there is such a thing as being an unhealthy vegetarian. That was me. In an effort to avoid meat, I ate a lot of junk and many carbs like pasta, bread, and crackers. I put on a lot of weight. Eventually, I felt terrible and went back to eating meat because I got tired of trying to avoid it. I didn't think I'd go down this road again but now that I've learned a different way with a plant-based diet and understand the health benefits, I decided to embrace it.
With plant-based eating, the focus is on eating mostly or entirely whole foods that are natural and not heavily processed and food that comes from plants and doesn't include animal ingredients. I am going with mostly and not entirely because I feel that will work best for me. Since this is still pretty new, I'll plan to report back on how it is going. But so far, I'm loving learning about healthier alternatives, trying new fruits and vegetables, and experimenting with recipes.
Are there things you have tried for a second time and been more successful? What did you learn? I'd love to hear about them!