Mission Simplification: Make Health a Priority

As you recall, I posted about a few of my personal goals back in February, the first of which was about making health a priority.  Let me refresh your memory:

1. Make health a priority- Not that I am unreasonably unhealthy but I need to make sure I am disciplining myself with good exercising and eating habits now.  Walker and I need to go back to cooking our dinners more often like we did before the holiday season ruined the world’s eating habits.  We aren’t dieters but we are good at “everything in moderation” when we put our minds to it.  As for exercising, I know I will not stick with going to a gym for more than a month or two so I need to find a fitness solution that works for me to make sure I stay healthy. I think I have some ideas that make it convenient and effective so more on that later.

I thought I would share my progress with you!  As for the nutrition portion of this goal, we have definitely been better with our diet (aside from the rogue pint of Ben & Jerry’s or bag of Doritos). I have been drinking Naked Juice Berry Veggie Smoothies for lunch most days to pump in some extra protein, vitamins, fruits, and veggies. Then add in some smart(er) dinner choices and we are back on track nutrition-wise.

As for the exercise conundrum, I was really worried about joining a gym, knowing once I lost interest that I would stop going and be back to square one. Call me lazy if you’d like but I am such a homebody.  After being away from the house 9+ hours a day for work, the last thing I want to do is take another hour away from my home, my man, and my puppy. Tired Erika likes to talk rational, logical Erika out of anything productive at 6pm (or 6am for that matter) and any excuse will do it (“but I was supposed to get started on that Etsy order…” or “wouldn’t I rather just sleep another few minutes?”).  So I needed an exercise solution that was TOO convenient to talk myself out of.

I go to the gym so I can use the elliptical (running is often too hard on my poor lame knees) but obviously a full size elliptical isn’t an option in our little apartment aside from exercising in the dark in the garage (umm… no.). So I started doing some research and I stumbled upon THIS little guy:

It’s the Stamina InMotion E1000 Elliptical Trainer and it is AWESOME. I got it on Amazon for $87 and have already used it enough to feel like it has paid for itself.  It fits in our little side closet and I can just pull it out when I want to use it.  Granted it doesn’t have the full range of a normal elliptical (it’s like an elliptical and a stepper had a convenient little baby) but you can get your heart rate moving! Plus I love that an hour of exercise literally takes 61 minutes (no driving, parking, traffic, blah, blah, blah… just a quick change of clothes). Anyway, you can read up on all of the details if you are interested… I won’t bore you here. But it has turned out to be an awesome solution to creating an exercise routine that works for me with some crunches, push-ups, and stretching!

FYI- I wasn’t paid to talk about any of the products mentioned in this post… just my two cents! :)