Introducing Our Home Gym Reveal (+ My Workout Routines & Complicated Feelings About It All)

Welcome to the finished “mini gym”. Otherwise named: “You-Can’t-Pretend-You-Don’t-Have-The-Time/Space-To-Workout-Because-You-Are-Lucky-Enough-To-Have-A-Dedicated-Space-20-Yards-From-Your-Bedroom-So-Get-Your-Ass-Out-There-And-Spin-With-Cody”. It’s a real luxury of extreme convenience and squashes most of my excuses (I’m writing this post in my workout clothes, approaching 2 pm and I still haven’t done it, ha). About halfway through the building of this structure (once meant to be a greenhouse) we realized that during “the great long dark” (November – March in PNW), working out is our #1 antidote to coping with those winter blues so maybe we should prioritize that over other things (like growing seedlings). So even if this doesn’t permanently stay as a gym (it’s such a pretty room that it could have a gorgeous tiled floor), for the foreseeable future it is where we go to make an icky day a little better, get some endorphins, adrenaline, dopamine, and move our bodies. Sometimes it’s just for 20 minutes, other days for an hour and a half (including a plunge). Keep reading and I’ll walk you through it all…

She’s a cute little building, with the prettiest windows from Sierra Pacific, a short funny door (not intentional), and of course, those awesome copper lights that match our house. Shooting this in winter is more challenging (thus the stuffed plants in the fully empty veggie garden on the left) so I’m excited to style it all out come spring. This building is pretty small, 12×15 so fits just the things we actually USE, not the extra fun stuff we MIGHT use. We made a video tour of this space that you can watch below, just wait for the quick ad to play…

Wall Color | Windows | Skylights | Flooring | Cold Plunge | Blue Mat | Mirror | Weights | Weight Rack | Bench | Weighted Ball (similar) | Blue Weights (similar) | Water Bottle | Balance Trainer | Peloton | Mat Hooks | Yoga Mats | Wall Rack | Bands

Here’s what we have going on: I love to Peloton, practice yoga (mostly at studios), and lift weights or basic strength training. Brian boxes and lifts weights. We both cold plunge and have since 2020 – a full post coming at you soon. We knew that we could get a fancy workout/wall unit for that back wall, but both of us like to keep the workouts fairly low-tech (more on our routine below). So for now we have our machines, a simple bench, free weights/band/ball/bosu, and space enough to roll out a mat or two.

(TW: body shaming + talking about intentional weight loss) I hung that huge mirror (just over $200) which looks good but I might take it down because found that I judge my body the whole time and say really terrible things to myself (turns out that gaining some weight publicly, in our patriarchy, under the eye of social media requires some deprogramming and y’all, I’m WAY BEHIND on my deprogramming sessions). It’s a myriad of disappointments with myself, both physical and mental. I didn’t predict how much I’d judge myself instead of just focusing on how wonderful it is to be able to move my body. The shame around the shame is almost worse than the initial body shame. I just learned these are called meta feelings – like when you KNOW you shouldn’t feel something about yourself but you do and then you are mad at yourself for feeling the secondary feeling. You KNOW that objectively your inner thoughts are fucked up and wrong but you can’t stop the rumination – a lot of that. It’s like my eyes don’t talk kindly to my brain and I KNOW it’s a patriarchal situation. Trying to remain the size I was when I came on the internet is likely an impossibility at my age, and yet my inner expectation is that I look just like I did 15 years ago. I also very much realize that I’m not uniquely struggling or overweight. I thought I had left a lot of my vanity and expectation to be a certain size/shape when we left LA, but turns out my patriarchal vanity is right inside of me, still very alive and well (and SO LOUD). I’m both a victim and a perpetrator of it and I’m disappointed that I’m not better, more evolved than this. So yeah, Imma take down that mirror and see if I can instead focus on how grateful I am to have a body that can move me around in this beautiful world and life…and P.S. The photos you’ll see here are me after weeks of exercise and dieting, I just want you to have the accurate context. I know that this is a very dicey subject and that just talking about weight can be perceived or received as contributing to diet culture. But I also know that I’m not alone in this gross situation and that it’s just stupidly hard to fit into this world as we are expected to, regardless of how “small” you are. We have been told AND have told ourselves all the negative body things for decades, and it’s just so hard to deprogram. I’d love to say that I’m just focused on being healthy and that is definitely also true, but I’d be lying to pretend that I don’t want to change things a little. The daily messages we receive from society at large are really hard to combat. See? SO MUCH DEPROGRAMMING NEEDS TO HAPPEN). I have so much compassion for all women, I know so few who don’t, on some level, struggle to want to be the thing that we are told is “the good thing to be” and the subsequent disappointment around not being able to do just that. Cue the Barbie monologue (and the universal weeping of all women who felt seen and heard, omg I’m sobbing right now…). I also, of course, know that all people struggle with unattainable societal standards but for today, I’m speaking from my personal experience and the majority of women in my life.

But listen, moving your body is crucial to our mental health, it just is. If we take all the other shit about changing your body off the table, what remains is that it simply feels very good to move, get your heart rate up, make your muscles stronger, and flood your body and brain with endorphins. I need these endorphins in order to make good decisions for my business, they help me be in a good enough mood to bring positivity to my team and family. I won’t have a hard a conversation unless I’ve exercised that day and if I’m feeling anxiety it immediately reduces it. It takes a bad day and makes it ok, and it takes a good day and makes it GREAT. At least for me. It’s just not an option to not move my body.

So here is my workout routine (on a good week and without that pretty hair and makeup, LOL). 4-5 x a week.
1. Cardio: I Peloton for cardio because I don’t push myself on my own (I HATE running) – sometimes 20 minutes, but since January I’ve really been pushing myself to do 45 minutes. I love Cody and Sam Yo the best and legit enjoy hanging out with them and screaming Katy Perry.
2. Strength Training: Dude. All the research about how important it is to build and retain muscle especially for women has convinced me. Recently, I was influenced by ChrisLovesJulia who turned me on to the Playbook with trainer Hannah Pointer. I signed up for her 6-week program. I throw on a podcast or watch The Bachelor while doing it (it’s mostly weights/strength training) and the time FLIES. The next day I can rarely move the muscle that we have exercised – she really burns it out and I’m sore in such a satisfying way (It has only been 3 weeks, but I love how it’s scheduled and gives me a clear program)
3. Enjoyment: It is my firm belief that you have to enjoy whatever workout you do or you won’t prioritize it in your daily lifestyle long term – I like the above workouts a lot, but my two favorite ways to exercise will always be yoga and power walking in nature with a friend (or podcast/pups). I mean, if I could do anything for the rest of my life it would be yoga with Vinnie in Santa Monica (YogaWorks, IYKYK) and then weighted hill power walking with Dax and Monica (The best podcast ever: Armchair Expert). But it’s just so hard to get to a studio yoga class near me (is it too much to ask for a 6:30 am or 8 pm class nearby?) and I find most of the yoga apps too easy/boring to do the job.