How do you make a home gym affordable and user-friendly?

The home gym. I have to say it's probably my favourite gym. No line ups for machines, no sweaty men staring at you, no worrying about the A/C not working, or of it working too well.

The issue is that many people will argue that it's too tough to have a "home gym". They don't have enough space, or they can't afford big machines. The truth is that a home gym is what you make of it, and it can be so much more simple!

My own personal home gym is actually my living room. While in my undergrad, it consisted of a 3'x6' space between my bed and the wall where my yoga mat would fit. During my grad studies, it was my basement: a huge open space with a cold, tiled floor, and no furnishings. Just a makeshift table that my laptop sat on and oodles of basement space to do some kickboxing videos or animal flow.

Now, in my very own house, I transform my living room into a home gym. It's more affordable than you think and the only "set up" is moving the coffee table out of the way and rolling out my yoga mat:

The first thing to do is decide what you want to do at home. Maybe you just want to do yoga at home, or maybe you want to be able to do a variety of workouts. My collection consists of:

1) Yoga (P90X yoga, a few Rodney Yee videos, and Wanderlust TV's 21 days of yoga which can be streamed online for about $30 for full access anytime you want)
2) Weight aerobics: I love The Firm and all of their videos but their original ones from the 90's are by far the best workouts I've ever done!
3) Cardio: Cardio-dance-kickboxing fun, I have a collection of Turbo Jam and Turbo Fire DVD's from BeachBody's Chalene Johnson. Totally fun, and I can still manage it in a small space.

Building your home gym
The above workouts are just a small tasting of what's out there. I highly recommend visiting www.collagevideo.com to checkout a variety of workout videos. See what you like - what looks like fun and what you would be interested in doing. Based on what which workouts you want to add to your collection, you can start thinking about the equipment you need.

In general, start with a yoga mat. Something for you to work on, or stretch on. Any mat will do, though I'm in love with "The Mat" from Lululemon as it provides extra grip support and doesn't slip.

If you want to include yoga, invest in yoga blocks. These by far are my favourite accessories. They can help with posture and support, even with just sitting on the ground.

Beyond that, work up slowly with anything. Always start a new workout without any weights at all. Just go through the motions and get used to the new routine. Then work up in weight. Start with 1-3lbs. In the picture above, I have a set of 1 lb hand weights (pink), 3lb dumbbells (black), 5lb dumbbells (green), 7lb dumbbells (silver and pink), and 2lb ankle weights that used to belong to my mom.

The nice thing is that you don't need to buy 3-5 sets of dumbbells all at the start. For most beginners I suggest picking one super light hand weight (1-2 lbs) and one slightly heavier dumbbell (3-5lbs), depending on your physical strength and condition. That's really all you need to start. For a lot of videos and workouts, you might not need any weights at all.

To make things even more affordable, focus solely on body-weight exercises, (or hook up a TRX system). These don't require any hand weights at all, just your own body and your own strength. The goal is to find a routine that you love to do. That way, exercise isn't a chore, it's a part of your daily body maintenance, a fun activity, and part of your everyday life.
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Messy Spaces and Anxiety

Our environments have such a huge impact on our mental wellbeing but I find that sometimes we neglect to be mindful of our spaces due to being busy all the time. A simple example of this: a messy living space. Maybe it's your bedroom, your living room, your backyard, or your whole home. 

Things get thrown on the floor, maybe we get too caught up in work or our day-to-day and don't get a chance to vacuum or clean. Papers, books, documents pile up on counter tops or tables, and before you know it you're living in clutter. 

I experienced this first-hand over this past month. Moving into a new house (which is actually a 40-year old home) and having to fix it up and do renovations has been crippling on my own personal mental health. Worst of all, it took me too long to realize it. 

A messy, cluttered space sent my anxiety screaming at full volume, putting me into breakdowns and panic attacks on a regular basis over the past few weeks. I can't remember the last time I felt less like myself. 

When did it all click? As soon as my partner and I threw out the garbage, took out the recycling, cleared off the tables, and swept the floor. Garbage and dishes drive me nuts, but a dirty floor sends me spiralling! 

Maybe that's because I have a certain relationship with the floor. With most floors... and the ground. I have this thing where I feel better being grounded. I like sitting on the floor. I like being barefoot in the grass or on the sand. I like the option of being able to drop to the ground whenever I feel like it and doing a planck and downward dog, literally stretching next to our dog; Sitting on the kitchen floor giving her puppy massages and rubbing her belly. The ground is amazing because I have the power and strength to push myself back up again (whether with or without using my arms/hands).

The ground makes me feel steady. So having it covered in dust, debris, drop cloths, painting clothes, drywall, pieces of wood, and multiple empty cans of Perrier made me feel like my world was crashing. 

I didn't have a space -any space. Everything was chaos. And when our surroundings are chaotic we emotionally feel the chaos. 

Some of you might not understand this at all. Perhaps you're like my partner and just deal with it. You know everything is going to be fine in the end; It'll all get cleaned up eventually, right? So what's the problem?

The problem is with those of us who really are sensitive to their surroundings. Even if you're not, you might notice that just by cleaning and decluttering you feel better - almost lighter. 

Back in my undergrad and graduate studies, I would always do a huge house/room cleaning before studying. I couldn't sit and concentrate if things were messy or dirty. Cleaning my space and introducing some fresh air through open windows would make all the difference in the world. I could focus, I could concentrate, and I was at my best. 

Yes, there are things out of our control. I can't control how much drywall dust gets on our floors on a daily basis because of home renos, but I can clean up a space for myself. 

I encourage you to give it a try the next time you go to sit and work on a task, or even before you take some relaxation time. Clean and organize your space first; get rid of all the old shit you don't need. Clean out your closet(s), donate old clothes, and towels. File away all those papers or documents that have been piling up. Dust off shelves, or sweep/vaccum your floors. And lastly, if the weather permits, open up a window or door for a few minutes and bring in some fresh air. 

I don't want to encourage manic or obsessive cleaning here, but just an activity to try when you're feeling frustrated, unable to be at rest, or to concentrate on a task. Getting messy and dirty is amazing, and a ton of fun (like running outside in the mud and dirt or stretching on the ground), but a clean space can make a more clear happy mind. 

The Value of Naturopathic Care

I get it. We have free medical healthcare in Canada. Here in Ontario, our government pays for emergency room visits, surgeries, walk-in clinics, basic medical care, and for seniors, a HUGE portion of their prescription costs.

If you visit a walk-in clinic without your government "Health Card" and pay for services, a 10 minute visit with an MD can cost about $110. Yes, that's $11 for each minute you spend with that doctor. The doctor that must take your information, and very quickly use their clinical knowledge to figure out what (if anything) they can do for you.

As an ND, I realize that fees can be alarming if you're not used to paying for healthcare. However, the service you're receiving is much different than that of an MD, and we both paid about the same amount for our education (a 4-year undergraduate degree, plus 4 years of post-secondary medical education).

An ND (Naturopathic doctor) will:

• Spend 90 minutes with you on the first visit (This may range between 1-2 hours depending on the naturopath. My initial visits are 1.5 hours)
• Take a thorough health history including details on your: sleep, mood, energy, diet, appetite, stress, temperature, and more. 
• Whenever possible, treat the root cause, not just your symptoms. 
• Sure, we also want to give you symptom relief, but we focus on interventions or treatments that address the cause. 
•  Consider the big picture - treating you as a whole
• ND's tend to take all of you (your symptoms, your lifestyle, your views) into account when making a treatment plan. There is rarely a "one-size-fits-all" treatment. 
• Help you with positive diet choices for your specific needs
• ND's have a minimum of 4 years education in nutrition - a signifiant difference from the minimal training an MD gets. We can help you with hormone balancing, weight loss and specific diets for medical conditions such as IBD, PCOS, and weight loss. 
• We combine the medical aspect (blood work, physical exams, diagnosis) with the holistic: incorporating lifestyle choices to improve your health. For example, part of an ND's prescription might be 5 minutes of meditation, or daily puzzles for mental cognition and brain function. 
• We offer many additional services to your average medical care, including (but not limited to): IV therapy, acupuncture (based on Traditional Chinese Medicine), B12 injections, and infrared sauna treatment.
• Our goals are for you to live a healthier life, improve your feeling of wellness and allow you to age well. We want to you to optimize your health and be the best you. 

Our emergency medical system and public health is an absolute necessity for our healthcare, but there are times when conventional medicine doesn't have the answers, or there are no other treatments that can be offered. But there are more options available. There are always alternative treatments, whether it be from an ND, and osteopath, a chiropractor, or other practitioner.

Paying for your health now is like paying for a healthier future; paying for the tools to manage stress or anxiety; paying for someone to truly listen to you - and to everything on your list; paying now, so you don't pay in body pains and illness later. It's an investment in you.