Intro:
Welcome to The Healthy Catholic moms podcast where we make moving and nourishing our bodies the priority, so that we not only fulfill our vocations, but excel in our callings. I’m Brittany Pearson, a Catholic wife, mom, personal trainer, and I’m here to help you build healthy habits that actually fit your life. I am here to teach you how to get the results that you want and maintain the results that you want without spending hours at the gym, or meal prepping all weekend long. I understand I am right here with you getting my workouts done in the nooks and crannies of time, looking up recipes, while nursing babies and trying to prioritize my own health amidst everything else going on. But I have really good news for you, you can get the results you want. In less time without doing hours of cardio and restrictive dieting. I’m going to teach you how to use strength training and eating in a macro balanced way to get you feeling so good and your skin full of energy, and strong to carry out your life. Okay, on this podcast, we’ll delve into how to lose fat in a simple, sustainable way. What your workouts and nutrition should look like during different seasons of life, like during pregnancy and postpartum times. We’ll also discuss healthy quick meals, and how to get them on the table make food that kids will actually want to eat. Mom hacks for making your day run more smoothly and so much more. All the while with continuous encouragement to stay the course and live with discipline. This is a place where we’re striving to steward our bodies. Well, in order to joyfully serve. I am so happy you’re here. Let’s dive in.
Main Episode:
Hello, ladies, welcome to today’s episode, thank you so much for being here. I am super excited to spend the next however many minutes with you, especially because we’re going to be talking exercise equipment, which is very fun to me to talk about. I was just chatting with a friend about this the other day in person. And she asked exactly this, like what do I need? What should I start with? And the very first two things on my list today are the two items I told her. So yes, rest assured before, you know you might be listening to this. And you’re like we’re not in a place to be buying all this equipment. But I’m interested I want to start working from home or I just want to start working out in general. And you can do it super bare bones. And I’ve been there I’ve done that super bare bones, we’ve grown it over time, it’s still not even you know as crazy as some people’s home gyms. So to get into all that what is really essential how we did it on the cheap all of that. Now we’re at the end of January here. I hope you’ve had a really good month so far. And I wanted to invite you and let you know that the chasing greatness group is our monthly workout group. That’s really more than a workout group. But what it does consist of is monthly workout plans with PDFs with full pre recorded videos, an amazing community of women who are supporting each other chatting with each other on slack in the Facebook group, all of that, and meal plans. Monthly focuses lots of good stuff coming up. So this is more for my ladies who have worked with me before if you’ve not worked with me, I encourage you to hold off and begin with an eight week challenge. Or an eight week the eight week fat loss program. The next one that’s available because we’re already going right now will be in the spring. So you might want to hold off for that. But if you’ve worked with me in the past, this is your invitation to come try out the chasing greatness group occasionally ladies to flip flop it and try the chasing grievous group. What generally does happen is they end up pausing chasing greenness during the week because they realize well I need a little more nutritional foundation because that is the program the eighth week, where I really go into the basics of nutrition. But some ladies have hopped right into chasing greenness and have stayed there the whole time. Because then maybe they’ve done we’ve done like a little nutrition together on the side as a package or in a coaching call to kind of catch up. So this is your invitation as we’re looking to start February to come join us there is a free trial to a two week free trial on my website if you’d like to test out. Alright, so and I use I’ll go into actually what I use in the workouts and things but so in the eight week program and in my postpartum program and in my pregnancy program, I do only focus on these first two items. So what you need, I only have two things here, a set of heavy and light dumbbells and bands and that is truly it. Now what I was just chatting about with my friend was she’s like well what’s you know what’s heavy, what’s light. I consider the light to be mostly what you’re going to use for upper body like bicep curls, and lateral raises, triceps, that kind of stuff. And then something heavy that you’re going to row with you’re going to use for back you might use for chest you could squat with or deadlift With RTL with those kinds of weights, so for most beginners, if you’re real beginner beginner, I would say it could be fives and 10s. It could be like eights and 1510s does tend to be too late for the squatting and rowing, even if you’re newer, usually you get strength gains very quickly, where in one or two weeks, you’re gonna find it’s too light. So like an eight and 15, would be even more ideal, even a five and 15. If you needed fives if your upper body is really weak, but that 15 For your heavier, it is a little bit relative. So I think what we started with was, I want to say we had 125 pound dumbbell. And I know I had fives forever. So I definitely had fives, and 125. And then I think, I think tents, maybe. So very quickly, and we’ll get into this, I’d ask for fifteens for a birthday present, or Christmas or something like that, and had gotten fifteens to kind of fill that gap in between. So that’s what you need is essentially some dumbbells you will maybe find that you need heavier, different, etc. As you lift as you get stronger. So going, the adjustable route might be your best start. That is not how we started, we started, like I said, with the like 125. And whatever else we had. So we had just the real sets of demos first. And what I just did was when we could, and it was never one we could afford another one it was when we asked for it for gifts like the 225 we already had. And then I either asked for my husband asked for the 35 pound one, and we just racked with one for a while. So we use that one for like rowing, we just did one side at a time, or one for floor pressing just did one side at a time. So get creative with it, you can really make it work. But we went that route before getting adjustable, we do have adjustable now, just because my sister was getting different ones. And they were getting a whole new home gym thing put in and they didn’t want their adjustable anymore. So that is why we now have them. But I I wouldn’t have sought them out myself because I don’t like the bulk of it. But it is really nice to have those, you know, in between options of Okay, now we could do 20s for something, I could do 30 fives and have two of them that kind of thing. So just kind of maybe think about that before you dive in. But I’ll give the caveat of where you’re finding this might dictate what you end up with getting first. So get into that, like how do you actually acquire these things. But so dumbbells heavy and light is really all you need to start, then you might need to get some heavier ones as you go. Bands I mentioned. So when I was chatting with my friend, I said well do you have anchor points because that depends on what kind of banded tie to get if you don’t really have anchor points in your house. And what I mean by this is like a pole or a stairwell or something that you can attach the band to horizontally, not up in a door jamb, not vertically like that, but horizontally where you could put it across from like your hips and your back and you can row you could do pal off press, you can use it for glute kickbacks, all these things. If you do not have an anchor point, I’d probably just go for a band with handles, because then you’re going to use your body as the anchor point. And a lot of these exercises, you can do a lot of those same exercises, but you would use your body as the anchor point instead. So that’s a band wise if when you start I just for my programs, I just say medium resistance band, because that is going to be fine for most exercises. But if you do have anchor points, and you want the availability to do even more exercises with the bands, I would grab a set of four that have the loop that are just a big long loop. I have some options like this listed on the healthy Catholic bombs, resource page ones that I’ve used and loved and that I’ve gifted in my programs. And I like those because you have the variety of you know, you can use the really light ones for face poles, then you can use a heavier one for a row and all of that but it’s really I find them more beneficial if you have the anchor point. So whichever is applicable to you bands would be next and you really could start with one could start with just one set of heavy dumbbells, one satellite and medium resistance band with handles that gets you through majority of the exercises and all my programs. Now those are what you need. Okay, next up, I would focus on these are all very cheap. And I’ve started using them in the chasing greatness group too, because they’re not super cost effective. But you can also I do want to say like if you were in the chasing greenness group and you don’t have these I always show modifications, because I do consider them extras, but a foam roller mini bands and an exercise ball there Just fun additions that can add variety. They’re not necessary, right? But variety is fun, especially if you’re working out from home and you get bored with the same exercises. That’s the, that’s the catch 22. Some people are like, well, I get bored just doing the same things. But if you only have dumbbells in a band, you’re kind of pigeon holed into doing the same exercises, you can’t have that variety without a couple more resources. So foam rollers like, I want to say 15 to 20 bucks, I give it I give all three of these things away in my eight week challenge. It’s a weekly price is one of those, so they’re all around, or under 20 bucks, the minivans are like I want to say 15 bucks as well. And an exercise ball is more around 20. So foam roller is great because you can use it to warm up or as a recovery. You can also use it for exercises like putting your feet on it for glute bridges or putting it between your knees for glute bridges, things like that, especially if you are nursing or yeah, really nursing, there’s some really great stretches that you can do with a foam roller. So love that. And then the mini bands are exactly what I was talking about. Like the long bands with loops, just the small ones, the ones with a lot of tension that you put like above your knees, or some people put like below your ankle or right above your ankles, I don’t use it in that position much I mostly use it above the knees for things. But they’re really great. These I’ve used a ton in 2023. We used it a ton in the chasing greatness group.
And again, I just gave the option of okay, you can do this bodyweight or showed options to do it with a band if people didn’t have them. But it really elevated some exercises that I was already doing that were already difficult, and was like whoa, throw a mini band on you’re doing like sideline banded clamshells, when you’re laying all the way on your side, and your knees and feet are together and you kind of open at the ankle, if that makes sense. You open your knees, but your ankles stay together and you put it back down. Doing those with the mini band is insane for your glutes. So things like that. And again, they’re like 15 bucks, number and then the exercise ball that’s like the big, you know, birth ball or whatever, like the one you can sit on. That’s just really fun, because it gives you an unstable surface. So you can start doing things like lunges, but with your back foot on the ball, or squats but your back is pressed against the ball against a wall and we use these, I think I used it in September of 2023. I did a ton of workouts with the exercise ball and let the ladies know, that’s what we’re gonna look at, you can also do a ton of core with the exercise ball. It’s great for that. So that one’s awesome and can double as a seat you know, you can sit on it for if you’re doing computer work or something like that. Okay, now some fun extras. And then I’ll get into how we build this up and how you can do it on the cheap. So some fun extras. i These are super non essential. And I do happen to have everything on the list. So that’s why I just wanted to share with you like kind of what we’re looking at right now. As I look around what we’ve got going on, but some fun extras that aren’t not necessary, but can you know be good accessory stuff is an AB wheel. I’ve given this away as well in programs. And it’s one of those one trick ponies like I don’t love to have single use items. I don’t like that in my kitchen. I like that in my gym. But AB rollouts are really difficult exercise, and they really rock your core. They’re fun to do, and it’s not expensive. So that’s another one that even though it might be fun to ask for for a gift or something. Next one is a kettlebell. So this is might surprise you that it was not up higher on my list. And my friend asked about that, too. So what about accountable? The truth is there’s a lot you can do with dumbbells, instead of a kettlebell kettlebell swings are really fun. You could do dumbbell swings. There’s some exercises that yeah, if you like to do specific I had one client is probably listening to this, who I’d program for individually. And then she was also in the chasing greatness group, who specifically like doing different flows with kettlebells, and things like that, then yeah, you’re gonna want to bump this up on the priority list. But if you’re just gonna use it for a lot of strength training, where you could use a dumbbell for it, it’s not necessary but it would fall in this fun extras kind of thing. TRX as well. So most of these, those first couple of AB wheel kettlebell does, depending on how heavy it is, are not usually super expensive. Again, kettlebell depends on heavy, but Next up would be a TRX system. And this is probably the biggest investment piece I have on here. Total suspension training. Now I have a knock off and I’ve always had a knock off of it. This is a fun one because you can put it anywhere, bring it anywhere, I will bring it up to my kitchen and just put it in my kitchen door. That was a real game changer for me when I had my third kid. I remember that where I was not making it down to the basement enough. I didn’t want to give up my morning time because I needed more time to work and that kind of thing. So I would just bring it up to the kitchen and workout while they were doing breakfast or lunch or something like that. So it’s really versatile and you can bring it with you when you travel. It’s great Cory you’re using, you can pretty much do any exercise with you’re using your body as a resistance and you get a ton of core from it. So that is a really fun extra, if you want to splurge on that and have a spot to do it because in our apartment I ever had. That was when we got it and I had to the only spot we could possibly do it was like between it was in the bathroom doorway is between like the bathroom in the hallway. And I did not love that. So that was kind of a barrier to entry of me actually using it. So make sure if you got a spot you could put it. Another fun one, this one’s not as expensive is a pull up bar. If pull ups are on your list wanting to work up to bodyweight pull ups, you can start with bands and bands and a pull up bar. That’s how you start. But even if you’re not worried about or wanting to do pull ups, there’s a lot of hanging exercises that are great for your grip strength. Excellent for your core. So having a pull up bar is really fun. Whenever I’m programming for client one on one, I’m always like to have a spot where you can hang even if it’s not a bar. You know, like for me, I can hang off the back of my basement stairs to or if it’s nice out off the kids swing set, I always ask that because it really opens up a bunch more core exercises. Okay, three more in the just fun extras would be a barbell. Now obviously, if you’re buying that outright, that’s a big expense. But if you’re getting a second hand and things like that, which we’ll go into right after this, it can you know, it’s great for compound exercises to be able to deadlift with it. Squat with it. If you like to do that, push press with it, hang clean with it. There’s a lot of big explosive compound exercises you can do. This is always fun to meet you when a client has this and I program for them one on one because I’m like, okay, we can do a couple of these other items that I do put in the chasing green is workouts, but we use dumbbells. So we’ll do push press with dumbbells. Instead, we’ll even do hand cleans with dumbbells like it can be done. But the barbell is a fun addition. And then the last two that we have on here, then the next one’s kind of medium investment was dip in row bars. I think my husband asked for these one of us again, asked for these for some gift. And it is kind of one or more of those. Again, it’s a two trick pony, you can do tricep dips on them. And you can do rows on them. But one of the things that you’ll find as you and maybe this is already you and you’ve been home lifting for awhile, back is one of those muscles that you can tap out on, you know weights with where you’re like, okay, my back’s getting stronger. But all I have are these dumbbells, all I can really do is row, if I have some bands, I can do banded lap poles, and back tends to be the one where it’s like could take more. So a pull up bar is a great option, like I mentioned, but then these row bars can help you do inverted rows, which is a very difficult exercise. It’s also based on body weight. Now you could do this with a TRX, too. So I mentioned how TRX you can get full body in which is true. But the dip or roll bars are fun if you’re trying to work and get better at specifically bodyweight exercises. When we got them, I was really on a kick of wanting to be able to do bodyweight dips, I’ve never I’d never been able to do them before. So that was something that we invested in now, again, ours was probably 62 bucks when we got it. And I know it was a gift it was either for me or my husband. And looking at that over time, too. If you’re paying 20 bucks a month for a gym membership, that’s three months of your membership. But now we’ve had these forever, like we’ve had these for years. And I’m not paying a gym membership. So it does pay itself off really quickly. If you look at it like that, it is totally not a necessity. The last one on here, which is just kind of fun. And it’s not I probably use these the least of anything on this list. But they’re also really cheap. So if you want to add them, they can be fun, and I will use them and work out sometimes they’re gliders so you can put them on a rug, or really rug is best, my gym mats they do not work well on. So that’s probably why I don’t use them that much. But you can use them on a rug. And they can enhance exercises you already doing kind of similar to what an exercise ball does for it where it’s just taking it to an unsteady surface so it makes it more difficult. So think like side lunge, instead of just stepping out lunging to the side, your foot is on a glider so it’s, it’s pushing in and out, you get a little more resistance, and you’re gonna feel it more in your inner thigh. You can also do some fun core exercises with them. That’s what I’ve usually used them for in the programs. But here’s the caveat if you have a TRX where you have the exercise ball, pretty much everything you can do with the gliders you can already do with those. So gliders are great for if you don’t have a bunch of other stuff. I actually gliders were like one of the first things we got to so we had like a heavy set of dumbbells a light set a non bells, a band and gliders, and I wouldn’t use it for a ton of core because they’re they don’t take up much space. There’s a lot of positives to them. So I just had them in a little corner in our apartment. And I would do fun core exercises and stuff with them before we got you know other things. So how are you going to do this? How are you gonna grow this on the cheap 100% check Facebook marketplace Okay, that’s what when I look around like wow, and that’s what I mentioned some of these things being bigger ticket or smaller ticket depending on where you get them. We do have a barbell. And that came, I don’t know, we were in our apartment for two years. And then we were in the house by year three of being married. And I think I got it year three or year four for us. And I got it for Ben for a birthday gift. I remember going to pick it up, I had just crashed in the car, and I went to pick up all these weights, big I was pregnant to actually, and because I remember them being like, Should you carry that. But it’s just a bar and a whole bunch of plates, and a bench for like 100 bucks. It was ridiculous. Maybe 125. Now I know this was like, five ish years ago, four or five years ago, four years ago, I think but
you know it, we have gotten so much use of that we deadlift with it, we do. Like I said, the other things I mentioned with it, Facebook marketplace, for sure. We also I didn’t put any cardio equipment on here because I do favor doing it outside. I will say if you’re looking at getting any cardio equipment, it’s a little bit personal. Because if you’re a person that like has to sit and work on your laptop or something, maybe then a bike is the way to go. But I do love Treadmills for the idea that you can just get your steps in. Because especially if you’re a stay at home mom, it’s really easy to be sedentary. During the day, like besides your workout, you work out for 20 to 30 minutes. And then it’s easy to do a lot of sitting because like sitting playing on the floor sitting reading books, sitting homeschooling, sitting, whatever. So the treadmill, again, I kept for 100 bucks off Facebook marketplace. I remember on Easter Sunday night, because I was sitting on the couch flipping through Facebook, when we’d gotten home from Easter and I was like, Hey, Ben, I’m gonna get cash out and grab this treadmill, or actually, they dropped it off and like people are dropping off a treadmill, got to go get some cash out of the ATM. He’s like, what it was, you know, like nine o’clock at night. So anyways, we have a treadmill, we do have and then I bought a spin bike this past year off of Facebook marketplace as well. So looking around like yeah, check out Facebook marketplace for the win. And then the other if you do need things that are new, or you know, they’re just not coming up on Facebook marketplace. Honestly, probably everything we have done here, I could have gotten on marketplace, if I just you know, had checked enough and patient enough I’m sure even things like our bills come up. But we truly everything else was asked for his gifts. So that might sound terrible to you, or very boring. Were like yes, I’m not asking for workout stuff. Well, it all comes down to priorities. Because yes, there were definitely years where I would have loved to have a nice pair of earrings or like, I don’t know, a purse or something fun, more fun. But I valued getting stronger taking care of myself and we could not afford to just buy random gym equipment. So we asked for it for gifts. The AB wheel, like I said was a gift the dip bars. I know we’re a gift. We also have an 80 pound dumbbell at this point that I got from my husband as a gift at one point. And I was still just like looking around the kettlebells were a gift from Ben to me at some point TRX same thing. So yeah, ask ask for it for anniversaries for birthdays, ask your family for it for you know an hour along with for Christmas. But you know, parents and things like that if they’re asking for what to buy you. It’s even what you do have to buy. Like I said, if you look at the payout on it, if you bought one new item a quarter, like $15 Binney bands, you might have paid 15 bucks a month, and that’s being like very low end of the spectrum, because I was looking into a gym membership for 24 hour gym recently, and they’re all like 30 bucks now, like I was hard to even find baseline 15 bucks. So say, say you spend $30 on many bands and on a foam roller. That could have been one entire month of a gym, but now you have this equipment going forward. So it’s a great investment. Like I said check secondhand things first is my friend actually did say to thrift stores the other day and I’ve never seen I don’t think I’ve seen it gym equipment really at the thrift stores that I’ve been to and maybe I haven’t looked. But secondhand things but marketplace like so if you don’t want to dig around and waste your time. Marketplace marketplace, ask for gifts and start with just a couple things to get going. Don’t let it be an excuse. of oh, I don’t have anything like just don’t have enough. Even if you have a singular band, you can do a lot with just a band and that is like 10 to $15 All right. So I hope this is helpful. I hope it gives you a little bit of a trajectory. If you have questions specifically on your goals or you know, what should I specifically get first off that extras list? Shoot me an email Brittany at healthy Catholic moms.com If you want to kind of develop a plan based on your goals pools and what you specifically have available to that’s something that where I would write you a personalized plan that I offer as well. So if you’re like, Yeah, I want to use my barbell or want to incorporate my rower, my spin bike. Let’s do that. It’s all over at healthy Catholic moms.com that you can email me to and I can explain what that would look like.
Alright ladies, I hope you have a great rest of your day. And we are looking at next episode talking about 10 tips for getting out of a winter funk off our very last episode of January. All right, I will see you then have a great rest your day
