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What’s this about rediscovering the treadmill? My treadmill certainly hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s right there in my cardio room. That’s what I now call my home gym area. My bike on a trainer and the treadmill are in one room with all my fitness toys. You know, yoga mats, dumb bells, resistance bands.

I recently decided to get back into more of a regimented fitness schedule and try to have something scheduled for every day of the week, even if it’s rest day. Currently, I am going to the gym to meet with a trainer twice a week. I’m going to have to write a separate post about that experience! Those two days are accounted for. Then I added one bike day. Since I started this in January, my bike day is on my indoor bike. Now I added two days of running on the treadmill. It can be a day of intervals or just a steady easy run. I include one day of yoga or some kind of flexibility training and then one day for rest or an easy hike or some other kind of active recovery. That accounts for the whole week.

Today I did a run/walk interval thing with increasing lengths of run time and decreasing lengths of walk time. It felt great. When I first returned to the treadmill, I had a hard time running. So I did a brisk walk on it. I’ve worked myself back to running on it though I’ve noticed that I’m definitely slower than I used to be.

I’ve been avoiding my treadmill yet again so I’m glad to return to it. It’s so easy to skip cardio activities when you’re stuck indoors for days at a time, even though I know I need it.

Searching for my past posts about treadmills on the Becoming Elli site, I discovered a post I wrote a couple of years ago, Renaming the Dreadmill or How to Change Your Attitude. I saw the title and actually thought that Chris wrote it but no, I wrote it! What I wrote it in 2020 inspired me today in 2022. (I don’t know why but I really like that I’d forgotten about this post and when I read it, I felt motivated.)

Because I have my activities scheduled for each day, and I’ve told my boyfriend what those things are, I’m much more likely to complete them. So far, I’ve managed even if I had to switch days around a couple of times. Mainly, I had to move my rest day because something happened that prevented me from doing what I had scheduled. Definitely the schedule is working. At least my commitment to the schedule is working.

I log everything into Strava via Garmin or Zwift. I like seeing the activities adding up in my account. So far I’m enjoying rediscovering the treadmill.

I’ll keep you posted on how this scheduling works over the next few months. What are you doing to keep yourself active? I’d love to hear.

I made beef bone broth yesterday using the bones left over from the roast I served on Christmas Day. The roast was from a local butcher with pastured raised beef, so it was delicious though expensive. I had several bones left over and hated to just throw them away, so I decided to make some bone broth.

The last time I made beef bone broth was several years ago. I used my slow cooker to make it. The problem with the slow cooker was that it was indeed slow. I had to let it cook for over twelve hours to get the most nutrients out of the bones.

This time I decided to make the beef bone broth using my Instant Pot. I did a little online research for recipes for beef bone broth using the Instant Pot and realized that I could speed up the process a bit.

Making Beef Bone Broth

Here’s how I made my beef bone broth. Because I had roasted the meet the day before, the bones were already roasted. Therefore, I could skip the step that many recipes suggested, roasting the bones before making the broth.

I put the bones in the bottom of the Instant Pot and then added some roughly cut onions, carrots, and celery. I also threw in a couple cloves of garlic and a couple bay leaves.

Finally, I added a couple tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. The vinegar is supposed to help release the minerals from the bones.

Then, I filled the pot with water, up to the Max Fill Line. My Instant Pot has a soup button that lets me set the Instant Pot for four hours so that’s what I used.

Because the Instant Pot was full with lots of liquid, it took a long time to come to full pressure. Once it started to cook and some time went by, I bumped the time back to four hours again. Therefore, I cooked the beef bone broth for probably about 5 and a half hours. I also let the Instant  Pot release naturally. Again, because the pot was so full, it took a long time for the pressure to release fully.

Once the pressure was released, I remove the lid and saw a pot full of beautiful broth and all of the cooked vegetables and bones. I removed the bones and vegetables with a spoon and then poured the broth through a fine strainer into a large Pyrex measuring bowl. Then I decanted the broth into some Mason jars. I placed the jars into the refrigerator and once the broth had cooled, I removed the fat that congealed on top.

If you want to see some controversy, just ask about removing the fat from the broth. People who are following a Ketogenic diet often keep the fat in the broth. I felt like there would be sufficient fat in it even with me removing the fat on top.

I drank a cup of the beef bone broth that afternoon. First, I heated some in the microwave and then sprinkled some Himalayan pink salt on top and drank it. Wow! It was good.

Recipe for Beef Bone Broth Using the Instant Pot

I guess I should write this up as a recipe for you. Here you go:

Ingredients

Approximately two pounds of beef bones of any kind, or how much you have

Roughly cut onion, carrots, and celery or whatever you have on hand.

1 or 2 cloves of garlic

Bay Leaves

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Pepper

Enough water to cover the bones and vegetables.

2 Tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar

Directions

Place the roasted bones in the bottom of the Instant Pot.

Add the vegetables, garlic, and bay leaves.

Pour in enough water to cover the bones and vegetables. Do not exceed the Max Fill Line.

Add salt and pepper and the Apple Cider Vinegar.

Stir together.

Add the lid and set the Instant Pot to high pressure for five or six hours, if you can. Mine only goes to four hours so I set it to four and then added another hour once it started to cook.

Let the pressure release naturally.

Strain the broth and pour into jars.

Refrigerate the broth and remove the fat that has risen to the top.

Use the broth in soups or sauces or just drink it straight. I added salt to mine for drinking.