100% with you on the anxiety and procrastination. The anxiety for me was driven in part by "people can see me suck at this", so I put the machine in my home off

100% with you on the anxiety and procrastination. The anxiety for me was driven in part by "people can see me suck at this", so I put the machine in my home office - with a door. As for buying a machine, I highly recommend going to a gym during a quiet period if you can find one that will let you do a trial or a day pass. Then you can try all the machines and find the one that you think sucks the least. Rowing is good because it does loads of muscle groups, but ultimately that doesn't mean anything if you hate it. E: the thing that changed the game for me was a good hr monitor. Smart watch was full of crap, and just listening to my body made me go way too hard too fast.