For 5 years, until a few months ago, I was a member of Gold’s Gym. I started out eager, hired a personal trainer, and proceeded to burn away nearly 30lbs of total weight while adding some much-needed muscle mass. I believe I spent a little over $1,000 on the personal training sessions on top of my $30/month membership to the gym. The program was a success and seemingly well-worth the money I paid (especially considering we were flush with cash at the time).
But once the sessions were over, I slowly fell back into my old routines and within a year I had grown back to my original weight. My diet and exercise plan were beneficial, but they weren’t sustainable as part of my regular life.
So I started up a second round of sessions and proceeded to lose the weight again. And, like a broken record, I went right back to my old life after the sessions ended and wound up weighing more than when I started. Obviously, I didn’t learn my lesson.
Discouraged, I stopped going to the gym. It was a witness against me and a reminder of my failure to get fit. I didn’t cancel my membership, I just paid the $30/month “Fat Tax” for the luxury of being able to go to the gym.
Just before my birthday this year, I decided to turn my life around in a sustainable manner. I reached a max weight of 214 lbs and desperately needed to get in shape. I canceled the money-pit that was my gym membership and began a diet and workout regimen that I could easily blend into my life. I ended up finding The Hacker’s Diet, which really clicked with me considering my number-crunching tendencies.
Now, I weigh myself daily and track my caloric intake and build trend lines from that data. I also follow the recommended 15-minute workout plan the diet also provides. Of course, the 15-minute workouts don’t do as much for my physically as an hour at the gym, but I’m 5-times more likely to exercise at home for 15 minutes than to go to the gym – meaning I still end up ahead with this plan. As a supplement, we pre-ordered the Wii Fit since it has additional tools for helping me gauge my progress. (Don’t worry, I only had to spend $30 out-of-pocket since I had a lot of old games to trade in.)
In the 2 months since my birthday, I have dropped 8 lbs according to the trend line (and 13 lbs if you look at daily weigh-ins alone). I’m not looking for dramatic weight loss, just a healthy loss of 1-2 lbs per week, and I believe I’m finding success so far. According to my trend line, It will take me a long time to reach my target weight of 155 lbs, but that’s ok with me. I’m more concerned about reaching the goal and staying there than I am about getting there as fast as possible.
The point is if you find something that works for you and you know you can stick with it, cost is a secondary matter. There are people that find success with Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, or NutriSystem, for example, and they are able to lose the weight they want and keep it off, but there are also many who don’t because it’s not a permanent change for them. I wouldn’t spend that much, but that’s also because I know it wouldn’t be a sustainable change for me. Gimmicks usually won’t really help you lose weight or at least won’t help you keep it off, but real, researched plans can and do provide benefit – but only if you follow all the recommendations and stick to the plan.
If you’re looking to lose weight, I wish you all the best! Just make sure not to follow a yo-yo plan that finds you losing weight only to regain it over the following months. If you can find a cheap or free at-home plan that works for you, great! But if you find you have to spend money to help you lose that weight, that’s fine as long as you make it stick. Good luck!
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
You will enjoy the WII Fit. We got ours this Noon. and Spent 45 mins with it each in the first three hours it was here.