Weddingbee Blog

Shedding the Stretch Pants: Intro, The Before and Nutrition Counseling, Seven Weeks to On Track, Road Blocks and Results (So Far)

Money is something I’m loathe to talk about in such a public forum. But it’s about honesty, and while yes, it is possible to diet an exercise completely for free, some of us (ovah heeeeahhh) need a lot of external help to get ’er done.

What I really wanted to talk about today was the cost of losing weight: both time-wise, and money-wise. I’m not self motivated to diet/exercise, and I spent a lot of money (in my world of money) thus far to get to this point in what I at least consider is a healthy way. And of course, there were redundancies—I didn’t quit the YMCA until a month and a half after I was into my boot camp because I thought I’d return eventually.

THE MONETARY COST OF 15 POUNDS:

• Existing YMCA membership (canceled after 2 months): $56 p/ month, $112 total
• Semi personal training/nutrition counseling at Gym Class Fitness Oakland (6 weeks+1 week free promo): $425
• Extra a la carte training sessions at Gym Class Fitness (10 sessions): $185
• Calorie counting online: Free (Loseit.com)
• Membership at new gym (after GCO) All-In-One-Fitness Albany: $49 p/ month, $98
• Spinning shoes: $80
• Heart rate monitor: $45

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TOTAL: $945

That’s a LOT of money for us. A LOT. Was it worth it? Sure. Not every penny of course (the redundant gym memberships were ridiculous) but I’d definitely pay it all over again if I were asked to. Moving forward, I now belong to a gym that is $49 a month, and have ceased semi-personal training and nutrition counseling.

THE TIME COST OF 15 POUNDS:

I worked out every day shaded in pink. On average I spent:

• 3-4 hours a week working out
• 1 hour a week for the first 7 weeks in nutrition counseling
• 1-2 hours a week commuting to the gym(s)/counseling
• 2 hours every Sunday for meal planning

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Total: on average, 7.5(ish) hours a week

Time wise, written out, it’s almost laughable how little time it takes to lose 15 pounds. It feels like a lot, between getting ready for the gym, driving there, and actually doing it. But, I factored that in above. I work out consistently, but I don’t work out THAT much. My new gym’s classes are 45 minutes long of intensive training (spin classes, boxing, weight lifting).

In that span of time I traveled about every other weekend for 2-4 days at a time. It didn’t matter and didn’t really throw me off track too badly, as I suspected it would.

I hate to break it to old me, but I did have time to work out and lose weight. Am I more tired lately? Sure, occasionally. Exercise is said to give you more energy but to be honest, the energy I exert to just LEAVE the house in general takes a lot out of me. Plus, I work out at night, when I don’t really need that extra surge of energy. It’s affirming to write this all out because now I know, when I say that I don’t have time to work out and plan out healthy meals, I realize that all it really takes is 7 hours out of my week (and that’s getting less and less as I start to settle into solid low-calorie go-to recipes instead of having to plan and seek them out) to see pretty good results.

$945, 7.5 hours a week, 3 months, 15 pounds. Was it worth it? Yes. Am I finished? No.

*I feel like I’ve been singing the praises of all of my diet/exercise gyms/classes/tools that I have to mention that I’ve paid full price for all gym memberships and all the online tools I use are free and found by recommendation by my trainer and I haven’t been paid to talk about any of them. You should assume this (because not disclosing such information, if I did get paid/compensated is illegal), but either way…just putting it out there.