Day 2 | How Much $$$ Am I Going To Spend For My Fitness Transformation?

A good friend of mine back home in Los Angeles is a personal trainer and a waiter. Fun fact: Everyone in L.A. is either a waiter or a personal trainer. He's also a hell of a salesman. His pony tail so pristine, that it's considered a power move in a boardroom meeting. Why am I telling you all this? I really don't know. I digress... While buried 8 tables deep, he told me of this game the sales teams at gyms play called "objection ball". Fun fact: Wait staff love to tell each other stories when stressed out at work. His sales team would pass a soccer ball to each other with common objections written on it. When a person catches the ball, they must rebut the objection correctly from the person passing the ball that chose the objection. Should the rebuttal be deemed sufficient, they get to choose an objection on the ball and pass the ball to the next rep. The number one objection the sales team faced? I don't have enough money to purchase a gym membership. This got me thinking. How many people truly believe this limiting belief that they don't have enough money to get in shape?

So today, my goal is to show you how much it is going to cost me to get started on this fitness journey and provide a rough estimate of what my bi-weekly food costs are going to be moving forward. Please leave a comment if you decide if what I spent is too much money or seems fair. We will also be taking a field trip to the happiest place on earth: WALMART BABY! First, let's go over a common question.

• Do I need a gym membership to get in shape?

I want to take you back to 2020 real quick. During this time. A variety of businesses across the country were closed due to the Covid pandemic. In Ventura County, where I was living at the time, gyms were shut down. I had just moved to the city within the last year and recently purchased a gym membership for a facility literally across the street from me. I finally had a convenient way to go to the gym! Only to have access get shut down immediately. This news hit me hard. I was stoked to go to the gym. I remember looking in the mirror shirtless, thinking "I hate this dude looking back at me in the mirror". I then drug out my pull up bar, dumbbells and running shoes from the depths of my closet and made a decision. Every single day until the end of the year, I ran two miles, did pushups and assisted pullups. I lost 20 pounds during that timeframe. I didn't need an expensive gym membership to get results. Although, having one will greatly help you. For me, I just needed to adopt healthy habits. Throughout this transformation, I am going to be doing cardio outside and using my apartment's fitness center. I'm beyond grateful for having a complex that gives me access to a fitness center! However, I am confident I wouldn't need one to get in shape.

• What are you buying to get started and how much are you spending per week in food?

Great question! I've updated my Google Spreadsheet with a detailed shopping list! I then went into Walmart to see how much this shopping list would cost me.

The shopping list:

A crockpot and a rice cooker are a great way to meal prep efficiently! The crockpot was $24 and the rice cooker costed $20

Grabbing everything on the shopping list took about 20 minutes

All said and done, the total of everything on the list came to $122.62

Now if you already have the tools to meal prep and cook your food, I eliminated the crock pot, rice cooker and tupperware from my shopping cart. This provided a good view of what I can expect to spend every other week on food for a total of $65.32 bi weekly or $32.66 a week. Keep in mind I got 5lbs of rice, 3lbs of sweet potatoes, 4lbs of fish, canned tuna, and 4lbs of chicken in this purchase! That should last me two weeks or at a minimum a week and a half.

To get started, I am investing $122.62 which included groceries for two weeks! I am expecting to spend about $33-$40 a week for groceries moving forward!

So there you have it, did I spend a fortune to get in shape and eat healthy? Was this too expensive? Is there anything I missed on the list? Let me know in the comments!