Lazy Man and Money

The Extreme Lazy Man Diet

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Happy New Year, Everyone!

If your household is anything like mine, cooking has taken a priority over the last couple of years. Everyone seemed to explore making different types of bread and pastries. My wife has learned approximately 4,729 new Instant Pot recipes.

All that has led to a “Pandemic 15” – the extra 15 pounds I’ve put on. I don’t know if it’s related to the “Freshman 15, but my unforgiving scale doesn’t care about the circumstances.

One of the most popular New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight. It is as good as time as any to come up with a plan to get healthier and shed those 15 pounds. With that in mind, I’m revisiting this diet that I designed a few years ago. We have to finish some of the unhealthy food in the fridge and then I’m going to start this. I won’t be doing this extreme version of this diet, but picking 2 or 3 concepts each day. I find it much more manageable that way.

I know this may not be the personal finance article that you were looking for today, but maintaining a healthy weight may reduce the odds of expensive medical bills in the future.

The Extreme Lazy Man Diet

Vegetable Cartoon

A few years ago, I had an epiphany. There are so many types of diets that people claim to work for different reasons. Why hasn’t anyone combined them into one super diet?

One reason is that this super diet would be extremely hard to stick to. That means it’s almost destined to fail. After all, many of the Biggest Loser contestants gain the weight back. It’s not a sustainable plan.

Keep in mind that this is simply one man’s opinion from reading a lot of stuff. I haven’t taken the time to cite all my sources. One of the benefits of blogging is that it allows me to organize my own thoughts, evolve them with feedback from others (hint: please comment!), and review them over time. I’m not a doctor or even a health professional, so all the necessary disclaimers there apply. Doing the extreme version (all these things) is completely untested, even by me.

While this only addressed diet, it is important to remember that exercise is important as well. While I get a lot of steps walking my dog every day, it doesn’t get my heart rate up, nor does it provide strength training that I’ve had in the past. I’ll leave exercise for another blogger on another day. I know that if I only have a few minutes a day, I’d focus on targeting big muscle groups like chest and legs in weight training.

Enough of the set-up, time to get to the substance. Here are the different types of diets I am stealing ideas from and why:

Low-Carb: Atkins, Dukan, or Ketogenic

Woman’s Health Magazine covers three low-carb diets. I have a friend who lost a lot of weight on the Atkins diet. However, he went almost entirely carb-free, which is something that I couldn’t do.

To check off the box for a low-carb diet, I’ll steal the general best practice of focusing on meals consisting of mostly lean meats. One of my favorite breakfasts is a low-carb, meat-focused omelet. I find that’s sustainable because it’s delicious. If you are a fan of leafy vegetables you can put some spinach in there. I’m certainly not going to kick spinach out of the diet.

Low-Glycemic Load

When I am having carbs, I try to choose ones that have a low-glycemic load. If you are interested in the science behind this diet, the Mayo Clinic has a good review.

My choices from this category are carrots, pinto beans, and almonds. Pinto beans are high in fiber which is one thing lacking from the rest of this diet. Almonds sneak in because they are the single most nutritious food in the world.

I most often go for carrots, because they are also in the Volumetrics section of this diet and are extremely easy to snack on.

The Daily Shake Meal

I’ve personally lost about 8 pounds by just adding this one shake for a couple of days. I love using my Nutribullet (read my review) for this, but any blender will work.

Fill up half the blender with baby spinach, carrots, and frozen berry mix (typically strawberries, blueberries, raspberries). Go heavy on the frozen berries as the flavor is coming from here.

Add heaping tablespoon scoop of Greek yogurt, a scoop of whey protein, and a half teaspoon of corn bran.

You’ve probably never heard of corn bran, but it’s almost all fiber… without the “other carbs.” It tastes like ground dirt, but in this shake it isn’t as noticeable. It may be hard to find. I got mine from the link in the previous paragraph and it has lasted me for years, but it isn’t available now. You may be able to substitute a fiber substitute, but my understanding is that it isn’t as good as natural fiber.

Fill up the rest with water and blend. I often have to do it in a couple of phases as it gets thick quickly. It’s about 40 ounces when it’s done. All that liquid fills my stomach and curbs my appetite. It’s a good meal substitute for those who believe in old Slim-Fast shake diets.

Volumetrics

I’m not going to steal anything from this diet as it’s mostly covered in other diets. Instead, I’m going to steal something I feel should be in this diet, but doesn’t seem to be.

I’m stealing popcorn. The assumption is that there’s no added butter. (A butter substitute could be a good idea though.) The power in this is that you have to do a lot of chewing to get through one hundred calories of popcorn. It fills up a big bowl and I feel like I’ve eaten a lot.

Strawberries, blueberries, carrots, grapes, watermelon, lettuce are Volumetric all-stars too.

Weight Watchers

I had some friends lose significant weight with Weight Watchers. They’ve kept it too (even after they’ve stopped strictly adhering to the diet.)

If you are familiar with Weight Watchers, there’s a certain number of points available in a day and each food has a cost. I remember one friend saying “Food [X] is free”, which means she could eat as much as wants.

That’s what I’m stealing from Weight Watchers. There are some zero points lists out there, but I’m focusing on stealing the zero points vegetables. The zero point lists have other healthy foods that you may want to consider, but I like to stick with the vegetables since other foods are covered elsewhere in this diet.

Intermittent Fasting

Until this section, everything was about what to eat. This is about when to eat. I think it’s a popular enough trend that you may have heard of it by now. As usual, Wikipedia has a good explanation of how it works.

I have only been able to stick to this for a few days, but I know some people who have stuck to it for months or more. I know a couple of people who swear by it, and even they don’t understand the science.

I realize this isn’t a resounding endorsement of this section, but it adds another dimension. Since I am making an extreme diet here, why not throw the kitchen sink at it.

Paleo-Caveman Diet

I’m not stealing anything directly from this diet… yet. However, I think this diet probably shares most of the philosophies above. Maybe I’ll steal avocado, which doesn’t fit nicely into any of the above diet sections but is undoubtedly healthy and awesome.

Everything Else

I mentioned it before, but it is worth repeating: Make sure you see a doctor before trying any diet, especially one as crazy as this.

You’ll notice there’s no room for refined carbs and added sugar in this diet. In an earlier version of this diet, I wasn’t sure whether a cheat day is a good idea. However, now I’m a big fan of it. Plus there’s some evidence that cheat days work.

Just to put it all together, here’s what a day of this diet might look like:

10:00AM – Ham and Cheese Omelet (Low-Carb)
11:00AM – Cereal-sized bowl of Carrots/Broccoli (High Glycemic carbs)
12:00PM – Meal-Skipping Shake
2:00PM – Chicken breast, blueberries, and a small number of almonds
3:00PM – Bowl of popcorn
4:00PM – Ham and Cheese Omelet (or something low-carb like that)
6:00PM – Steak, a small amount of pinto beans, strawberries (reward and splurge with the steak)

One thing you might want to experiment with is making your lunch the biggest meal of the day. I’ve been doing that lately, and it gives me the energy to get through to the end of the day. It never made sense to me that we’d eat our biggest meal at the end of the day before sleeping when we use the least calories.

Do you have a favorite diet or hack? Let me know in the comments.

We have an affiliate relationship with one or more of the companies linked in this article.

COVID Hits the Kosmo Household

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This is an article contributed by frequent writer Kosmo. Though it has less to do with money than a typical article, it’s worth making an exception.

Monday morning (December 13), my 14-year-old daughter had a temperature of 101.6. We had her tested for COVID and influenza A and B, just to be safe.

Monday evening, we got the COVID result back – it was positive.

Oh, crap.

Pandemic precautions

We’ve been very cautious throughout the pandemic. My wife and I worked from home starting in March 2020 and didn’t return to the office until the summer of 2021. We had the kids do online school for the 2020-2021 academic year. They’re back in school this year, but the school has a mask policy, and it is followed without much pushback from parents or students.

We wear masks whenever we’re around strangers (or unvaccinated people), especially when it’s a situation where social distancing isn’t possible.

We limit our trips into retail stores by taking advantage of delivery services and curbside delivery.

We’re all vaccinated. My wife and I have both been boosted, my daughter had her shots earlier this year, and my 11-year-old son has his shots. My daughter’s last shot was six months ago since she’s not yet eligible for a booster. We wonder if her immunity has waned significantly during this time.

The previous weekend

Although we haven’t done a lot of social activities during the pandemic, we’ve done some things lately. This weekend actually had quite a lot of activity.

On Friday night through Saturday morning, my daughter had a sleepover for a friend’s birthday. The four girls wore masks, except when they slept. We were concerned that my daughter was contagious (but asymptomatic) at the time and may have spread it to her friends. At this point, none of the friends have tested positive, to our great relief. We would have felt terrible if they had, even though there was no way we could have known that she was contagious.

On Saturday, we attended a “north pole” event an hour away from our home, as well as a Christmas light display that evening. This included riding a train a short distance. We were totally masked the entire time, except when we were in the car together. That was probably three hours of breathing each other’s air in a confined space.

The next day, I took my daughter for a driving lesson. She’s still quite tentative, but I was able to get her out on the open road (in the middle of nowhere) and she got her speed up to almost 55 mph. We also worked on some hills and town driving. Overall, a pretty productive lesson. Afterward, I drove to Target to grab a pickup order. I spent 90 minutes in the car right next to her, at a time where she was definitely contagious.

Isolation

We’ve had my daughter in isolation since we got the test. She stays in her bedroom and one of the three bedrooms is now exclusively hers.

My daughter has been fairly content during her isolation. She has a TV to watch, her Chromebook to use, and lots of books to read. We have a box that we keep stocked with fluids and non-perishable foods. We deliver food to her room and mealtime and we’re using disposable plates and silverware. She simply throws the detritus into her trash can.

The first several “meals” were hot dogs, but she had a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza (beef) yesterday. She didn’t have much of an appetite for about the first thirty-six hours, but it has returned to normal.

There have also been noticeably fewer arguments between the kids since they aren’t in the same room. [Editor’s Note: During the last month, I’ve been using, “Different rooms, now!” several times a week for my kids. It works.]

Next steps

Monday night, I was relaxing in my recliner when I realized that we might have a Christmas problem. I’m the person who does all the gift wrapping, and, more importantly, I know where everything is hidden. Christmas was twelve days away. If I got COVID and lost strength, we might not have presents wrapped in time for Christmas. After everyone else was in bed, I started wrapping. I had finished wrapping 85% of the gifts by 1:30 AM.

Tuesday morning, we got a call from the doctor’s office. Even though this call went very smoothly, it took about twenty-five minutes. It was the first in a long line of these calls for the nurse who contact us.

The rest of us had to get tested. My wife and son had been tested a couple of times before, due to exposure. This was my first test. Although the nasal test isn’t exactly painful, it’s quite uncomfortable. I was starting to wonder if the experience was ever going to end, but then it was done. It felt weird for a few more minutes and then was OK.

Technically, my employer’s protocol was to return to work if you’re fully vaccinated, even if you have a close contact exposure. My job mostly involves sitting behind a computer all day, so I touched base with my boss to say that I wanted to stay at home, out of an abundance of caution. The risk to my coworkers didn’t seem to be worth the benefit of me being in the office. He agreed.

Storm

That night, there was significant wind even in Iowa – extremely unusual for this time of year. Winds of 70+ mph and quite a few tornados. Anxiety was already high as we awaited the results. Would all three of us have COVID? None of us? If each of us had a mere 20% chance, that meant that there was as a (1-(.8^3)) chance that at least one of us would have it (using the somewhat flawed assumption that the probabilities were independent). That’s a 49% chance.

As we were watching the weather coverage, I got my result – negative.

Around 7:30, we moved to the basement due to a severe thunderstorm warning. Finally, with storms bearing down on us, my wife and son got their results – also negative.

Although my daughter had been in isolation, we had her come down to the basement with us, since the storms posed a threat to her physical safety. We were all masked, and she stayed in a separate area of the large family room.

How did this happen?

The key question we have is how this happened – where she could have caught COVID. The most likely answer is school. She takes a bus to school, is at school for eight hours every day, and then returns home on the bus. Since she’s in junior high, she’s moving to a different classroom for each class. That’s a lot of interaction with a lot of different people. Although there’s a mask policy that is followed very well, masks only reduce the transmission of the droplets that carry the virus, they don’t entirely prevent transmission.

Current state

At this point, my daughter has only had mild symptoms. Her temperature quickly returned to normal, and her primary symptoms have been congestion and tiredness. She has slept in until noon the last few days, but she was awake around ten this morning. She hasn’t had any weird side effects, such as losing the sense of taste or smell.

At this point, we’re hopeful that we’re just “running out the clock” on her isolation. We’ve had other family members who have had COVID. I have a sister who got COVID around Christmas last year and is just returning to normal. Another (fully vaccinated) sister got it recently and now frequently smells smoke.

The rest of us continue to remain symptom-free. We continue to wear masks around her and wipe down surfaces frequently.

Stay safe

In closing, I wish all of you a safe holiday season. There’s yet another variant making its rounds, and it will surely affect some of your families. I hope that anyone affected has only minor symptoms. Here’s a to 2022 that’s far better than 2020 or 2021!

Let’s Fix Healthcare!

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Today’s article is a little different. While Lazy Man and Money is almost always focused on personal finance, I have an interest in fixing broken systems. That’s probably the computer science nerd in me. It’s why I often write about MLM scams.

Healthcare seems to be one of the biggest problems that most of American can agree on. They can’t necessarily agree on the solutions, but they agree it is a problem. I think that’s why it has become a big political issue. People feel they are paying too much for it and they are right to feel that way. Long before the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), I had friends complaining about skyrocketing health insurance premiums at work. I couldn’t find exact numbers, but it felt like they were nearly doubling every year… and doubling from high starting point.

Here are just a few examples of what I consider a broken system:

  • I’ve written about people paying for a $629 bandage at an ER that was unnecessary and fell off on the way home.

  • I’ve also written about how a $30 TDAP shot at CVS was billed at $365 by my doctor… and how my insurance paid $169 for it.

  • I never finished (or published) the EpiPen article I was working on simply because the news never ended. Fortunately, all that news coverage resulted in much more affordable options. People who were paying as much as $600 may be able to get an Epi auto-injector for as little as $10 at CVS.

There are hundreds of examples of problems, but if I tried to write about them, I’d never finish this article.

My focus will be to reduce the costs of rising insurance premiums, which I feel is the pain-point for most Americans. If we could access to great care at a reasonable price, we’d be happy right?

Some Personal Background

Our healthcare is covered by TriCare, which is the military’s healthcare. It’s generally great healthcare and I honestly couldn’t tell you much about the premiums as they come off my wife’s paycheck. I suspect that the premiums are very reasonable and greatly subsidized by the government. In fact, I just did a quick search and found that The mysterious $30, $169, $365 TDAP shot

Why did my doctor bill $369 for something that CVS does for $30? I don’t believe I was given better care. I don’t even think I saw my doctor that day, but instead an assistant. I suspect that the doctor knows that the insurance is going to lop off 50-60% and consider it a bookkeeping win (“we saved 60%!”). So I think she billed at an artificially higher price with that in mind.

However, that ends with insurance paying more than 400% than it had to. If they simply suggested that I went to CVS in the first place. Instead my insurance said that I wouldn’t be covered at CVS (if I recall) and that I had to go through my primary care physician.

I was happy to use insurance as I paid $0. My doctor’s office was happy as it got $169 for around ten minutes. The insurance company looks to be the loser, but they raise the premiums on employers and other people who buy insurance, so they aren’t left holding the bad.

It seems to me that the loser is the employer or someone paying premiums for health insurance… the two cogs in the system that can’t really do anything about it. People need health insurance for disastrous stuff so they have to pay the expensive premiums. It’s not like employers are suddenly going to stop offering health insurance and I don’t see them fighting back with the insurance companies.

Proposed Fix: For routine requests like this TDAP, doctors’ offices (or insurances) can quickly/easily electronically refer the patient to the low-cost provider or accept the same rate. Insurers will pay that accepted low-cost rate no matter who does it.

I apologize to all doctors in advance for losing out on $139 ($169 – $30) for each TDAP vaccine performed, but $30 isn’t really bad, when it’s done by some assistant in 10 minutes.

Why it works: Insurers are able to lower premiums significantly. Will they actually do that? I think we need a watchdog to make sure that they do, but that’s a different problem. At this stage we want to make it economically possible for insurers to lower prices on premiums.

I’m sure that TDAP vaccines alone aren’t a huge problem, but I think the example could be spread to a lot of routine care.

The United States MUST negotiate drug prices like other countries

Vox explained the real reason of sky-high prescription drug prices through a stick figure story. If stick figures aren’t your thing (and why not!) the Wall Street Journal explained it in more prose.

Here’s my takeaway from the Vox article, essentially the government (via Medicare) enables pharmaceutical companies to charge whatever it wants for every accepted drug. Other countries work together to negotiate lower rates. As the WSJ article stated: “The upshot is Americans fund much of the global drug industry’s earnings, and its efforts to find new medicines.”

Proposed Fix: Government creates a law that allows for negotiation of Medicare. Medicare creates a policy that they’ll pay the average of what the top 15 countries (or something like that) or it go with another drug. Pharmaceutical companies would have to pitch the cost-benefit of the drug vs. other drugs with similar profiles.

We’ll need a fix for private insurers, but fixing Medicare’s cost of drugs would save dozens of billions, maybe even hundreds of billions.

I apologize to Big Pharma executives and their profits… maybe it is time to raise the prices on the other countries. My understanding is that politicians don’t like this fix because Big Pharma funds their campaigns. I suggest only voting for politicians who are willing to stand up against Big Pharma on high drug prices.

I also apologize to the world, as Americans will not be able to subsidize the creation of cool new medicine. We should work on the system first

Why it works: It works for every other country and it simply makes sense. No need to overthink it.

Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare)

I can’t understand why anyone is against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) often referred to as ObamaCare. I had to research it and this LA Times article gives two explanations. One explanation is that most people simply don’t realize that how successful it has been in lower rates of uninsured people. The other explanation is that a political party has been vocally against it suggesting that the costs are too high or that it “doesn’t work.”

This goal of this article is come up with solutions, not get stuck in a partisan fight war of words. Any objective information I’ve found has shown the ACA to be a great success. Even the opposition who can’t seem to put together an alternative seem to agree that it is great for everyone to have access to health insurance and it should cover pre-existing conditions. So we’ve got a great starting point from the ACA.

So why should we get rid of the ACA? It has never been more popular according t this NBC News article. And getting rid of it would raise insurance premiums which exasperates the problem we’re trying reduce.

If cost is a problem that can easily be tweaked. I’ve already outlined a couple of ways to do that and there are more coming. There are probably quite a few other fixes that can be made. For example, why is Justin from Root of Good paying $16 a month for healthcare? He has a 1.5 million-ish net worth. I tip my hat to him (and consider him a virtual friend), but as he wrote, “If this is evil commie government health care I’d like some more, please.”

Proposed Fix: Look into ways to create a more competitive marketplace. For example, don’t let Aetna pull out of the exchanges as a political tool. They wouldn’t need to leave if we were successful in reducing costs as explained elsewhere.

Why it works: Because it was already working in many ways. The ways that it appears to not have been working are addressed elsewhere. There’s no need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Borrow Cuba and Other Countries

It seems that Cuba has a great healthcare system that works extraordinary well. Here’s a detailed Huffington Post on that, but I prefer this article from The Atlantic.

As the later article notes:

“Cuba has long had a nearly identical life expectancy to the United States, despite widespread poverty… the rate of infant mortality in Cuba has been lower than in the Boston neighborhood of his own prestigious hospital, Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s.

All of this despite Cuba spending just $813 per person annually on health care compared with America’s $9,403.

In Cuba, health care is protected under the constitution as a fundamental human right. As a poor country, Cuba can’t afford to equivocate and waste money upholding that. This pressure seems to have created efficiency. Instead of pouring money into advanced medical technology, the system is forced to keep people healthy.”

There’s a lot more information about how Cuba’s system works, but it makes a lot of sense. We don’t have to take everything that Cuba does, but it shows how throwing more money at the problem isn’t the fix.

Why it works: By economic necessity Cuba has had to adopt a system that works efficiently. We can expand on this more in the comments, but this article is getting long and I have a lot cover still.

Incentivize People to Eat Healthy and be Active

There’s zero immediate monetary incentive for preventing health problems by being healthy. If I log a ton of walking on my Fitbit this month, it’s just a number. If I balloon up to 400 pounds, it’s just another number.

Is it possible for your health insurance to give you money back for meeting certain guidelines like walking steps or maintaining a healthy BMI (not the most ideal metric, but it’s at least a starting point)? We have safe driving incentives for car insurance? Can we apply that to healthcare to give people an economic reason to make healthier decisions?

Additionally, the most unhealthy foods are often easiest to access and the cheapest… just compare the cost 200 calories of a (dressing free) salad at McDonalds and a McDouble. Sugar is very cheap and we know it isn’t healthy. Can we apply things like a soda tax to subsidize the healthier food?

Why it works: It can be hard for people to take interest in their health. Sometimes they don’t have the time for the gym. Sometimes they don’t want to spend $5 on a salad vs. a McDouble (I’m guilty of this). If people are given an immediately visual benefit to be healthy maybe we can reduce the amount of healthcare we need in general.

Required Vaccines for All

Why it works: Because it does.

Crack Down on Supplements

They’ve been exhaustively proven not to help with the exception of a few very specific conditions that your doctor can work with you on.

Americans aren’t educated to understand that Dr. Oz is an entertainer. As that article points out, “The FTC told Elizabeth Cohen, CNN senior medical correspondent, that there are just ‘too many’ weight loss products using deceptive advertising to sue them all. But consumers should be wary of certain phrases that are most certainly false, the FTC said, including any that claim to help you lose weight without diet and exercise.”

Big Supplement has lobbied congress to make it easy for them to put such products out:



And one of the things I’ve found is that when a supplement is tied to Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), it can cost consumers thousands of dollars. Truth in Advertising found “that 97 percent of DSA member companies selling nutritional supplements have distributors marketing their products with illegal health claims”.

Maybe with the right education, consumer protection, and law enforcement, we could divert these billions of wasted out-of-pocket consumer costs to real healthcare. It can be something as simple as a gym membership or eating healthier food in the first place.

Finally, this article points out such misleading information undermines the trust in doctors and healthcare. When people choose quackery over medicine, it can create further health risks, and for our purposes expenses, down the road.

Why it works: Because people making smart, informed decisions about their health is much better than buying likely-illegal hype from a carny.

“Health Care is a Business”

At nearly 2500 words now, I’m going to wrap this up. I had quite a few more notes that didn’t make the cutting room floor and I don’t have the energy to put together a pretty image. (Ironically to the subject at hand, there’s been a bad stomach bug passed around our town and family.) There’s a lot of things that I couldn’t touch here like in the $629 bandage article which covers facility fees of emergency rooms.

I’d like to leave you with something that I’ve read in quite a few places: Healthcare is a Business. I understand that it is, but I don’t think it should be. I think that’s where the system breaks down. It seems that everyone is trying to push to create the greatest profit for themselves, which is generally not a terrible thing. With the system we it seems to push all the expenses to higher insurance premiums with everyone taking a cut along the way.

Eventually it is the employers and consumers who are left footing the bill for all those people.

It’s a lot like Parkinson’s Law that says, “work expands to fill the time available.” In this case, the costs expand to fill the budget available… but the budget is effectively unlimited.

Maybe it’s because I often view things through a personal finance lens of cost-benefit analysis, but I feel like some kind of comptroller is necessary to step in and say, “Whoa! Let’s go with the frugal option with this.”

Happy 2017: Here’s Your Guide to Success

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The calendar does what it always, moves forward. While the change of a year is arbitrary, it does serve as a wake-up call for millions to take stock and try to improve their lives. I’m one of those millions. In fact, I’ve felt the push to improve for a full week now. (More on that later this week.)

Mountaintop Success

New Year’s resolutions don’t change much year to year. Last year I wrote researched 7 simple ways to Make and Keep Your New Year’s Resolution.

Seriously, that’s all you need, so just click that link.

You’re still here? Why?

The fact that you are still here is a good sign. It tells me that you have persistence or grit. This is important to succeed in any New Year resolution.

Want to know how much grit you have? Bestselling author Angela Duckworth has a Grit Scale test. On the 0 to 5 scale, I scored a -37. Yikes. On the bright side, you can be confident that you are ahead of me.

The general ideas are great for building a foundation on how to succeed with your resolution, but I thought I’d cover a few more. Here are some common resolutions and my very best tips:

Personally, I’d pick one area (more than one is setting yourself up to overwhelmed) and read the specifics and jot down a few notes. Then I’d use the Make and Keep Your New Year’s Resolution article to set up a plan to keep motivated… which is the most difficult part.

Easy Ways to Cut Down on Gym Costs

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Starting a workout routine can be one of the best gifts we give ourselves. It improves our physical health and mental wellbeing. However, if you’re looking to join a gym or even take a few classes, you may be surprised at the cost. Between equipment, race bibs, subscriptions, drop-in fees, and memberships, being physical comes at a price. Fortunately, there are ways you can cut down on gym prices without missing a workout.

5 Ways to Cut Down on Gym Prices

Class-Hop

For those living in cities or larger towns, you are likely aware of social deals such as Groupon and LivingSocial, which offer discounts on activities and local goods. One of the most popular deals are for gyms and classes – especially when you buy in bulk.

While most of these only last a month, you can become a “class-hopper,” going where the deals take you. Each month, purchase another bulk deal on a gym membership or drop-in card as a new client. You’ll save 30-40% or more – a huge savings when you consider that gym and class memberships often cost $80 or more per month!

Save at Home

Gyms aren’t the only way to stay fit. If you don’t live near a workout facility or can’t get away, try internet workouts! YouTube, SparkPeople, and MyFitnessPal are all free sites that provide users with short workout videos or even home exercise lists that anyone can do without gym equipment.

That being said, you must be careful when trusting a YouTube or other popular video instructor. They may not be as qualified as you think. For peace of mind, consider investing in online programs that guarantee high-quality instructors that have been vetted. I personally love my monthly membership to an online yoga studio where I can learn from various teachers. Prices range from $15-25/month with unlimited sessions, which is significantly less than even one yoga class a week at my favorite studio!

Let Tech Take Over

Sometimes, the best workouts are the simplest ones. Staying active throughout the day can make a huge difference to your health and even assist you in losing weight. That is why one of the most popular fitness tech items out there is the FitBit. In the past, you would need to purchase a heart rate monitor, pedometer, food tracker, and more to make up what this one nifty device does. Even the older versions such as the Flex work great and are steals compared to the latest version!

But I really love the FitBit because it shows just how much I can do at home. It gives me encouragement to get up and move, and I never feel pressured to go to the gym to meet my goals. The option to workout and even compete against friends breaks me of the social need to attend a class.

Experiment With New Fads

From circus pilates to dodge ball leagues, fun new classes are popping up at gyms all over North America. The best part about them (besides being a ton of fun) is that they’re inexpensive! That is because, unlike Zumba or Barre, these classes are relatively untested or beloved. Teachers often put up trial classes to see what the interest level is before offering it to a wider audience. Take advantage of these testers to see if you like it enough to pay the full price and to get in a unique workout without the boutique prices you’d pay down the line.

Train With a Student

Personal training is a great investment on long term health, but training fees can be outrageous, especially if you want to work out with someone licensed or with great credentials. But all of those super star trainers and athletes had to start somewhere!

Many colleges and universities that offer degrees in athletic training, physical therapy, or exercise science need their students to have hands on learning experiences with their own students. Signing up to be a guinea pig doesn’t mean you’ll be stuck with a newbie as more than likely, you’ll get the help of not only the knowledgeable student, but also the professor with years of experience.

Your health doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. Instead of cutting down on your workouts, look for creative ways to get your sweat on without opening your wallet.