Getting fit can sometimes be a financial burden to many people – or at least, that’s what they think. We often hear how good, clean foods are most expensive and we know a gym membership, personal training and equipment is sometimes out of our price range.
At times, price is used as an excuse, but if you’re serious about achieving your fitness goals, then you won’t allow anything to stand in your way. You can achieve any fitness goal you set for yourself on any type of budget – big or small.
Build a Home Gym on the Cheap
Getting a gym membership can be costly. If there’s not a cheap gym near you, you can be paying quite a bit of money per month to have access to the gym. Even then, it may not be a 24 hour gym, so you have to work with their hours to get your workout in on time.
Building a home gym saves you a lot of money in the long run, but it doesn’t have to be expensive at the start anyway. People are sometimes put off by home gyms because the equipment can get expensive if you buy it new.
Things like treadmills can cost hundreds of dollars, and weightlifting machines can cost even more. Gyms can afford them because they have hundreds of people paying for memberships, but you’re just one person.
Instead of buying all of your equipment new, look towards the secondhand market. It’s not uncommon for people to sell exercise equipment or even give it away because they’ll try to build up a home gym and then give up on it, leaving them with these items that are taking up space.
You can find all kinds of essentials using websites like eBay or Craigslist, and usually for a much better price than you’d find brand new. It’s also important that you don’t buy equipment that you don’t need.
Certain things like machines that drive up the cost of a home gym aren’t really necessary if you can learn how to do those exercises with free weights – meaning things like dumbbells and barbells.
They almost always have a free weight counterpart, so you only need to buy those. A good set of dumbbells can be acquired for just around $250 or less, and those can be used for just about any kind of workout and will get you in shape.
That’s if you decide to get a set with different kinds of dumbbells going up to around 50 pounds. If you want an even cheaper option, you can get an adjustable dumbbell, which allows you to use one pair of them and change the weight through a wide range.
This helps save space and money. Another good essential to get is a bench and barbell. Naturally, this allows you to do bench press, which is a common exercise, but it also enables you to do things like overhead press and squats, all for next to nothing. A bench is almost always less than $50, and a barbell can be picked up for around $20.
Use Natural Fitness Regimens
Not every exercise requires the use of a gym or gym equipment. There are many fitness regimens that can be done with nothing but your body, and it’s often more enjoyable that way.
Exercising naturally can get you in shape without you having to spend a dime on things like gym memberships or at-home equipment. The first thing that you don’t need any kind of membership for is running.
People tend to like using treadmills, but going outside and running is just as viable. Hopefully, you live in an area with fairly nice weather, where it’s not too hot, too cold, or too rainy to get out and run.
If so, pick up some running shoes, some earbuds, and go on a run around your city or neighborhood. Running outdoors is much more enjoyable than staring at the wall with a treadmill.
Next, there are plenty of exercises that don’t require you to use weights. For example, squats are often seen being done with a barbell and plates loaded up on it, but that’s not necessary for a beginner.
Bodyweight squats are going to help you work out your legs just as well as anything else – you just need to increase the amount of reps you’re doing. Similarly, you can work out your chest and triceps by doing pushups with proper form.
This removes the need to go out and get something like a bench for bench press. By changing the angle of your elbows and the elevation of your body, you can make pushups easier or harder to account for your skill level.
There are also tons of things that you can do throughout your day-to-day life in order to be a bit more active. They may seem small, but they add up over time. For example, when you go to a store or to work, you probably try to pick the closest parking spot that you can.
Try parking further back – it’ll make your walk longer, but that’s helping you get in more steps. Similarly, whenever you have to go to a second or third floor in a building, take the stairs instead of an elevator or escalator. This can help get you a bit of a leg workout and it also helps get you some cardio. This alone isn’t going to get you in shape, but it helps you more than you might think.
Shop in Grocery Stores – Not for Fad Diet Foods
Something that helps a lot both for your budget and for your health is buying food from the grocery store and cooking for yourself. It’s such a simple change, but many people don’t do it.
It can save you hundreds per month and, if you do it right, you’ll be losing weight in no time thanks to the healthier options provided there. Fast food is just horrible for you. It’s always going to be loaded with grease, salt, fat, and excess carbs, which are all bad news if you’re trying to lose weight.
It can also be costly, being around $7 for a meal. In comparison, meals made at home typically cost you about $1-2. Over time, this adds up quite a lot of savings. Before heading to the store, make sure you have recipes with ingredient lists so that you know exactly what you need to get and how much of it you need to get.
This helps you avoid walking around lost, grabbing random things and trying to make a healthy meal out of it. Once you have all the ingredients you need, you’re good to go. One of the things that you might have tried before while shopping is buying some fad dieting products.
Things that claim to help you lose weight fast in the form of diet pills, frozen diet meals, brand diet plans or meal replacement shakes. Sometimes it’ll be a particular food that people are claiming to have “magical weight loss effects.”
Don’t buy into these, because they’re really not as trustworthy as they might seem. When it comes to diet and weight loss, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Chances are slim that there’s really a product that’s going to help you drop 30 pounds in 2 weeks.
While we don’t like accepting this fact, it’s true – weight loss takes time, effort, and commitment. Instead of wasting your money gambling on some weight loss scam product, go with tried and true methods.
Eating smaller, healthier meals will cause you to lose weight, and that’s been proven time after time. Just because one person claims to have dropped a ton of weight after taking some pill doesn’t mean it’s going to be true – or long lasting.
Buying groceries and cooking at home is not only a more affordable option, but it’s also one that will help you get in shape and will give you some more variety in your meals, leading to an overall happier life.
Use Digital Media to Guide Your Workout
People are often hesitant to get in shape because they’re unsure of what to do and believe that they need to hire a personal trainer and other similar professionals in order to have a successful attempt at fitness.
In this day and age with the internet, that’s simply not true. You can find everything you need and more using digital media – you just need to know where to look. The first problem people tend to run into is not having a workout plan.
You might have stepped into a gym before and felt totally lost. You don’t know what machines to use, how to use them, and haven’t even considered touching the free weight area.
All you really know are dumbbell curls and maybe a few things for your legs. At this point, some people think of hiring a personal trainer to tell them what to do, but that can be out of some people’s price range.
Instead, look online at workout forums. Most of them have beginner guides with detailed information about what to do in order, how much of it you should do, what to look for, and so on.
You can save it on your phone or jot it down and head to the gym with a perfect guide, saving you from the embarrassment of just meandering around the gym. Another great resource for workout tips is YouTube.
Through YouTube, you can find quick and easy visual guides on workouts that you don’t quite know how to do. A lot of the terminology can get confusing, and trying to describe some workouts in words can be difficult.
If you don’t have a friend or a personal trainer to show you what to do, people on YouTube can tell you in just around a minute, and they’ll give you some useful tips as well.
You should also look to digital media for diet planning. You don’t need to go and pay for sessions with a nutritionist to tell you what you should be eating. There are so many people that catalogue their full meals online with recipes all the time.
Following other people’s meal plans can get you the same results that they’re seeing, and you don’t have to spend a dime for someone to tell you what to eat. Finally, you can download apps on your smart phone to help you tracks your workout progress. There are apps that help you with everything from workout routines to diet tracking, and you should use them to help your fitness progress.
Join a Local Adult Sports Team
Sometimes, the best way to get in shape isn’t to join an expensive gym or buy a bunch of equipment, but rather to just spend some good time playing sports. Chances are, you have an adult sports team in your area that you could have a good time with.
These teams are a great way to get in shape at a low cost. First, they provide you with a way to get in your cardio. For most people, this is what they’re missing for their fitness. Whether you’re playing soccer, baseball, basketball, skating, or anything else, you’re probably going to be spending a lot of time running or at least doing some kind of intensive cardio.
This is much different from cardio at the gym, though. At the gym, you’d run on a treadmill or an elliptical. This is a pretty boring movement that you repeat ad nauseam until you feel like you’ve done enough.
If you’re lucky, they might have TVs that you can watch, but if not, you’re just staring at the wall or at the rest of the gym. In sports, on the other hand, you’re doing varied movements that help keep your body more limber and dynamic, and you’re not as likely to get bored.
Instead of just using your legs and walking, you might be using your arms, ducking down, moving side to side, and so on. This makes the workout much more interesting, and time flies fast so it doesn’t feel like you’ve been walking forever.
Another thing joining a team like this does for you is hold you accountable. If you don’t really feel like going to the gym, and you don’t have a gym partner or anything like that, you’re just not going to go.
However, if a team is counting on you to be there, you’re going to be much more likely to show up whether you feel like it or not, because you’re being held accountable. It’s really nice to be able to spend time with new people and do something that you enjoy.
Gyms can get stagnant and boring after some time. It’s much more enjoyable to do something that varies and changes and helps you grow as a person. Combined with the fact that team dues are cheaper than a gym membership, it’s a really great alternative to working out – especially if you’re on a budget.
Remember, you can always find a way to achieve fitness goals – whether it’s weight loss, building muscle mass, improving mobility or range of motion, or more. It doesn’t matter how much or how little you have to spend on this pursuit.
