Thursday, September 11, 2014

Congrats Fitness Edge of Fairfield on the Worst Sales Pitch EVER



"Well technically, you're obese," said the Fitness Edge Fitness Consultant.

"Um okay. Wow. That's news to me," said me.

Thus began my renewed love / hate relationship with The Edge Fitness in Fairfield. My son had been bugging me and bugging me and bugging me and flailing himself against stuff to join a gym. He went to the jiu jitsu place. He went to the cross fit place. He went to the open 24 hours place. Do you know how much these places cost? Like $100 a month per person. For a 16 year-old. So we went back to my old gym that I practically had to sue to leave the first time. God I hate gyms. But I love gyms. Cuz they have so much stuff.

As part of my new life as a freelancer, I decided to take off the 10 pounds I'd gained in my last year as an employee. What with the stress, and the M word -- if you don't know what that is, then you're not 50, or a girl. I'm working on it. I've lost about 5 pounds now and have another 5 to go. I'll get there. 

As part of my new Fitness Edge membership, they offer one hour of free personal training. I thought hey maybe this will help me get there faster. Just FYI, it's total bullshit. It's about 10 minutes of personal training and a 45-minute sales pitch on being obese and getting their "Total Fitness Solution." Really guys? I'm in marketing, so there's pretty much no Total (insert marketing word) Solution I'm buying.

They take your weight and height and then ask you to hold this gizmo that looks like a gaming controller to calculate your BMI (body mass index). After going blank several times, the Fitness Edge gaming device says my BMI is 34. I freaked, so today I went to the BMI calculator offered by the NIH (National Institutes of Health). The NIH says my BMI is 24 which is NORMAL. It's high normal, but still normal.

And did I mention she was rounding up my weight? No one rounds up on weight. Not even guys. 

This gets better. Then they created an avatar of me in my current obese state. Really I think I would rather have had a ________(you fill in the blank). Oh my god. I have no words. 

After shaming me with the "obesity" news, the Fitness Edge Fitness Consultant then took me through multiple scenarios involving working out with a personal trainer and tracking my food online. I get it. I've done that food tracking before with Weight Watchers when I would guess my BMI was 34 after having a 10 pound baby. And it works. I am a huge fan of Weight Watchers and their non-shaming approach to weight loss.  And I get that working out with a trainer is probably a pretty cool thing too.

Finally, the end of the sales pitch. The end of the worst sales pitch EVER. For a mere $499.93 a month, I can get three 30-minute personal training sessions per week plus unlimited "Edge Strong" team training, plus diet tracking. For $369.99 a month, I can train twice a week, etc. For $199.97 per month, I can train once a week, etc.

Thank you Fitness Edge Fitness Consultant for the information, but I can't spend $500 a month on personal training because I don't have it. Maybe instead of spending time creating my fat avatar, you should've checked my bank statement. Or you could've just asked me.

One thing I will say is that after only 10 minutes with my personal trainer, I loved her. She was funny and honest and paid very close attention to what I was doing, correcting my form etc. Liz Heatter. Ask for her. Avoid everyone else. 

Wait I forgot. When I first sat down with Liz she asked me some questions about my goals, any injuries etc. She said, "Someone wrote here that one of your goals is to lose 50 pounds. But I'm looking at you and wondering from where?" That's when I knew I loved Liz the personal trainer. Then she took her pen and scratched it out over and over again. 

NB: You may recognize the iconic Piggly Wiggly logo above which actually looks exactly the same as my Fitness Edge fat avatar.

4 comments:

  1. Because we're all supposed to be Hollywood bobble heads. What would the world really be like if we all spent that much time on our weight? Good call, Beck; good call.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh thank goodness it's you Pauline. Damn straight. Remember those two ladies from Britain on the motorcycle and they would drive around eating butter? That's my dream job.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would totally do that with you! Let's just add champagne and we'll be like Pats and Eddie from "Absolutely Fabulous"!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love those two! Perfect it's done. Xos

    ReplyDelete