So in this industry often we hear about people not being able to afford to get fit. Often what we say to clients is what level of priority are you putting on your health?
Over the last couple of months a lot of the people we see are coming in and wanting to lose a stone or two and get fitter for different reasons. They’ll say that their diet is bad and that they’re not eating right and maybe that they can’t afford to get healthy.
So we help our clients break it down to see are they spending their money on things that they don’t need and that they could put towards their health and fitness.
So one thing is coffee, which is probably the most common culprit. Now if you pick up a coffee every day on your way to work this can amount to €16.80/week (€2.40 a day). So when you look at it in regards to having a gym membership for €30 a month, you’re spending more on caffeine than you are on your health and fitness.
Again we are talking about the people who are saying they want to lose weight and get healthy but yet they don’t see the importance on what they’re spending their money on and all these little things are adding up. They don’t see the importance of giving up one coffee a day and saving €17 a week which will help them get a couple of fitness classes and get a gym membership to get fit.
Again this is just one coffee a day so imagine if you bought 3 a day, you’re talking about €50 a week on coffee if you’re buying all of them out so just think what else you could get for €50 a week instead. For instance you’ve got courses on personal training for that price!
So we created a video on a few different items to give you an idea of the price of things per week and how you can make better spending options on your health.
Click here to to view the video on Facebook
For instance a bottle of coke is €1.75, a packet of taytos is €1.20, a chocolate bar is €1.25 and a sandwich is €3. A lot of people we’ve seen coming in might do a lot of travel for work and go into a shop and might buy all this in one day so you’re spending about €7 a day even if you only did it over 5 days a week that’s €35 a week which is €140 a month.
So you’re spending a lot of money on junk and on stuff that if you made it at home in bulk you could save and invest that in your health and fitness instead.
So we’re not getting into the calorie side of it here but we’re helping you to see that some of the people that are eating and drinking a lot of this stuff say they can’t afford to get fit.
So you need to sit back and take a look at what you’re actually spending your money on.
Another one of the biggest culprits are cigarettes which have gone up in the recent budget to about €12.70 for a box of 20. So we see a lot of people who are smoking who pay €13 for a box of cigarettes every day which a week is €90 a week that becomes €360 a month for smoking 20 a day.
Then it comes down to I can’t afford to do those classes but yet you’d spend €13 a day on fags which is killing you. Now I know they’re an addiction but we have to break down what we invest in. If your health is that important to you then what are you spending your money on?
So the next thing is alcohol. For a night out every week you’re looking at €50 a week which is quite low as most people might spend €100 on a night out. So this is if you took 6 drinks (€5 per drink), €10 for a taxi and €10 for a takeaway, that’s about €50.
Depending on how much you drink and how far you live from town the cost of going out could be more! So every week that’s about €100.
So what we’re getting at is if you spend €50 a week on this then you could put another €50 a week away for your health and fitness.
What we’re seeing more and more of lately is high blood pressure, high cholesterol and under-active thyroids. All these kind of things such as high cholesterol come from saturated fat in the diet and sugar.
So if we don’t pay the price for getting fit we’re going to pay the price for being unfit and ultimately that’s going to be in the form of medication, disease and treatments.
So we have to get people prioritising and get thinking what are we spending our money on and could we be spending it better by investing in ourselves.
Last thing here is a takeaway is about €20. So it will just tell you imagine putting all these things together so you you’re buying all these things like your coffee, taytos, chocolate, sandwich, coke because you’re on the road, you smoke as well and like to go out the weekend and because you have a few drinks you might want a takeaway the next day.
If you look at all the money you’re wasting on making yourself unhealthy when instead you could put that towards yourself for getting healthier, get fitter, lose a bit of weight and feel better about yourself as well.
So this is just to get you thinking what you’re wasting money on that you could invest in yourself.
So you could do this anywhere by cutting back on a couple of things and making smarter choices.
This is just the food. How many people have monthly subscriptions to things like Sky and Netflix and they continue to watch those and continue to put on weight and get unhealthier.
Now people see the example they’re setting for their kids and the long term health implications that are affecting them and they’re getting worried about it but yet they continue to spend up to €60 a month plus paying for Sky but yet won’t commit to their own health.
So take a step back and look what you’re wasting your money on and invest within yourself.
So sit down, start making the changes and don’t wait until the new year.
