Today on Facebook I read a conversation about Beachbody. I took a screenshot and it’s the graphic you see with this post.
The tone of the conversation was not a bit sarcastic, but, although I love me some Beachbody, I cannot necessarily disagree with anything that was said.
- Beachbody’s business is in fact set up in the multi-level marketing model.
- It is indeed a full-time job if you want to be successful at it. And I am not — I’m really in it for the discount.
- I agree that it’s absurd to call the people trying to sell Beachbody products “coaches”. Makes sense from a marketing perspective, but, gauged on a coach by coach basis, it’s not necessarily accurate, because there’s no real “coach” training.
- Some people are probably puking on The Ultimate Reset. I know there are people who are feeling light-headed and asking on Facebook, “Is this normal?” To that I say, “What? You need to ask that?”
- Some people are also choking down meals and supplements they don’t like during The Ultimate Reset.
- People do believe hype, no doubt about that, and Beachbody is very good at creating hype.
- There are certainly people who are maybe not actively brainwashed, but are under Beachbody’s spell, let’s say.
I believe I might fall into the category of people who are under Beachbody’s spell, but there’s a good reason for that.
Beachbody gave me a new lease on life.
I was struggling. I’d lost a lot of weight with calorie restriction and I got off my meds, but the pounds were slowly sneaking back on. I was walking a lot, and I mean a lot, shooting for 15,000 steps per day, often hitting 20,000 and sometimes even 30,000. I was doing pushups and crunches.
But I wasn’t eating right, and, really, I wasn’t exercising right.
My brother had told me about P90X, a Beachbody product, but I didn’t believe the hype, or, at least, I didn’t think it’d work for me, even though I knew it had worked for him. Finally, after a few months, in a last ditch effort to get into shape, I asked him to get it for me.
As it turned out, P90x was just the jumpstart I needed.
And it wasn’t necessarily the exercise part of the program that did it for me. Sure, that was important, and I am still in the exercise habit two and a half years later, but P90X really got me on the road to good nutrition. That road hasn’t ended for me yet — I’m still searching — but P90X is what instilled in me the desire to search.
Because, you see, P90X is not just an excellent exercise program, but it also comes with a complete nutrition plan, and, as I now know, 80% of our body composition is dependent on what and how we eat. As they say, “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet,” so it all starts with what we eat.
I didn’t know. I should have known, but I didn’t.
I don’t knock the guys engaged in the Facebook conversation. Not one bit. One of them is actually a world-class body builder and a very nice guy — the other one I don’t know. And, really, I could have easily been part of that thread, had I chosen some other path to fitness. That’s because it’s easy to get into a trap of thinking everyone knows and understands something that we ourselves think we know and understand. I fall into that trap fairly often.
I mean, it’s obvious to me that when I see someone eating a donut, that he is consuming primarily simple carbs and a good amount of fat, and that it would take an hour-long run to burn off the calories of that one cream-filled Krispy Kreme. It seems to me that if I know that, then everyone should know that, right? Not even close.
Not that it’s a difficult concept. People just need to be exposed to the information and maybe that will be the key to change for them.
And that’s where Beachbody products come in. They helped expand my understanding and increased my desire to learn about diet and fitness. P90X was the key to change for me.
I do not use Beachbody products exclusively. In fact, all this year I have been all about yoga, which Beachbody has not yet fully embraced. (I’m betting there’s something in the works, and I’ll be one of the first to check it out when it hits the streets.) But you know something else? I started yoga because of Beachbody. Without Beachbody’s P90X, I probably never would have tried yoga. I’d bought yoga books and DVDs before, but P90X creator Tony Horton was the one who opened my eyes and body to yoga with his Yoga X and then his two One-on-One yoga DVDs.
So, anyway, yeah, if at times I seem a bit evangelical or “on my high horse” about Beachbody, it’s because I truly believe these products may be able to help you the way they’ve helped me. They are not perfect by any means, but they — at least the ones I’ve used — are well-thought out and very helpful.
That’s why when The Ultimate Reset hit, I bought it almost right away, because, as I said above, I’m still searching. While my body is in much better shape now than it was 5 years ago, I do not feel 100% most of the time, and I attribute that mostly to my diet. I thought The Ultimate Reset would give me a good little tweak and get me on a different path, because I am currently stuck.
After all, The Ultimate Reset is not one of those quickie 3- or 5-day cleanses that hits you with laxatives and calls itself successful. It’s not a crazy cabbage-soup or all-rice diet. This is a 21-day program that attempts to cleanse and rebalance the chemistry of our bodies, while also introducing us to a new way of cooking and eating,
And for me, anyway, it’s working.
I had been in a pretty hardline low-carb rut, and that has worked well for me for a couple years — it got me off the sugar for good! — but, as I said, I don’t usually feel 100%, so I think it’s time to change things up.
The Ultimate Reset has moved me into vegan territory. I won’t go that far with my diet — I think it’s too difficult to get the enough protein for an active person who is trying to build muscle — but I may end up in the vegetarian ranks, with some fish, whey protein, and eggs added, because I need good animal protein sources.
We’ll see. [UPDATE: After learning more about protein in plants, I did, indeed, go completely plant-based for about 9 months. After that, I added eggs — because my body seemed to be asking for them — and I’ve been an ovo-vegetarian, consuming only plants and eggs, ever since.]
So, yeah, I paid $200+ for The Ultimate Reset from Beachbody. And, yeah, it’s definitely been a bit hyped. And, yeah, I thought it’d be a cool extreme thing to put my body through.
And, yeah, I only bought it because it’s from Beachbody. But you know what? I haven’t been burned by Beachbody yet, so it’s all good.