When the “free fitness challenge” from a local trainer popped up on Facebook, it piqued our interest immediately. Of course we knew it wouldn’t be without a catch, but the description explained that the reason she could do it for free was for the internet reviews, the use of your before and after photos and because it worked great as marketing and a lot of people choose to stay on at the gym afterward.

Andi (my partner) and I have both always been interested in fitness and nutrition, and neither of us has been really happy with our health or fitness for a few years now. The cumulative effects of stress, lack of sleep, enjoying our wine and of course, not always eating really nutrient dense foods (or, ahem, chicken nuggets for days when needed to survive).

Because Andi has an athletic background (in roller derby and kickboxing) and I’ve been fascinated by nutrition and fitness for years, we felt pretty well equipped to determine whether this challenge would be a good fit for us, so we booked a consultation.

So here’s the deal. You pay a $500 deposit. If you meet the goals set out by the trainer, at the end of six weeks you get all your money back. If you do not, she keeps your $500 but will put it toward a membership or classes at the gym.

Neither of us has $500 to lose (not even close). But we did our research and weighed the risks and decided to go for it. We both know that our body type responds well to exercise and we could likely meet the goals fairly easily, and we looked forward to the kick in the butt to hopefully get fired up about being active and fit again, finally.

Here are the goals you have to meet to get your money back:

1. Attend 3-4 workouts per week at her gym.
2. Write two online reviews upon completion of the program.
3. Let her use your before and after photos.
4. Lose 6% of your body fat in the six weeks.

Uh… that last one though? We felt confident about the rest as those are within our control, but the last one depends on how good her plan is.

After deliberating for a few days and doing a lot of digging online to figure out whether 6% body fat loss in six weeks was even possible or advisable, we decided to go ahead with it (with the caveat that I would not commit if I came in at less than 27% body fat to start, as I don’t want to go below 20% and felt I’d be less likely to have success with the challenge if I started out lower than 27%).

Well, I came out at 30.3% body fat, so I was safe in that regard. Overall my health metrics are pretty decent: a visceral fat rating of 4 (fairly healthy, could be better), metabolic age of 35 and a resting heart rate of about 56 beats per minute. I’ll also be checking my blood pressure to start as well as some metrics like squats per minute, max pushups, balance and flexibility measurements and my average pace per kilometre when I run. All of this will allow me to see the results from this challenge.

Tune in to the next post to see just what Deb (our trainer) has prescribed for exercise and a meal plan! I’m going to be picking this a part a bit day by day, as I have to say I was a little shocked at the meal plan in particular.