At this point in my life, I have to work pretty hard to look what I would consider normal. Being close to age 40 with two small children and a zillion responsibilities takes its toll on looking young and vibrant. I just recently figured out that most of the people that I know who look fabulous endure a lot of hard work and money spent on beauty secrets. However, there are a few who manage to look this way naturally; I chose to pretend that they come from another planet and that they have gnarly, alien characteristics under all that perfection.
For the better part of my life, I have been cursing my parents for passing down hard to control, unruly genes. When I started to get to the bottom of these beauty secrets, I found out that the extra fit looking people either are workoutaholics or under the care of a personal trainer. To me the personal trainer option sounded better than turning myself into some sort of a “holic” and I started to look into hiring one for myself.
It was quite a shock to find out that the average run of the mill trainer starts at $60 to $70 per session and the great ones are way higher in cost. At those prices, it will be very difficult to have a personal trainer as part of my beauty “secrets”. The husband will definitely notice the $400 to $800 a month plus the cost of the gym membership.
Because I am a notorious do it yourselfer, I decided that I would be able to use the internet to create my own personal trainer experience without having the high cost of a personal trainer. I found out that there are interactive web sites that provide work-out and diet plans, exercise recipes that are semi-custom, lots of fitness and body building DVDs, random free videos on video sites like YouTube and a ton of weight loss information that comes in all shapes and sizes. When I goggled the words “online personal trainer”, 39 million results came up. I never thought that I would say this but there are way too many options to choose from.
Because of the overabundance of information, I decided to only search online for trainers and nutritionist who had celebrity clientele. My rationale was that a celeb’s daily job is to make sure that they look great at all times. I pictured them spending several hours a day grooming themselves, working out with trainers and deliberating over which gown or suit that they are going to wear to the next event. Therefore, celebrities probably would not hire and continue to work with someone who was totally unqualified (well they might but for the purpose of this article, let’s assume that they would not). This requirement totally narrows down the field of trainers and nutritionists on the web.
The next criteria had to do with the amount of information available. If this DIY workout was going to take the place of a personal trainer, there had to be at least three months of information available. Three months is usually as long as I can take with a special workout routine or diet. If the information came in video format, quality was important as I did not want to strain my eyes or get an upset stomach while watching a grainy, shaky video. It also had to be available in video on demand format as I do not want to wait for things to arrive and I am not a big fan of paying for shipping.
I found out that there are some great videos and information available online. It does take a bit of discipline to keep yourself on track; however, if you are committed to accomplishing your goals and saving money, it can be done. Some videos are free but I have found that the videos that you pay for have better content and quality. Good luck in your own personal journey to getting in shape.
Here is an example of a trainer that I found to be very knowledgeable and effective: http://www.mindbites.com/person/4568-UrbanFitnessTV
Ellen Ambrose loves being a mom, wife, daughter, online contributor and an eternally curious type. She helps out with marketing know-how for an online, instructional video community and marketplace called http://www.MindBites.com
