This is going to be an insanely crunch-filled summer for me at work with 12-hour workdays Monday through Friday (and a few weekends tossed in) all the way through mid-August and financially with the addition of a car payment to my monthly bills. I am not getting home until close to 11 pm at night, and $700 a month must go toward my “new” used 2002 Camry if I want to pay if off by October 2007.

I shall be squeezed for time and money.

What better time to enter both round 5 of the Body for Life official challenge and the Instone Nutrition Lifechange challenge! :wig:

I am also going to try to do this for under $40 a week including supplements, groceries for 6 meals/day, equipment and gym membership.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m out to prove that one can indeed successfully complete a 12 week OFFICIAL fitness transformation challenge (e.g. “You must buy some of the sponsoring company’s products in order to qualify.”) while working 60-80 hours a week and spending no more than $160-$200 per month for all required supplies and services.

Frankly, I’m tired of hearing the same “I don’t have enough time to exercise or cook my own meals” and “I can’t afford to eat healthy foods” excuses from people who have never even bothered to TRY. Two hundred bucks may sound like a lot in one shot, but I suspect that most people who gripe about the high cost of being fit spend much more than $200 a month total for food if you add in the cost of restaurant meals and take out. I won’t even get into the cost of a night out at a club or bar.

There are going to be some front-end expenses that can’t be avoided. Good running shoes, supplements like whey protein, and certain pieces of fitness equipment if there aren’t any cheap month-to-month, no-contract gyms around must be purchased at the start instead of weekly, so I will be taking the total cost of my 12 week challenge and dividing it by 12 to get the average weekly expense.
I’m so confident that I will be able to stay within budget that I’ll even toss in the cost of photo processing my before and after photos and postage for my entry packets.

Welcome to my first official Cheapass Challenge!