Being Not Fat

Oooh, looky looky.

I love opening boxes, reading manuals and gorging myself on information.  There’s more than enough for everybody.  I was happy with the lterature I found; diet guide, P90X manual, quick-start guide and a calendar.  All good.  I was a little taken aback by the “extras” you need to buy.

• Pull-up bar (got it)
• Push-up handles (got that too)
• Resistance bands (nope, more money required)
• A set of weights (come on, how many of us have 500 lbs of dumbells sitting in our basemen?)
• P90X supplements, vitamins & shake mix (umm, are these really necessary?  Will they make me more extreme?)
• The super-deluxe yoga mat ( I will have to forgo the $100 mat and live with my wife’s horrible $50 yoga mat)

So my investment has ballooned from $120 to about $750 if I buy the weights, that’s not going to happen.  I am willing to go hard, but not hard on my wallet.

Why do I feel like I am now part of a 90-day long sales pitch?

Today was a very exciting day.  The purchase and unpacking of my P90X fitness kit.  I splurged and bought the deluxe kit at Costco.  It includes the P90X program, push-up handles that swivel and the infamous pull-up bar.  Okay, I know that I saw the P90X on TV but do they have to remind me on the box?  ”As Seen On TV”. Why do I feel that I just bought into the Ginsu Knives of the workout world?  Pretty good knives though…  This was only compounded by both the push-up swivelers and the pull-up bar both bearing the oh so prominent “As Seen On TV” red star that we all know so well.  Does this really give some sort of cred to the purchase?  Does the marketing team think that once a consumer sees the logo that they will think to themselves “Wow, was this really on TV?  Holy Sh*t!  Sign me up!”  Unlikely.