I live my life according to a few core beliefs. One of them is that when you drill under the surface, almost everything we encounter in life is constructed on a bedrock of bullshit. It’s up to each of us to decide whether we want to buy a ticket and how far we want to ride the bullshit train.
On that basis, I view everything advertised on social media with the same skepticism with which I scrutinize promises made after three cocktails. In both cases, there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for disappointment.
Accordingly, when I reached out to my gym-class instructor to ask about joining her fitness accountability group, I was dismayed to learn that membership would involve signing up for one of those multi-level marketing programs advertised on Facebook. Indeed, I would even have to order some sort of protein shake powder. I would literally be “drinking the Kool-Aid,” only in viscous, chocolate form.
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But I knew that positive peer pressure can help when you are trying to reach your health and fitness goals. And I also knew that my 2017 food-consumption philosophy up to that point could best be described as: “I just ate a donut.” So I decided to climb aboard the bullshit train.
The program was a 21-day clean eating and exercising regimen, in addition to a “prep week” during which we were expected to purge the bad stuff from our kitchens and replace it with produce, lean meat, and self-control. Also during that week, I received my shake powder and an assortment of plastic containers of varying sizes and colors. I also got a small recipe book explaining how to use the containers for portion control and how to keep track of how evil the type of food you are eating with some sort of point system. I laughed out loud: Measuring is for science experiments. I gave the containers to a friend, who also never used them.
I also downloaded an app that we were supposed to use to keep track of our workouts, meals, weight, progress photos, and measurements. I was also given online access to an impressive catalog of workout videos. (I ultimately only used the videos — in both cases a 10-minute abs workout — once while on vacation, once when a gym class was canceled.)
The app was like a Facebook feed where people would post pictures from their hikes or photos of some freakishly healthy meal with curly zucchini masquerading as noodles. People could “like” or comment on your entries. The “coach” in charge of the group worked extra hard to comment on everything, so you felt like you couldn’t disappoint her because she was watching you. Though I would usually be embarrassed to post about working out or a photo of a plate of food on regular Facebook, I admit it felt great to log a workout for the day and make note of the healthy-ish stuff I was eating. The key to keeping it up was definitely positive peer pressure from strangers who were also a part of the group. It almost felt like you’d be letting them down if you skipped a workout or ate a box of stale croissants from the office kitchen.
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Another component of the program was meal-prepping, which is a fancy term for eating irritatingly healthy leftovers for several days that seem like weeks. As someone who likes cooking only slightly more than getting a flat tire, I liked being able to prepare several meals at a time. But by the end of a couple of days of the same thing for lunch and dinner, I figured out to sort of switch things up as the week progresses. (Make chicken, use it for stir fry then tacos, etc.) Eating the same thing for breakfast every day didn’t seem to be a problem.
I was not as strict with the clean-eating aspect of the program as I was supposed to be — especially on the weekends. I ate store-bought soup, and for the love of God wasn’t going to make my own salad dressing. Eating out often meant some sort of splurge. But I tried to split unhealthy stuff with friends and swap out fries for salad (and only eat some of my friends’ fries). But I definitely cut down on the junk. And I also discovered some easy recipes that actually required me to break out the measuring cups. Plus I found some healthy ingredients that I hadn’t yet discovered, like unsweetened almond milk and cauliflower rice, which you can pretend tastes good if you put your mind to it.
You were supposed to drink your healthy shake every day, as a snack or a meal replacement. They had lots of recipes for stuff to add to it, but I usually just threw in the same mix of things every day. The chocolate flavor seemed to mask everything else anyway — once I even tossed in some canned beets. The shakes tasted pretty good, but it was a lot of time commitment in the morning to make. And every day it seemed to turn out differently — once it was so thick all the sides and the top of the blender were coated, and there was basically no shake to pour out from the bottom. I started eating half of it for breakfast and freezing the other half in the office fridge to eat as a snack when I started lusting after sugar in the afternoon. It helped provide a sugar fix, and I presume was healthier than the box of Nilla Wafers I tend to eat around 3:00 p.m. on Breakdown Wednesdays.
You were also supposed to keep track of your alcohol intake using the point system — for example, swap out some fruit in exchange for a glass of wine. I identified this as an impossible task from the get-go, although I tried for a while to keep track of drinks on the app. It was an act that lawyers would refer to as “unpracticable.”
I also struggled with unintentional negative pressure from friends and family. Who am I to say no to a Taco Bell burrito that lands on my plate during a family trip to the lake? Nobody has that kind of willpower.
Despite straying from the plan on many occasions, I did manage to see results. The crucial thing was to avoid looking behind the bullshit curtain. Behind that curtain is the realization that you can pretty much make up whatever you want on your app posts, or just skip them altogether. Your life is not controlled by the judgment of a bunch of strangers, who are probably not looking at your posts anyway.
I was able to avoid looking behind the curtain for two months. I even managed to get some exercise every day while on vacation. Then after a couple of months off, I tried to re-board the bullshit train for a month. By that point, though, I knew life went on even if I didn’t log it on an app. I kept up okay with logging my workouts, but I wasn’t getting or needing that affirmation from strangers any more. The fact is that I had worked out. I didn’t need to document it. And I was so sick of chocolate shakes at that point. So. Sick.
So here’s what I suggest for people who want to try one of these programs:
1. Be wary of all the auto-renewal language. Stay aware of deadlines to cancel. When I did cancel, however, it wasn’t a big problem. But they force you to cancel by phone, which is terrifying for millennials.
2. There is such a thing as a bad time to start one of these programs. The coach wanted me to sign up during a month that I was already going to be on vacation for at an all-inclusive resort where I planned to take full caloric advantage. Life is too short to not take one of everything on the free dessert tray. It makes way more sense to get started when you will be home and there isn’t a lot of work or personal stuff going on. Resist the “no excuses” pressure you are going to get.
3. Use the program as a way to kick-start a healthier lifestyle that you can sustain on your own. At some point, you are going to see behind the curtain and also want to die when just thinking about a protein shake. By then, a program like this is no longer valuable, and logging stuff onto an app becomes a chore rather than cause for affirmation.
The Verdict: The program was very fun and helpful as long as I was committing to it and buying into it brainwash-wise. It’s one of those situations where it helps to believe the bullshit if you are willing to board the train. But once you see behind the curtain, it’s time to go back to Kansas. Just be sure to bring your Tupperware container of chicken and veggies with you.
Allison Peryea is a shareholder attorney at Leahy Fjelstad Peryea, a boutique law firm in downtown Seattle that primarily serves community association clients. Her practice focuses on covenant enforcement and dispute resolution. She is a longtime humor writer with a background in journalism and cat ownership. You can reach her by email at [email protected].