The Anti-Trust Movement in Health & Fitness

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

What's up, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Real Talk with Rebel Fitness. We are so glad that you guys are here. We've got Shamar in the house. I am in the house. And we have got a um, we got an interesting subject to talk about today. We, this is something that I sent Shamar a message, and I was like, I really want to talk about the antitrust movements in health and fitness. And I feel like it's really relevant. Both of the things that we're gonna record today are really relevant for the time that we're living in. But also for right now, the relevance of this in the gym is just really high. I feel like every single consult that I'm doing, which has been a ton lately, um, we have had this conversation about antitrust. And I want to break this down. We're gonna break this down really like short and sweet, effectively, just so people who are listening to this have an understanding of kind of like the two sides of this whole movement, what it means, how it affects the way that you approach health and fitness, how it affects the way that health and fitness and wellness, I should add to this also, are being sold to you, and how you can navigate it. Obviously, we'll talk some shit because that's what we do in here. Um, about some folks that are kind of on the front lines of this and creating it. Um, but the biggest thing that I want to start off with is just helping people understand what that actually means. So the antitrust movement, I feel like is kind of like it's kind of twofold almost. It is a movement that's really um intentional by certain people that are like, I am, I do not trust the health and fitness and wellness industry because of XYZ. And so I am pushing back against these things. We would be, we would fit into this category. So we are leading an antitrust movement against ourselves, which we'll get into in a second. And if you listen to this podcast, you know we're doing that. We're openly doing that.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

We constantly say sorry for who we used to be.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

100% and for who the people in our field, you know, are because they're still being stupid. So um, so there is that part of it where it's like there are people who are cognizant of it, they're intentional about it, they're aware of it, and then they are pushing back against this, you know, um, all the things that we know are right and wrong, or excuse me, all the things that are wrong and bad because we know what's happening. Then there's another group, there's another part of this movement that they're pushing back, but they're not aware of it. Like they're not aware of why. And the pushback is coming from a place of quitting. It's coming from a place of not showing up. Like that's how it's showing up in it. Like you're you're signing up for a consultation for something at 3 a.m. and not showing up for it. You're buying 18 different, you know, programs online or signing up with a coach or getting on V shred or, you know, like buying a shit ton of supplements or something like that, and then never taking them. Um, you're buying all the workout bands and you're buying the Peloton and you're buying the tonal and all the things at your house, but you're not actually using it. So that's the other group that is actually a part of this movement. But again, they're not aware of it. They're not intentional, but they are displaying the symptoms of what's happening with this movement. And so that is essentially like what we want to talk about today is where that's coming from, why it's a thing. You know, we when we were um, when we were with the franchise, we definitely were a part of a lot of the reasons that people should be feeling this way about health and fitness and wellness because we were pushing a lot of things that we shouldn't have been. Um, we were forced into a lot of that for sure. But as we got more aware and as we got more intentional about our, you know, mission and our pillars and all those things, obviously we pulled back from those things and now we want to like kind of pull the curtain off of them. But um, I think the biggest thing with the antitrust movement is that we deserve it. Like the health and the wellness and the fitness space deserves to have no trust. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

The majority of what we've been fed, right? Figuratively, of course, and I mean literally as well, it's also some bullshit. But what we've been fed by textbooks, social media, the government, a lot of it is just not what's actually real, right? Like they're trying to flip the food pyramid on its head, but no one's been using the food pyramid for however long. Like there's it's just not pushed to us in a way that actually has given us any solutions to real sustainable health, right? Because there's been a thousand answers, magic programs, magic diets. There's whole 30, carnivore, this and that that all have their place, but they're not being sold as something that has their place. They're being sold as the almost one size fits all solution, which is absolutely where trust is lost, right? Because like giving somebody a medication that they need, you should. But that doesn't mean that everybody needs that medication just because somebody's used it and had some benefit, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Yeah, absolutely. So we don't like we've lost trust. So you think about any relationship, right? And if you're in a relationship with somebody and they continue to lie to you, they continue to hide stuff from you, they continue to shame you, they continue to trick you, fool you, beat you down, set you up for failure.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Their actions don't line up with their words or their the results that they're showing to you or to whatever don't line up with what they've been promising. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Then what happens in that relationship? You stop trusting them, right? And deservedly, like they should not have your trust. And so then it becomes a situation where then if you want the trust, there are certain things that you should be doing to gain that trust back. So that's where rubble stands in this whole thing is that we are aware, we are hyper aware of when people come in, we're like, listen, you shouldn't trust us. You 100% shouldn't, because we already know what you've been through when you're coming in. So what we're gonna do is we're going to lead trust. Yeah, we're gonna earn it. We're gonna lead with education, we're gonna lead with empowerment, we're gonna show you, we're gonna show you ways. One of the things that we're really big on in the gym too is that we tell people how you're gonna hold us accountable in there, um, which is something that is so crazy and nobody ever does. And so that's how we're moving forward in this relationship with people, is that we feel like, yeah, you shouldn't trust us. Let us earn your trust. Because as I've said in a million podcasts in here, and I will continue to say, in this industry, I feel strongly that it is guilty until proven innocent on damn near everything.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Absolutely. I think the the best thing that we do with our education is also like front load the education, right? Instead of using, instead of giving you something and then trying to educate you on why you're failing instead of educating you prior, we say, Hey, here's the education, here's what you should try to do, here's some resources, here's some people that we appreciate and watch, here's what we do, here's why we're doing this, here's nutrition facts, and then you're already educated. So if you don't get the results that you think you deserve, we can then go, hey, let's talk about what we talked about prior, right? It's not, oh well, yeah, you just haven't been doing this, duh. You know, we don't then use education as you know, something to hurt you. We try to empower you before to say, hey, here's everything you would pretty much need, and we're here to help you. But if you wanted to walk out with just that knowledge, you could go get in shape right now.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Yep. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

I think that's very powerful in a separate way of we don't have to withhold information to try to keep you around. We're trying to put out the best information with the highest quality possible. And then if you need help to show up to be accountable, to actually persevere, that's where we're at. But we're not gonna gatekeep how to be healthy behind a giant price tag or behind a timeline.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

And I think that, you know, with the education comes empowerment. And at the end of the day, the biggest thing that we're trying to help people do at Rebel 2 is on top of getting educated, is to start listening to your own body again. Get in touch with your own body, listen to your own discernment, get in touch with the cues that your body is giving you because we have strayed so far from that. One of the biggest ways that, you know, you're talking about all the ways that things are weaponized against people in general, especially from this field, is um we take away people's autonomy when it comes to like, you don't know when you're supposed to eat. Yeah. How would you know that? Like, well, my stomach's growling. Oh, silly goose. That means you're thirsty. That means you're bored. That means your metabolism's working too fast. Yeah, like it's like it's all of these crazy things that you know are sold to us in a way that is just to keep us questioning our own cues, our own anything. It's like, you tell me. And I I remember specifically for me, this was one with fat burners, right? Like I was on fat burners all the freaking time in my life. Okay. And then also taking like all the caffeine and whatever on top of it. But I felt like shit. I felt so bad. I hated those things so much. And so when I would come off of them for whatever reason, end of like a program or I got sick or something, I couldn't take them, or you know, going on vacation or whatever, I don't necessarily want to be taking a fat fat burner, whatever the reason. Once the half-life was out of those, it was like, oh my God. Like I just crash. You crash and burn, and then you come back from it, and then you're like, I really should get on those again. And then you sit there and stare at the bottle, like, I don't want to feel like that again. I don't want to feel like that again. But it's like I have to. It's like I have to in order to be able to get said result, whatever the situation is.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

And so um almost like a lack of curiosity within like your own body anymore. Yeah, like I feel like people less so wonder why they're feeling the way they're feeling and immediately look for a solution to why they're feeling that way, right? Like, oh, I felt like not good for two weeks. I wonder why. Maybe I should stop drinking caffeine, maybe I should not do this as much, maybe I should sleep more, right? But instead of like, huh, I feel bad, I wonder why. It's I feel bad somebody fixed me help. What's wrong with me? Yeah, right. Like, yeah, how do you learn to then be like curious again within yourself, right? Because that's another part of the antitrust. Like the antitrust movement that the fitness industry has been on is don't trust yourself, trust us.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

So we're just trying to have to flip that on its head. Like, how can you learn to trust yourself again when you've been told for so long that this professional, this doctor, this brand just has the answer? You know, so we have to learn to be curious with our own bodies again.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Yeah. And I think, like, let's give an example of that, right? Like something that's really tactical and easy to understand. One of the number one things I feel like that I hear in consultations, especially um from women, but I feel like most people nowadays, is brain fog. Yeah. Right. So, like brain fog. I'm feeling a lot of brain fog lately.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Have you tried this supplement?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

So then, so then it'd be like our first thing is gonna go to social media. Nine times out of 10. That's what we're gonna do. And we're gonna go to TikTok, we're gonna go to Instagram, we're gonna type that in, we're gonna start searching something. We might go to Chat GPT or something like that. But most of the time, you're gonna go to social media. And so what do we know is going to happen? It's gonna be brain fog, and the top 50 hits that come up are going to be buy my supplement. Buy my supplement. It's gonna be this and that and and all the things. It's gonna be, oh, you idiot, you were eating red bell peppers that causes brain fog, and because of whatever these butter instead. Yes, take this, and oh, you didn't know that you were supposed to be doing this or this or this. When 50 down, you're gonna find the wellness person or the you know, place like us, it's gonna be like, you know, hey, are you eating more than 1200 calories a day? That's always my first question. If you're eating 1200 calories a day and you're complaining out about brain fog, yeah, by if you're you're not gonna debt look like and what does your sleep look like? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Well, I slept for eight hours last night. Okay, well, what's your sleep yes? Right. That's something people don't think about, right? If you slept four hours, four hours, six hours, three hours, one eight-hour night of sleep does not fix you being 12 hours into sleep debt. That's not how that works. But I think a lot of people expect, oh, well, you know, I got my nine hours of sleep. I just I should be fixed. You can't recharge a battery that's been running for 24 hours in six or eight hours. Like you have to give it time to recharge.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Yeah. And just like it, I mean, and that's truly just like anything. It's just like water intake, it's just like food. You've said this a million times. The one meal isn't going to make or break. It doesn't make the difference. The one workout doesn't make or break that, you know, like that's not the difference. And so, but again, that's the thing that this field and this this um business wants you to believe. It wants to weaponize that there is this thing that is broken and that they have the thing that can fix it. And it's not something that you have any control over, betcha. Yeah. Or something that's so complicated, there's no point in you even trying to figure it out. Just take our supplement and it's gonna be and buy three bottles of it at one time, by the way. Um, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

There's no way you could just walk and drink more water and maybe feel better. You actually need a fucking vegetable injections.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Yes, yes, 100%. So, so that's the thing about this field again. Like, we you think about all the things, like hopefully when you're listening to this, like it's resonating with you a little bit if you're struggling with something like this, but you can actually walk through this and see all the times that you have got on social media, or if you go in your FYP right now and you're looking at everything that's popping up if you follow a lot of a lot of health and fitness and um, you know, you go down all the black holes on TikTok. TikTok is the worst for this, I swear to you, because if you start like you and I were just talking about a second ago, um at the gym, we're talking about nicotine patches. Okay. So, like that's a trending thing that's like nicotine patches are supposedly coming back to help do XYZ. We're not even gonna get off on that. Okay, I'm gonna stay focused right now. But if you search nicotine patches and then you go there and you start looking, that little search bar is gonna pop up with something else. And then it's gonna take you to this, and then it's gonna take you to, you know, it's gonna take you to XYZ musician that used nicotine patches for 50-pound weight loss, and then you're gonna go to that, and then you're gonna go the how this led to this, and then this led to this. And by the time you've gone down that entire black hole of TikTok, you've bought God knows how many things from TikTok shop. You've put in a target order for nicotine patches, you've never needed a day in your life, you've ordered a hydronized water bottle, and who knows what else, just from looking up one simple thing. But again, you guys, that's the point. That's the point. And then you've got all of this stuff, and again, 50% of people, I would guess it's probably more than that. But if I had a gun to my head, I would say 50% of people order all this shit and they never even open it. They don't use it, they get overwhelmed by it because it is so silly. And so, but again, it's a business. They want you to do that, they want you to stay confused, they want to keep you to keep buying all the stuff um packaged and overpriced and all the things like that to keep you confused, to keep you shamed. At the end of the day, when none of it works, the ultimate part of this is always that the gun will always be pointed back at you. It will never be pointed back at the wellness industry. It will never be pointed back at the fitness industry ever. Um, that is the evil genius of this industry, is that it will always keep you in the shame spiral. It will always keep you feeling like you failed, you're not motivated enough. That's their favorite thing, is like it's like motivation, it's discipline, um, it's time management. We all have the same 24 hours, guys. We all have the same 24 hours, right? Um, and that kind of bullshit that was absolute sarcasm, by the way. Um, but it's all that bullshit that keeps people trapped in the cycle. And then what that does over time is it literally just you keep failing over and over and over again, and it erodes not just your trust in the industry, just like that relationship, but it erodes your faith and your integrity with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

100%. You begin to believe that you just don't want it bad enough, right? Instead of questioning what is this company doing that is not motivating me to want said thing. Like if I said I want this thing and then I go to a company for help, why is it making me less motivated, not more motivated? You know, I think that's also a terrible thing. Because Absolutely the the way they're setting you up for failure by promising success if you just do the work is an equation for shame. Yep. Because it's literally just, hey, do X and Y, and we got you. If you don't get this, it's because you didn't do what we said, right? It's just they have it perfectly mapped out. And if you do exactly what they say, they're gonna clap, clap, clap, hype you up, take a picture, post you. Look, this person lost 30 pounds because they listened to me. If you listen to me, you'll all but it's yeah, that doesn't take into account what that person was doing behind closed doors, how that person actually feels, what the next 30 days of that person's life look like after that picture is taken. Yep. There's so much that you don't see that goes into these transformation pictures, into these promises, into these programs.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Like it's well, and legally on that line, legally you will see that 99% of those programs, pills, whatever it is, promises, they have an asterisk on the bottom that says results not typical.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

99% of those things, because again, legally, they have to do that because the results aren't typical. Yeah. Because there's gonna be one damn person out of 50,000 that like lock in and kill themselves and make it happen. But most of the time they're on the other side. We don't know where they are now. Like they should do a whole where are they now, just like they did um Biggest Loser.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

And all those people are absolutely destroyed mentally, physically, psychologically, like all of it. It's crazy. But that's the reason, you guys. Like, we have to believe, like, we still just have this idea of like, you know, oh, well, the results aren't typical, but it'll be my results for sure. Like this time, it'll be me. It'll be me, it'll be different this time. But again, that's the the psychological warfare that is health and fitness and wellness right now, because it is such a grifting, money-making POS space. Um, but the psychological warfare of it is that you're going, I'll be different this time, I'll change, I'll make it happen instead of being like, you know what? This stupid ass program needs to change.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yeah, this hasn't worked for me before. This is why are they trying? This looks like the same shit I bought from that other company that didn't work for me. 100%. You can have that epiphany. You can be curious enough to look into it instead of just reading it and seeing the promises they provide and hitting click. What if you went online and read the reviews and you see there's probably four or five five-star reviews from the people that either did it or are getting paid to make those reviews, but you consistently go down and there's lots of two, three-star reviews of like, this didn't do much for me, whatever. Like, you just have to do your own research. Yeah. That's everything, like like you say, it like guilty until proven innocent, always on social media and in the fitness industry. Like that was how it is.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Absolutely. So that's at the end of the day, what we want you guys to be aware of is again, just how these things are weaponized, how they're used against you. Um, you know, another big thing that we talk about is like that, that um feeling of like, again, like the antitrust within your own self and it wears away at your integrity. So then when you are signing up, like you get that that itch to like, I want to do this. And I'll back up for a tiny bit on this too, because you got to be really aware of what's actually motivating you because marketing is really strong in this area. So they will make you feel like absolute crap about yourself, mainly your weight. Um, that's the main thing that they're gonna hone in on. And so what happens a lot of the time is then you get onto these, again, weight loss challenges, you get into this thing to help you lose weight, you don't succeed at it. Most of the time, it's because they've just convinced you that that needs to be a big deal, but it's really not a big deal to you, instead of doing like what we always say, which is set some goals that are like, wouldn't it be fucking cool if I could fill in the blank, hike a mountain, do a pull-up, go out on the jet skis and fall off and get my ass back up on it, paddle board and not be scared that it's gonna float away from me and I can't get it. Like walk a 5K, get down onto like a low bed camping and be able to stand back up again and and feel okay with it. I was um one of my newest clients, and hopefully she listens to this and shout out to her. She's gonna know who she is. But one of her goals that she set was every year at their big corporate event, she gets up on stage and does karaoke and she sings the ice ice. Baby from beginning to end. I should not say sayings, wraps it. And if you've ever done that one karaoke, you know it is bars, bars, bars, bars the entire time. And she like walks around the stage and dances the whole, like she does the whole nine. And she was like, I've never been able to like get all the way through it without running out of breath or like feeling like I'm gonna like die. Like, so she was like, My goal is by my next corporate event, I'm going to be able to rock the stage, work the entire thing, go bar for bar on that from beginning to end. And I was like, that might be the coolest fucking goal I've ever had somebody set in here.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

And so those are the things with being a size two, exactly. Nothing to do with overhead pressing, benching, squatting that much weight. Yes, nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

It's a life goal. It's a fun thing. And so that is going to be much more motivating to her than just some asinine weight loss goal. And so when you're going into this stuff, again, realizing that maybe the stuff that they've been selling you is not something that has motivated you this whole time. And that might be a reason that you're falling off on that stuff. Setting some cooler goals. Um, but keeping that integrity and keeping that trust with yourself is so important. So again, if you are going to sign up for the consultation, if you are gonna buy the program, if you are gonna purchase the course, if you're gonna go get the cookbook on how to do XYZ program, being really intentional when you do that stuff and saying, I am going to follow through on this. And if I'm not, don't buy it. If I'm not, don't engage. Click off of it, save the money. Don't do that. Because every single time you make a promise to yourself like that and you don't do it, you're eroding that integrity with yourself. And then it becomes this feeling of like, oh, I don't have the discipline, oh, I don't have the motivation, oh, I don't have the whatever. No, you just don't have any fucking trust in anything, anything around you anymore. And that's a really, really tough place to be. You don't trust the fitness industry, you guys, but trust yourself. Like get that back. And that's really what we want you to do is like set these small goals. If tomorrow you're going to like, I'm gonna drink my water tomorrow, then drink your damn water. Okay. But don't diet starts Monday. Don't get up on Monday and say, okay, this week is gonna be, I'm gonna do all the things every single day perfectly, because you're gonna break that promise to yourself. And that does psychologically mess you up over time the more you compound that.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

And it's just starting small. And one thing that I try to encourage my clients to do is take the the try out of the wording, right? Well, well, this week I'm really gonna try, because that just almost puts a failing toe on it, right? Like, well, this week I'm really gonna try to log my food. It's like, well, why don't you just say that, hey, this week I'm gonna log my food, and if I if I don't, then I'll just have to kind of check in with myself, see why that happens. But if you're oh, I'm really gonna try to get to the gym twice a week. That to me sounds like you're gonna come once and then have an excuse for why you couldn't come a second time, right? So just the verbiage makes a big deal. Like, hey, I'm getting in bed at 10 o'clock this week. And then even if you don't fall asleep, even if you scroll, even if you watch TV, that's still building rapport with yourself that you said I'm getting in bed at 10 and you did it. Versus if you're like, well, I'm gonna try to be in bed early this week, and then what does early even look like? Have you even set a real-time goal? When you don't, you're like, well, I said try. And it's so how do you build that rapport with yourself? It's being diligent, right? Every once in a while, you have to be non-negotiable with yourself in a way that is healthy and in a way that's not obsessive, right? You don't need to be non-negotiable all the time. But if you're truly trying to build habits, sometimes it's about being as non-negotiable as possible with yourself.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Yeah. And again, that's the relationship with yourself. So, like we're talking about this antitrust relationship with other people or, you know, the health and fitness industry or whatever the situation is. But that's also with you. You think about the biggest flake you know in your life. I know plenty. And so they're the person that like always talks and talks, but there's never any action behind it. They're the person that makes plans but never follows through. They always ditch at the last second. They're the person that's like, you know, I borrow money, I promise I'll get it back to you, and then you never hear from them again. Everybody has those people. You don't even take them seriously anymore. You're like, don't even invite them. Don't even, if they say they're coming, they're not coming, they're not gonna show up. Like, you have those people in your life. Don't be that person to yourself. Like, that's wild. That's wild to be the flake, like your own flake. Yeah, or they're not showing up. Your own self-sabotager.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

They never show up. Yeah. If that's your self-talk, that's that's a huge problem.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Absolutely. And so that's what we want you guys to adjust. I want to we want to validate, okay? So we're gonna validate this with you that it's not about motivation with the health and wellness and fitness industry. This is a business. It's a business of a bunch of stupid famous people and politicians and fake politicians and grifters and like all these people that that's what they want. They're just trying to make more and more and more money off of you for reasons unknown to us. Um, so be empowered by knowing that you don't have to listen to these people. And guess what? Even the people that you have followed for a really long time and that you love, they could be wrong about something. They could be trying to make a buck off of you. I know, I know it's crazy and it's really hard sometimes, but I'm telling you, once you see this stuff, you can't unsee it. And even some of my favorite people that I have followed forever and ever and ever, I've had to really step back and be like, okay, you two, like that's crazy. And again, it doesn't mean I can't follow them, I can't get information from them, I can't glean what I want from them, but I don't have to be a part of like buying all the things.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

You just have to be a selective consumer, right? Yeah, whether that's content, whether that's properties, whether that's you know, items or supplements or whatever. Like you can also separate like the art from the artist, like people say, right? Like you can really like some things that somebody does and just really not like other things. But there are times where it's like, hey, I really actually enjoy the workouts they provide, but this shit that they sell, I'm really not about. So like the workouts are quality. This person gives good rehab exercises, this person gives good cues, but I don't need to buy all their supplements, I don't need to buy all their gear, all their merch. And two things can be true at the same time. A good trainer can be selling something that you don't need and still be a good trainer. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Yep. And I think, you know, the other thing, you know, the last thing I'll say about this, just from a personal side with us, is we've seen really both sides of this truly. Um, again, just to give like a tactical example of this, is that we went from when we were again with the franchise selling weight loss heavily, we did the weight loss challenges and we talked about these a lot, but like the six-week weight loss challenges. So we would put an ad up for one of those things and we would bring in hundreds of leads for like a dollar a lead, um, which on Facebook, if you know anything about running ads on Facebook, that's like insanity. It's so good. Um, because of the way that we were promoting this thing for a specific amount of weight loss, 20 pounds-ish. And then Facebook eventually um started like cutting that stuff. Like you couldn't say a specific amount of weight, you couldn't say a specific amount of body fat because even they realized how toxic that was and how Facebook realized how toxic that was and how bad. Um, so they put the the smack down on that. We couldn't do that, but we could still like, you know, kind of go aroundabout way to do it. Um, but that's how cheap the leads were. Well, then we stopped doing the weight, then we kept doing the weight loss challenges, but we stopped saying weight loss. Let me rephrase that. We kept doing the challenges, but we stopped the weight loss part of it. Cause then it was more of just like a wellness. Like, yeah, for six weeks, we're gonna help you make some really great changes and we took weight loss out of that ad, you guys, and our lead cost went through the roof. I mean, it tripled. Not even triple because that's what a dollar and three dollars. That is not what it was. I mean, they were like 30. I mean, it was like $35, $40 a lead for those things from like a dollar a lead just by taking the word weight loss out. So that just goes to show you that people will put weight loss on something because they know it's going to sell. That is with anything. I just had this conversation the other day with somebody about freaking vibration plates. The way this industry will take something like a vibration plate. We have had vibration plate in the gym forever, forever and ever and ever. Amen. Before this was even a thing, because it is really great for circulation. It's really good for stimulating muscles, it's really good for your lymph system, it's really good for all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Yeah, it's got some some recovery benefits, it's like low-grade masal, all sorts of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

But every time you look them up now, weight loss. Weight loss, weight loss, it's gonna get you snatched, girl. It's gonna help you, it's gonna help you lose weight, girl. It's gonna spend 30 minutes on the street.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Just wait. It's just gonna be there.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

And so they'll take something and they'll put weight loss on it. And again, that's real time. We saw that happen. We took weight loss off and our costs went through the roof. Well, now our costs are even more, and we pay like $50 a lead sometimes on our Facebook ads because we're not doing weight loss at all, and we're not doing this asinine time time frame. Six weeks to the perfect use, six weeks to the snatch, whatever, like whatever lie we want to tell in order to save money and get a crap ton of leads and bring people in. So now the cost of us bringing in and acquiring a client is uh is way bigger than it was before, but we're doing it the right way. Like we're being honest, we're paying the price to have integrity. And so that's just another way that we show that we're serious about this. Like, don't trust anybody, don't trust anything until they can prove them prove themselves to you. And so um we want to validate you in this space. We want you to say, you know, hey, you're right. I don't trust this industry. Good. Don't make people prove it, make gyms prove it, make trainers prove it, make supplements prove it, make the, you know, all the things prove it, get the education, rebuild the trust with yourself because that's the most important thing. Um, and just be aware that that's that's what is happening in this industry right now. The antitrust movement is a real thing, it is a needed thing on both sides. More gyms need to be a part of it. Like, get on board with us and head the right direction with this because people deserve better in this space and honesty and truth. And that's really what we're here to do. So the antitrust movement makes it very tough, I'm not gonna lie, for places like us. Um, however, we ain't no punks, so we've never bat down from a challenge and we will not.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

So you just gotta trust your gut. You know, there's people like we say that come into us and they're like, This sounds like really good, but you're still a gym. And then they have to kind of make their own, you know, assumptions and then come in and they have to test those assumptions around how we ask, and then they get to form a true opinion, and they're like, Wow, these people haven't really tried to sell me anything, yeah, they've just told me to do less. Like, the that's the biggest thing that I think flips people's minds. I want to buy protein and creatine, and I saw that I if I get these bands and I'm gonna get a yoga mat, so it's like, hey, we have protein samples up front. You don't need creatine, and we have yoga mats in the gym. Show up for three weeks, and then if you want to buy your own yoga mat and buy your own protein powder, by all means. But we don't want to be the one that says yes, yes, yes, on your initial console, and then we never see you again, and you're sitting with a bunch of shit in the back of your car. Exactly. Like, that's just never the gym we're gonna be. And that's I think been proven to us by our members, right? Like it feels very affirming to have the members that we have come back to us and be like, holy cow, I've never felt this good about myself. And it's not related to their weight or their body changes, it's related to now the way that we talk to them and in a reflection, the way that they talk to themselves because they've never been spoken to a lot of our members with kindness, with patience, with a kind tone, with perspective, right? It's just always been affirming that yes, you're not good enough, you're not doing enough, you are soft, you are weak, you don't have enough work ethic. But we're like, hey, what if it's not that? What if you just have to recover for a minute? What if you need a second, and then you could be everything you're asking yourself to be. You just haven't given yourself a second, and who knows how long. Because that's we see that all the time. So just learn to trust who gives you a reason to trust them, right? No trust until they've earned that trust and value the people that have earned your trust because they're really important in days like this where everybody wants to pull one over on you.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Amen. And as the consumer, you guys have the control. So control it. Hold the line. Hold the line and hold everybody accountable. So screw capitalism. That's right. So we hope that was helpful for you guys. Again, we wanted it to be quick and to the point, um, just to give a little bit of information, but also make you aware. That's always our biggest thing. Um, let us know if this resonated with you. Share it, um, download it, all the things, follow us on social media. And as always, we'll see you guys back here later. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Later.