As I posted before, I started weight training recently, with the goal of building muscle mass. Before starting off, I calculated my expenses and (wrongly) assumed that the only expense was the gym membership fee. Over time, it became apparent how wrong I was. There are so many hidden costs, I am now re-thinking my entire decision.
In this post, I only count recurring monthly costs, not one-time costs like gloves, gym shorts, shoes, etc.
Gym Membership
My Gym membership costs ฿3000 per month. ฿2500 if you pay for 2 months at once, ฿1800 if you pay for 6 months at once. This is an insane amount, especially considering how in developed countries they cost half as much, but here I am paying the tax of living in an expensive neighbourhood. I will align my gym fee with my half-yearly bonus from June onwards, to save on money.
Protein
Protein for muscle building is a bottomless well to throw money into.
Whey Protein is almost a given, unless you eat meat 3 times a day.
But you don’t want all the time spent in the gym to go to waste, do you? So you must also stack Creatine for optimum benefits.
But do you want your muscle recovery to stop when you’re sleeping? If not, you need to take Casein before bed. I can’t afford it, so I am apparently a loser.
Then there’s a whole world of BCAAs, Endurance support, energy drinks that I won’t even get into.
Of course you can skip all this and eat boiled chicken day and night, but trust me, that gets tiring pretty fast.
Calories
Everyone knows you can’t gain muscle mass unless you have a calorific surplus. Again, if you can, you can eat huge portions of rice 3 times a day and be done with it. I can’t so I split the calories left over from regular meals between bananas and a mass gainer. After my current stock is over, I plan to give up the mass gainer and switch to bananas only.
I also make homemade curd from milk because I can’t eat elaborate food for breakfast. I add some Peanut butter on it for flavour.
I also order more food when eating out, now, because I am so hungry
Time
Of course, time is the biggest cost in all of this. I estimate I sped around 4 hours a week, which includes getting ready, travelling, parking, exercising, travelling back, changing etc.
Electricity
One thing you will notice is that when you eat huge amounts of protein, you feel hot all the time. So previously when I didn’t use the AC, I do now and at night, I set the AC to 23C instead of 25C. This adds up electricity costs real fast.
App Subscriptions
Of course, you can’t be seen carrying around a notebook in the gym to log your sets. So a training app tracker is a must. I use Hevy. I plan to switch to a lifetime subscription next month.
You also need to track your daily calorific and protein intake. For that, I use CalAi.
All these expenses look small in isolation, but together add up to a huge commitment.
| Item | Cost per Month |
|---|---|
| Gym Membership | ฿2500 |
| Whey Protein | ฿2300 |
| Creatine | ฿900 |
| Bananas | ฿300 |
| Milk | ฿500 |
| Electrolytes | ฿400 |
| Casein | ฿3600 |
| Mass Gainer | ฿2000 |
| Peanut Butter (Without preservatives) | ฿500 |
| Extra Food | ฿2500 |
| Electricity Extra | ฿450 |
| Apps: Hevy+Cal AI | ฿270 |
| Total | ฿16,000 ($500) |
Expenses in Orange: I plan to cut back
When you see all this added up, it doesn’t make sense to spend so much every month on muscle gains (which may or may not even show up).
It is extremely tempting knowing that if I give up today, I have that much free cash from next month. Instead, I have decided too cut back on some of the expenses and give it a try next few months.
Wish me luck!
