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.

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!

Recently I started Weight Training. Let’s first see why.

Why can I not run anymore?

I love running, I have been doing it for almost 4 years now and I am pretty decent at it. But the medical issues keep on coming incessantly.

First was damage to my toenail, which never fully went back to the way it was before.

Second was, every time I ran a race, I would get pain around my knees. The doctor previously diagnosed it as IT Band Syndrome. It would normally get better a few days after each race, but after the last race, it took almost 10 days for the pain to fully go away.

Then there were other niggling issues like skin burning from sun exposure (sweat washes away sun block) etc. which forced me to think hard.

Eventually, I decided that I couldn’t continue to run, at least with the same volume I had been doing.

Hello Weight Training

I did consider options like HIIT etc, but eventually decided to go back to lifting weights, because I wanted to do something other than cardiovascular training; wanted to see visual gains.

Where & How?

At first, I considered products like this for home training, but found them all too expensive. Some of them even require recurring subscription costs just to use the equipment.

I also found some equipment on my building rooftop, but was told that they are private.

So there was no option other than to find a gym. Last time, my gym was too far; it took too long to commute there, which is why I gave up. So this time I decided to find one close enough that I can get to and come back in 10 mins. After considering this briefly, I decided to join Bangkok Training Center on Sukhumvit Road. Some factors in its favour

1. Less than 5 mins commute each way
2. Good panoramic view of Sukhumvit road and BTS
3. Hardly crowded
4. Easy parking/going up to the gym
5. Weight training focused instead of cardio focussed

The first month

I decided to split my training into a 3 days cycle, going to gym at least 4 days a week

• Day 1: Chest & Triceps
• Day 2: Back & Biceps
• Day 3: Shoulders and Legs
• Saturdays or Sundays or Holidays : Abs, Waist & Lower Back

The first 2 weeks were very difficult. I could hardly lift much weights, was suffering from DOMS for days afterwards and my performance even went down in the second round. Compared to running where I actually did well, this was very disheartening.

Legs: I had good form and strength from Day 1.
Biceps & Back : I regained form and decent strength by the second week.
Triceps: I regained form and strength by the third week.
Chest & Shoulders: It took me almost a month to regain strength and form.

Observations about Gyms in Thailand

Some things I observed after going to 2 gyms in Thailand in 5 years

1. There are 2 kinds of ladies who go to the gym
   • Extremely fit, lift amazing weights, really serious about fitness. These are a far cry from aunties who I saw in Indian gyms who came just to gossip.
   • Those who spend 5 mins setting up their camera each time to record their 30 second set and keep posting photos on Instagram all the time.
2. Most of the guys take up machines, do nothing, waste time looking at their phone and then go home. I guess they have a free membership and feel good about using it. They stay at the gym for hours, in some cases, just hanging around.

What about running, now?

I tried running once a week, but my nail issues started coming back, so I gave up and bought a Spin Cycle for cardio at home.