Life Time Fitness Review
Review In a Nutshell
Boasting regular fitness equipment as well as water slides, rock climbing walls, and sports courts, Life Time Fitness is a unique, family-friendly fitness center chain with locations in Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, Utah and Virgina. They also offer an online "personalized nutrition program," which is centered around maximizing nutrition, reducing calorie intake and/or increasing activity (if weight loss is the goal), increasing lean body mass, and stabilizing blood sugar levels. The focus of the program, regardless of your specific issues and goals is "eating nutritious food, in the proper amounts, at the right time."
How Does It Work?
As well as determining your goals, activity level, current weight and height, you will need to calculate your body fat percentage to complete your profile for this program. Based on this information, you receive a detailed "nutritional analysis" that tells you how many carbs, and how much protein and fat you need to consume daily. You are then given meal options that will fit this objective, and provided with grocery lists, cooking instructions, etc.
Who Is It Good For?
If your main objective is to lose weight for health reasons, this program may be helpful to you since it aims at improving your body fat percentage and regulating blood sugar levels.
Keys: Personalized Nutrition Program
- Recipes for meals catering to your specific nutritional/weight loss goals
- Grocery lists
- Suggested exercises
- Fast food suggestions
- Food logs and journals
- Online "coaching"
Pros
- Low cost: yearly fee is $24.95
- Focused on improving overall health and fitness as well as losing weight
- No gimmicks or unproven claims
- Wide choice of recipes
- Grocery lists help you plan your meals
- Online support to motivate and educate
- Nice complement to the fitness center membership
Cons
- While claiming to be "personalized" the program does not cater to specific health conditions or concerns (aside from pregnancy or breastfeeding) or food preferences
- Choosing which specific meals to prepare and implementing the plan is up to you
- Appears to be no discount for fitness center members
- No way for program participants to communicate with one another
Our Top Recommendation
Week of: 09-07-2010
eDiets - eDiets sees clearly that diet and weight loss programs are highly individual choices. Instead of a one size fits all approach, they provide a wide variety of choices and plans. We've found that customization, convenience and cost are huge factors for many seeking weight loss, and eDiets excels in all three of these areas. Their website contains solid information on food, exercise, and lifestyle change, member chat rooms, online counselors and nutritionists. Their free diet profile is a great way to get started.