Who's behind the P90X craze?

Several you you hard working, sweaty people have asked me about the company behind the fitness DVD's.

Here's the scoop!

Beachbody was founded in 1998 by Jon Congden and Carl Daikeler as a direct sales company making fitness infomercials.  Their first product I believe was called Great Body Guaranteed.  It was followed up with Slim in 6, and Power 90 - the precursor of P90X. 

Jon and Carl realized a few things that led them to expanding their business model. 

1. The saw that selling videos is easy, but people push play and get results was tougher.  Even the world's greatest video on the shelf collecting dust didn't work!
2. Their customers getting the best results were the ones actively engaged not only with the products, but also on the Team Beachbody message board community. This was around 2005/2006- pre-facebook ;-)
3. They themselves got the best fitness results when they were financially involved.  When they started the company they had to get fit to show that the products worked.

So they decided to get people involved and give them a financial stake in the business by opening up a network marketing opportunity within Beachbody. 

In 2007, Team Beachbody, the first MLM opportunity focused on holistic fitness and weight loss was born.  "By putting the rewards for living a healthy lifestyle into the hands of the people who have the most to gain by getting healthy, Team Beachbody added the first scalable financial incentive to the obesity problem, which has reached epic proportions."  (200 million Americans obese or overweight)

Now they are the best selling fitness program company in America.  They have 260 employees, and 35,000 independent distributors called 'Coaches' throughout the US.  Beachbody still continues it's own direct sales efforts with over $100 million spent annually on advertising and sales of $319 million in 2009.

Current best selling products include P90X, Shakeology (health shake), Insanity, Turbo Jam, Turbo Fire, Ten-Minute Trainer, and Hip-hop Abs.

Now towel off. If you have any other questions about the company, as always, I can be reached at kevin@thefitdoc.com

Keep Pushing Play,

Kevin

4 Healthy Choices to Change Your Life

You can lower your risk of several chronic diseases by 80% if you exercise, eat well, don't smoke and avoid obesity, a study finds.

From the LA Times August 11, 2009 :

If people would just do four things --
1. engage in regular physical activity,
2. eat a healthy diet,
3. not smoke and
4. avoid becoming obese
(Technically the last two are not things to DO, they are things to NOT DO, but I'm splitting hairs)
-- they could slash their risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke or cancer by 80%, a new report has found.

But less than 10% of the 23,000 people in the multiyear study actually lived their lives this way.


"What really has been difficult is trying to figure out how to get people to take notice of the message and engage in healthy behaviors,"said Dr. J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society.

I have a revolutionary idea. Let's let people win money for being healthy. I won $300 a while back just for logging in my workout in the free WOWY online supergym!

Better yet, let's create a system where anyone can get paid to live healthy.

Yeah, that's it! We'll let people start their own home-based business coaching others to get fit as they do the same thing themselves! Get Paid to Lose! Now that' s an incentive!

And we'll call the new business "BeachBum Coaching"... or something like that.

Your Competitive Advantage

"See reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it were. Change before you have to. Control your own destiny or someone else will. If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete."

--Jack Welch, former president and CEO, General Electric


Mr Welch was speaking about business, but I was struck by how much it relates to healthy living just as well.

See reality as it is.
That can mean a whole lot of things.
-Maybe you aren't 18 and more and you need to be a little careful with your workouts so you don't hurt yourself.
- Maybe it means you need to realize that obesity is a disease. It is not simply cosmetic. Being significantly overweight affects every aspect of your health and takes years off your life. Being around for the long haul starts with healthy habits today!

Change before you have to/ control your destiny.
- Don't wait until you have a heart attack to start exercising.
- Don't wait until your kidneys fail and you need dialysis before you take diabetes seriously

Waiting to hit rock bottom will can give you strong motivation for sure, but then you have a much deeper, darker hole to dig yourself out of.

Changing before you have to is difficult because you need to motivate yourself. It takes discipline. But it is much get to the peak of a mountain when you start your climb from the middle.

( I know I'm mixing metaphors, but this is my blog, I can do what I want! ;-) )

Not only that, but waiting to long may make it physically impossible to change. Waiting so long that you have blockages in your leg arteries can give you pain every time you walk to the mailbox. Imagine how tough it is to exercise when you are disabled like that.

Don't wait, control your destiny!

If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.
This is where Beachbody comes in. With Beachbody, everything is laid out for you: when to exercise, what to do, even what and when to eat. Millions of pounds have been lost with proven programs like Project YOU Type 2, Turbo Jam, and P90X. The all-new Shakeology meal replacement has been shown help lower cholesterol, heart disease risk, and weight in just 12 weeks. And finally, the support you get from the Team Beachbody Club and Message Boards are second to none.

Beachbody's fitness programs, supplements, and community are YOUR competive advantage!

Play to win! You can do it! We can help!

If you have any questions about how to get the most of the community support or any other aspect of the Beachbody system, just drop me an email.

To your success,

-Doc