I Can't Decide Please Help!

Training
1

Hello everyone, I am sorry if this topic might seem to be off-topic for people here on T Nation but I couldn’t think of a better place to post. I have been lifting for over 5 years where I built a decent physique and I got lean many times. However every time I got lean it was a struggle and I had to do cardio daily almost in addition to my strength training.
I also live in the center of a small city where our gym doesn’t even have cardio machine and we have no safe place to walk or run [stray dogs can be dangerous] . I also work two jobs for 12 hours everyday, one of wich is an online fitness coach so I have to stay in shape and because if the lack of time I am struggling to stay lean or even at 15% BF for that matter.
I make about a 1000$[3rd world country] monthly and I am considering purchasing a spinning bike for 600-650$ as cheaper ones are very low quality and I can’t order from Amazon as shipping prices will be 2 times that.
Would you say it’s worth it to spend that much in my case or I am stupid?

any feedback would be appreciated and Thank You!

2

Burpees, I’ve been told, can be more effective than the bike in less time and the same amount of space. @ChongLordUno
They are free.

3

Have you tried changing your modality of training to something which incorporates aspects of cardio (like CrossFit)?

I would genuinely consider adjusting your diet further to generate a deficit, before spending large sums of money for something that could be fixed by eating less (or smarter).

4

If you can afford it, spend it. If you cant afford it, dont. Not much more to it than that.

5

Your diet is going to play a massive impact on staying lean. I would start there before buying equipment

6

Currency is, at its core, an estimation of value; spend, therefore, becomes a demonstration of personal value.

Sorry to get philosophical, but it’s impossible for us to tell you how much $600 “means” to you or whether the bike is “worth it” to you. It’s not a mathematical question like the NPV of a pre-tax investment.

Do you really love biking? Would spending the money cause you hardships? What else would you do with the money?

7

I think having this much thought mean I maybe too broke to afford it :laughing:

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I think my diet could be much better, that is for sure. I do have that little fat kid in me and I tend to go overboard with gourmet food even if it is just ocasionally

9

Burpees are great but I would assume I would be limited by recovery, If I remember correctly one burpee burns around 1.5 calories, so I am looking at 200 burpees a day to replace 30-40 min of cardio which can be a lot to recover from I even struggled to recover from 15 min of jump roping daily, my calves were lit all the time. Thats why I am considering getting into easier modalities :laughing:

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I think you are right, I have to be more accountable with my diet, no excuses there

11

“You can’t outrun a fork”

That’s a thought worth thinking on.

12

I honestly love all forms of liss as I listen to podcasts, and I am probably going to use any equipment I get on a daily basis, I bought a small stepper during covid and I used it till its lifts stopped working :laughing:
For me being in shape is above all honestly but I don’t want to spend money that my family can need in the near future to get extra stuff I can live without

13

Hey @FitCH1995 - thanks for sharing this. Definitely sounds like a challenging situation.

Here’s my question… Why do you feel you need to do cardio daily in addition to strength training. What about that is important to you?

14

Sorry for the late reply my friend. I am big on cardio as my metabolism adapts really fast to a deficit that it is crazy, I go from losing a pound or so a week at an average intake of 2350 calories per day to as low as an average of 1450 calories a day (including any weekly cheat meal I might have) and I would rather burn an extra 400 than eat 400 calories extra. So I figured a cardio machine with an easy access can make that process easier.