More infor on Curves for Women?

[Staja]

  My doctor reccommended I go to Curves for Women gym to help me start learning how to exercise.  He also gave me a diet plan.  I need to lose about 70 lbs to get to the top of my healthy weight scale for my height.  I also have really bad problems with depression and anxiety.  We're hoping that if I improve my physical health that I can improve my mental health with little or no medication.  
   I have tried to look up info online about what types of exercises you do at Curves, and how much it costs to join.  So far my searches have turned up nothing.  I also tried calling my local curves and haven't gotten a call back yet.  Are there any members on here?  I'd really just like a general overview about the program.  And some kind of price range would be nice...

[Barb135]

Wishing you all the luck in the world with it.  I just put up a new post, inviting everyone to join me in a weight loss journey -- hope you will read it and consider it posting a goal, etc..........we can make this a lot of fun..

[Staja]

Thanks for all the information.  I went this morning for a consultation.  I get to try it for a week before making any decisions so I already have an appt with trainer for tomorrow.  I'm probably going to give it a try.  It looks like a prett good program.  It's a little spendier than I thought it would be though.  Luckily that have a promotion going on right now that will eliminate the $200 enrollment fee.... I never would have considered paying that much on top of a monthly fee!  I'll definitely keep posting about me progress though.  

It's really nice to have the opinions of someone that doesn't work there.  Thank you so much for your reply.  It means a lot to me.

[Barb135]

Hi Staja --- welcome to the forum.

I'm not a member of Curves now, but I was for about a year.  It seems to be a very beneficial program and I enjoyed the exercises.  The nice thing about it is that each exercise is only for 30 minutes at a time and you keep moving pretty much all the time.  

When I joined (I think it was in spring 2007), they had a promotion going that gave me 3 free weeks, then the cost was around $30+ tax/month that was charged automatically to my credit card.  

The program didn't work out for me because I was trying to do it on my way home from work.  I get off work at 2:30 pm and at first everything was fine and I loved it, but then they changed their hours and they took lunch from 1:00 - 3:00, so when I got there after work I had to sit and wait for them to reopen; and sometimes, they didn't show up at 3:00 to open back up again (one day myself and another lady waited until almost 3:30).  At that time, I was suffering from undiagnosed thyroid issues and the fatigue I felt was overwhelming; I simply could NOT sit there and wait.  I'm one that when I get moving, I have to keep moving or else and it was even worse then --- so having to sit and wait brought up the "or else"!!!

The basics are:  they have a variety of equipment and you spend only 30 seconds on each thing, then move on to the next.  Of course, there's also music to work out to and it tells you when the 30 seconds is over and it's time to move on.  When I first joined, they had different games - like if you landed on a certain piece of equipment at a certain time, you got to "go fish" (yep, the child's game) for "Curves dollars".  When you got so many dollars, you could spend them for "goodies" that they had for sale, such as t-shirts, bags, etc. If you wore a Curves tj-shirt on a certain day, you got extra Curves dollars.  It was kind of fun little thing.  They also had some other "games" to make it more interesting, but after a while, they discontinued the "fun stuff".  

The equipment is all pretty much low impact so the possibility of injury is less and if you come across something that causes pain or something, you can skip over it and go on to the next thing, provided that there aren't people at each "station" (there never was at the one I went to).  I felt really badly that it the hours didn't work out for me, because it right on my way home from work, so stopping was no big deal, except for having to sit there and wait, then not knowing for sure if someone would actually even show up to reopen on time.  

Now I do have to tell you that I'm downright positive that the one I went to is NOT representative of ALL Curves locations.  The owners did not seem that interested in making a go of it and they kept changing locations -- they moved twice while I was a member and now I notice that they are no longer at the last location I saw them at, so I don't even know where they are (or IF they are).  I have a friend in another state who doesn't work, so she can arrange her schedule to go whenever she wants and she loves it and although I haven't seen her for a long time, she says she's lost quite a bit of weight; however, she's told me that the closure from 1:00 -  3:00 pm is a nationwide thing, so if that and the cost are not problems for you, I guess I'd probably say "go for it".

I hope you will give it a lot of consideration and if you do decide to join, it would be great if you would keep us posted on how you do, whether you like it, how much weight you lose, etc.  Who knows, maybe I'll even give it another shot.