Challenge Statement: Switching to a healthy lifestyle, for me and for millions others because as they say, health is wealth

India is among the top 5 countries in terms of an obese population and the main reasons behind this are our sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits. With the increased availability of fast food and an immense pressure on children to excel in studies at the cost of foregoing physical activity, India has ended up with 14.4 million kids in the country having excess weight. There are typically five roadblocks which make a move towards a healthy lifestyle challenging:

1)     The high costs of gym memberships

2)     The lack of time faced by working professionals

3)     The tendency to get bored with a gymming routine

4)     The lack of motivation to workout everyday

5)     Unhealthy eating habits

From my personal experience at attempting to reduce weight, I have come across solutions to 4 of these problems:

1)     Optimizing the cost of gym memberships using pay-per-use model

2)     Ensuring that time and work is not a barrier by offering 24*7 gyms, gyms in officespaces and through apps like Fitpass, Gympik, FiTicket and Fitraq which give users access to gyms across different cities for a fixed subscription charge

3)     Making exercise interesting by including boxing, Zumba, Yoga and other activities in the fitness routine as popularised in the cross-training solution offered by CultFit

4)     Transitioning to healthy eating habits by using apps like HealthifyMe to track calories, and offering healthier food options at home and in restaurants. Zomato lists 23 restaurants serving healthy food near IIM Bangalore and even our hostel offers healthy options in each meal – boiled vegetables, fruits, milk and khichdi.

The biggest challenge remaining is to find the motivation to stick to a healthy lifestyle, since the solutions to the other 4 problems will fail to make an impact unless there is motivation. From my personal experience, I feel that snide comments from friends/family to trigger negative motivation does not really work and the person ends up giving up on the regime altogether. Since fat loss takes a considerable time to show and stamina also builds over time, losing weight should be treated as a long-term goal and achieving this long-term goal becomes easy if you are enjoying the workout. Therefore, my solution is based on the hypothesis that exercising in a group makes the workout more fun and can used to build habits.

This hypothesis is drawn from the comparison of two of my attempts at sticking to a workout schedule. When I joined a gym prior to starting my job, I used to have a 2-hour workout session everyday and was accompanied by my mother. Having a partner at gym forced me to go for a workout everyday. In addition, it made the workout fun for me since I could have small conversations while on the treadmill to break the monotony. The best outcome of this team workout was that looking at my mother working out so dedicatedly pushed me to workout more. On the other hand, when I started working out by myself while working in Bangalore, I could keep up with the routine only for a week since I did not feel motivated enough to wake up early every day to exercise. I switched to different forms of exercises but still did not find any fun during my workout.

Based on this hypothesis, my solution is to create small workout groups for people who work in the same office or live in the same apartment/neighbourhood.

Before and After storyboard: The ‘Before’ storyboard shows that a trigger to move to a healthy lifestyle can fizzle out if a person does not find any fun in working out. In commercialized gyms, where everyone is busy in their own workout routine, it becomes difficult to stay motivated to go to the gym everyday. The ‘After’ storyboard shows that someone who wants to start working out, becomes part of a group which goes to the gym together. This builds a rapport among the group and if not for the workout, people start looking forward to spend some time with their team and head out to the gym, making the workout something they stay motivated to stick to.

Solution and prototype: The solution can be based on a simple google form, a matching algorithm and a chat application like Whatsapp, and alternatively these 3 functions can be clubbed into a standalone app. Anyone in a community (work, office, etc.) logs in to an app (named The Gym Collective henceforth) or fills up an interest form floated to the community via a mail. The person will need to fill their work-out preferences: preferred time, aim of workout, preferred activities and preferred location (within x kms of their office/home, etc.). Based on their preferences, an algorithm will run in the background to match them with existing workout groups in their area or allow them to create a new group. The matched groups will be displayed with their workout schedules and number of existing members, and the user can join any of the groups. In the group, members can chat about their workout plans. Once the group members enter an unspoken agreement to work out together, there is a greater possibility of them sticking to the fitness regime and the group identity will also make it more enjoyable for them to workout.

My future vision is to allow members to collect points based on the calories they burn. This can be possible either manually-where the gym trainer enters the calories burnt by each member on a ‘trainer’ version of the app or use a fitness tracker/ tracker on the fitness equipment to load the calories onto the app. Since this solution will require connecting the tracking sensors to the app (IoT technology), this will be a future enhancement. Another requirement for this implementation will be to identify the person on the equipment through the swiping of a card before the workout session starts. These points will then act as motivation to stick to the workout routine and can be used by gyms to trigger more sign-ups by offering a month free to the group with highest points or any other such offers. I envision a cooperative-like business model to build accountability within the group. If a member misses the workout, some points will be deducted from the team. This will require an attendance interface on the trainer version of the app.

The screens that the user will see are shown below:

The customers for this solution will be anyone who wants to lose weight but has failed in their attempts (like ME!). By using the solution, the customer will be able to find a group with the same workout preferences and hence induce fun into the exercise routine to make it sticky. In order to commercialize this solution, the app will need to be built (the basic version without the point collection) and included on Play Store. I will also need to undertake marketing efforts to onboard gyms (both commercial and those operated in apartments, offices). Based on the success measured in terms of new people signing up, there will be a subscription charged from each gym to use the solution. An additional monetization stream will be to include advertisements of healthy foods and restaurants on the app. Once the app gains traction, it can be promoted on apps like Cure Fit, HealthifyMe etc. to create a fitness ecosystem for the customer.

To address my personal challenge, I will create a group with my fellow students who can workout at the same time and have the same preferred activities and see if I can stick to the routine for more than a week. Since this will be at a very small scale, I can verbally check the workout schedules and activities with my friends without the use of technology. To conduct a 1-day experiment for the solution, I will float a google form in a community (IIMB students, apartment residents, people working in the same company/techpark) to understand their workout preferences as shown in screen 1. Based on their preferences, I will run an algorithm on a data analysis tool like SPSS, R or just a simple excel analysis to match them with existing workout groups in their area or allow them to create a new group. The members of the group can then chat and workout together. The cost of this experiment will be the time I spend on creating the Google form and running the matching algorithm. I will test my hypothesis that working out in a group makes it more fun and hence increases motivation to stick to the workout routine by evaluating the attendance of the group after a month (giving enough time for a bonding to be built within the group) and also measuring the cumulative work-out statistics for the group (in terms on number of hours or calorie value). I will check this after regular intervals and compare it against people who work out individually to test my hypothesis and hence, measure success of my solution. In case the solution works, I can then go ahead and formalise it into a basic app and present it to gyms to gauge their interest in the solution. In case the solution does not work, I will need to discuss the challenge with trainers and psychologists to understand if they see any other underlying reason behind the lack of motivation to work out and then try to find a solution for the unearthed reason.