PSA for those of you wanting to check out different gyms.... Here is a recommendation for a place to AVOID.
We absolutely loved Burn Boot Camp until recently. When called out the owner for deceptive business practices, not only did she blocked us on all social media, she also cancelled our memberships immediately and banned us from the gym. Guilty much?
Here is a breakdown of events:
The owner marketed a Weight Loss challenge the Commit Challenge from 1/13-2/22. This was marketed as a New Year weight loss challenge for everyone and was really hyped up. Everyone got a container of protein and a shirt and entered the competition for $100 ea. There was no criteria sent out prior to signing up other than that it was a weight loss challenge. Here is the timeline of events:
12/27 - First email sent out about Commit Challenge. No mention of winners criteria besides "cash Prizes for Top 3 Biggest Losers" "Schedule Focus Meeting and set your goal by 1/12, says challenge dates are 1/13-2/22." Entry free was $100 per person, we believe about 120 people joined this challenge?.
1/08 email with receipt for charge of entry fee into challenge - The date we were charged for the challenge
1/11 commit challenge info sent out , still does not state criteria used to decide winners, provides link to submit challenge info and states inbody scan must be from prior to 1/13/2025 (has no date range...so theoretically someone could use a scan from last July as there are no written rules stating It must be a recent scan in email) Just says body fat in pounds must be entered on the form.
1/18 week one check in email has no mention of criteria
1/24 week 2 pulse check no mention of winner criteria
2/6 week 3 - Halfway check-in /top losers FIRST MENTION OF CRITERIA FOR CALCULATING HOW IT WOULD BE SCORED. Still Vague.
Everyone was to send in their final weigh-ins via google forms by 2/22 6pm.
Winners were not announced via email, no one was notified with the exception of a single Instagram post. This is where it gets very confusing. The top winners were VERY thin and who are conveniently close friends with the owner. They could not have possibly lost 20% + body fat without completely starving themselves in an unhealthy way. Larger people who were winning halfway through the challenge suddenly were not even top 10, even after doubling their midway point. People who were larger did not have a chance and it also feels like this was a cash grab as you cannot see any of this information on their public FB pages, or IG other than who won. Even their "VIP" group on Facebook was not notified of anything regarding who won. This entire competition, which we thought would be fun and competitive, was a sham to begin with as anyone could starve themselves or fudge the numbers and win. Those who did the weekly check ins, did the 4 camps a week, and followed protein goals did not have a fighting chance.
If we had known that the sole statistic used to determine prize winners was % of body fat percentage lost, without anything else in place, we would not have paid to do this challenge.
It was unethical to have a paid challenge for cash prizes without clearly defined criteria, released prior to sign up, on what it would take to win, so participants could make an educated decision on whether it would make sense for them to sign up.
There were clearly errors made in the calculations on the midway check in, I believe that those errors carried over to the final results, as the percentage of body fat lost claimed by the top 10, especially the top 5, are questionable (losing 22.5% of your body fat in 6 weeks is an insane amount no matter your size and extremely unlikely/unhealthy.)
It is my belief that this challenge was hyped up and promoted in an intentionally vague manner in order to get more people to sign up for it as a cash grab, which it was clearly very successful at doing based on the amount of participants we saw in the beginning. Utilizing a single criterion that has an extremely lower difficulty level for people who are already small isn't a good look, and I would be willing to bet that a lot of others would have not signed up if they knew that it was a one-sided competition that favored people who were already fit.
When owner was talked to about it, she doubled down on her being a fitness professional and implied (not in these exact words) that we were just sore losers. We never cared about winning but wanted a fair chance, which we didn't get.
We spent $320 a month to attend Burn, bought merch and supplements, and participated in challenges like the Level Up games, but since her takeover, we have never felt wanted as we are not skinny and fit like others. Day one with Burn it felt that we were there to get in shape and meet or exceed goals when now, since the change in owners, it feels as if there has been a shift priorities. It feels less inclusive. read more