Leading and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is extremely difficult these days. It requires an enormous amount of effort, commitment, diligence, and patience. Of course, those are things most people aren’t ready or willing to do, especially with everything going on in society today.
Despite how difficult it is, there are plenty of companies and brands that are working to make this as easy as possible. Whether you’re someone who’s trying to keep up with their daily exercise routine or someone who struggles to eat a balanced diet, help is definitely available.
One of those brands looking to revolutionize the way we workout and eat is 8fit. They’ve been around for quite some time, but you may be unfamiliar with this fitness app. Don’t worry; we’re going to break down everything there is to know about this overall wellness app in this thorough review of 8fit!
What is 8fit?
8fit is a Berlin-based app that was originally launched back in 2014. It combines effective at-home workout routines with personalized meal plans, sleep meditation techniques, and more to promote overall wellness around the world. It’s truly a wonderful community to be a part of.
8fit was created by a powerful duo in Pablo Villalba and Pedro Solá. Pablo Villalba is an engineer by education and is also the founder of Dream World, an immersive art experience based in Berlin. He used to be the CEO, but was forced to step down due to allegations of misconduct.
On the other hand, Pedro Solá remains with the company as the CTO and has a world of experience as a full-stack engineer. Though the duo are no longer working alongside each other, Solá continues to expand and evolve the 8fit community. Today, the app is bigger than ever.
After securing nearly $7 million in Series A funding back in 2017, the app started to see some major growth. In 2019, the brand appointed Mark Ralea as CEO and also promoted Lisette Fabian to Co-CEO, bringing even more excitement and enthusiasm to the 8fit brand.
Today, the app has secured over 30 million downloads (and still counting). 8fit is available worldwide and can be viewed in six different languages, making whole-body health an obtainable feat for anyone and everyone. It’s known as one of the top fitness and nutrition apps today.
Getting Started With 8fit
If you’re interested in getting started with 8fit, the process is made extremely easy. You can either visit 8fit.com on your computer or download the 8fit app on your mobile device for free. To be honest, you’re better off downloading the app since you’ll end up doing it in the future anyway.
Once you create an account (which you can do through Facebook, Google, or Email), you’ll be directed to take a short quiz. This quiz is intended to learn more about your goals, your lifestyle, personality, and more. It’s important you answer honestly for the best results moving forward.
First, you’ll be asked about your goal, and you’ll be given three options — get fitter (tone up & feel healthy), gain muscle (build mass & strength), or lose weight (get motivated & energized). Although you can only choose one, you can always change your goal in the future.
Second, you’ll be asked about your gender (male or female), your age, your height, your weight, and your estimated body fat (don’t worry, they use pictures to determine this). You’ll also be asked to give your body fat target and how often you currently exercise every week.
Once those questions are answered, they’ll begin curating a personalized plan for you with the goals and targets in mind. To finish, you’ll be asked to choose your plan with two options — Free and Pro. The Free plan is 100% free, but you’ll only get a basic, full-body program.
If you’re going with Pro, you’ll be able to sign up monthly ($25), bi-annually ($60), or annually ($80). This comes with the basic full-body program, customized workouts, weekly classes, personalized meal plans, dietary exclusions, healthy recipes, and a shopping list.
8fit Features
With most health, fitness, and nutrition apps, they offer a free trial to incentivize users to give it a try for a week or two before purchasing the paid membership. Unfortunately, there is no such free trial when signing up with 8fit. If you want the full experience, you have to pay for it blindly.
That’s where we come in handy. To ensure you make the right decision for yourself, we’ve gone ahead and purchased a monthly membership to gain full access — all so you can get a full look at what 8fit offers its paid users. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the major features.
This Week’s Goals
This section is found at the top of your ‘Feed,’ and it details the progress you’ve achieved thus far in regards to your weekly goals. It’s broken down into four categories — exercise, eating, walking, and meditations. It gives a quick breakdown, but you can hit ‘Overview’ for more info.
For example, my weekly goals are to complete 4 workouts per week, eat 3 meals and 2 snacks per day, and complete 3 meditations each week. As I complete something, it’ll highlight it, so I know where I’m at as the week continues.
Programs
In this section, you can choose between different programs run by different coaches. There are several to choose from, such as the ‘10 Minutes Per Day’ program, the ‘3-Week New Year’s Program,’ and ‘Elena’s 4-Week Program.’ You’re also given a custom one based on your goals.
Each program is different. For example, ‘Elena’s 4-Week Program’ gives you five workouts per week that include a boxing day, core day, yoga day, arms day, and meditation day. It also gives you a featured recipe for Day 6 and a featured article for Day 7.
Coaches
As you use the app, you’ll come across a variety of 8fit coaches, and you’ll likely gain a preference for certain coaches. They all have their own strengths and workout styles. When you click on the one you like, it’ll give you a list of workouts and classes featuring that coach.
There are 14 coaches in total — Alice (HIIT, strength, bands), Mel (yoga), Emily (head coach, boxing, HIIT, yoga), Kristina (HIIT, strength), Chantelle (pilates, HIIT), Joey (HIIT, strength), Laura (yoga, meditation), Jay (HIIT), Carrie (yoga), Melissa (yoga, HIIT), Sarah (yoga, HIIT), Jess (HIIT, strength), Lina (HIIT, core), and Sha (yoga).
Classes
In this section, you’ll find daily classes that are available to anyone interested. For example, the class available for March 8, 2020 was a 30-minute Cardio Kickboxing with Emily (8fit’s head coach). It’ll give you the workout details and recipes you can make for an after-class treat.
It’ll also list the upcoming classes for that week (there’s one per day). If you’re interested in a future class, you can sign up for it and have the app remind you with a notification when it’s available — that way, you never miss your favorite classes.
Challenges
Who doesn’t love a good challenge? After all, that’s why you downloaded this app! In this section, you’ll find several challenges that offer time-based goals to keep you motivated. Once you start the challenge, you’ll only have so many days to complete it — so stay on top of it!
For example, there’s a 30-Day Squat Challenge, 21-Day Jumpstart, 10-Day Boxing Challenge, 4-Week Ab Challenge, and an Outdoor Challenge. Choose your poison and good luck!
Meditations
When you need to wind down and relax after a rough day, there’s nothing better than a meditation session. It allows you to be present with the use of breathing techniques, movements, and mantra repetition. Most sessions are around 4-8 minutes long.
There are 11 sessions available right now, and they’re each unique in their own way. The 11 available are Reduce Stress, Sleep Meditation, For Anxiety, Breathing Meditation, Meditation for Focus, Settle for Sleep, Cradle for Sleep, Whole for Sleep, Release for Sleep, Fade for Sleep, and Presence for Sleep.
Logging
One of the most important things you’ll need to do each day is logging your activity, meals, and weight. This is done by tapping the ‘Logging’ button on the bottom of the app. The more you log, the better you’ll be able to keep track of your progress each day and each week.
There are dozens of activities to choose from (running, walking, biking, sexual activity, weights, yoga, sports, etc.). It’s also extremely easy to add your meals (lunch, breakfast, snack, dinner) and record your weight each day.
Meals
In this section, there’s a lot to discover. First, you’re given a personalized meal plan to follow each day. It’ll give you the meal and recipe for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. You can also view tomorrow’s meal plan as well as your meal plan for the week (so you can do your shopping in advance).
There’s also a list of 800+ recipes that you can read through. This gives you a chance to swap out meals for the week and even save the ones you like the most. They’re broken up into different categories, such as quick breakfasts, healthy treats, simple classics, and recipes that take under 10 minutes to make.
Profile
Your profile section is where you get to view your overall progress in full detail. It’ll list the number of workouts you’ve completed in total, how much weight you’ve gained or lost, your fitness plan, your target values, your exercise library, and your recipe book.
This is also where you can edit your profile, account, subscription and reach out for support. You can even invite friends to join through this section.
Articles and Guides
This section gives you additional information and widespread knowledge regarding health, fitness, nutrition, meditation, and more. Most articles only take 1-2 minutes to read, so they’re easy for the brain to digest. These articles are extremely valuable if you want to learn more.
For example, they have articles titled ‘Our 4 Favorite Mindfulness Exercises,’ ‘10 Healthy Living Tips from the 8fit Coaches,’ and ‘Healthy Halloween Snacks & Spookified 8fit Recipes.’ Trust us; you’ll get lost in this section with all the information and fun reads available.
8fit Pros vs. Cons
No matter what health, fitness, and nutrition app you’re interested in downloading, none of them are perfect. In fact, none of them is a one-size-fits-all solution to everyone’s goals, and you’ll need to find the one that’s best suited to your preferences. They’re all unique in their own way.
To summarize everything we’ve learned about the 8fit app and community, we’re going to list all the things we like and don’t like about the app below. This way, you’ll have all the information you need in an easy-to-read pros vs. cons list — after all, that’s what you’re really here for, isn’t it?
Pros
- You can save a lot of money by purchasing the bi-annual or annual plan over the monthly plan
- 8fit has over 30 million downloads
- It’s available worldwide in six different languages
- Has received millions of dollars in Series A funding over the years
- Can be connected to Apple Watch for easier tracking
- Supports exercises, meal plans, meditation techniques, and articles for learning more
- 14 different exercise coaches to choose from
- 800+ healthy meals and 200+ different workouts
- Workouts in the boxing, HIIT, yoga, pilates, strength, bands, and weights categories
- Daily classes with real coaches to keep you motivated
- Easy to navigate and easy to log your daily progress
Cons
- No free trial for the paid version
- The free version is extremely limited in features
- One of the co-founders was relieved due to misconduct allegations
- $25 per month is a steep price compared to other competitors
Is the 8fit App Worth It?
The 8fit app is one of many health, fitness, and nutrition apps available today. It’s not that different from its competitors, but it certainly has its advantages for those that want variety — especially since it gives you pretty much everything you need to maintain a healthy life.
There are a ton of workouts to choose from, classes for those that want a more personal experience, meditation sessions for winding down, hundreds of recipes for anyone to enjoy, and over a dozen different coaches to choose from. It’s easy to use and easy to log your progress.
At the same time, the $25 per month asking price is rather steep for those used to other apps. While it gives you a lot of value, $25 is a lot to give up for most people and will likely turn away some customers.
If you know you’ll be using it for a while, you should definitely go with the bi-annual or annual subscription. The bi-annual subscription is $60 (which comes out to $10 per month), and the annual subscription is just $80 (which comes out to just $6.67 per month).
8fit Alternatives and Competitors
Like we mentioned above, there is a wide range of health, fitness, and nutritional apps available today. 8fit certainly comes with a lot of competition and alternatives that users need to consider when searching for an app that fits their personality, lifestyle, goals, and desires.
To ensure you’re making an informed decision when choosing an app, we’re going to highlight some of our favorite health, fitness, and/or nutrition apps available today — including Aaptiv, Sworkit, and obé Fitness. Let’s take a look, starting with Aaptiv!
Aaptiv
If you’re someone that’s more interested in fitness — opposed to nutrition — then Aaptiv might just be the app for you. It gives you hundreds of workouts and exercises to choose from while also giving you a social community to interact with personally, personal trainers.
While it won’t contain nutrition tracking, the app is only $14.99 per month compared to $25 per month. One of the coolest features of this app is the music they give you while working out, allowing you to get in your zone and focus more on the workout and less on the distractions around you.
Sworkit
Sworkit is another app that largely focuses on workouts and exercises, opposed to nutritional tracking and meal plans. The thing we like about this one is that it offers a highly-useful and effective free version. While there’s a $9.99 per month subscription, you’re better off with the free version.
In the free version, you still get access to over 800 different exercises, and you have the ability to formulate your own workouts and weekly workout plans. It won’t do a whole lot for you (in terms of personalization), but it’s great for people who track and build workouts on their own.
obé Fitness
The final app we’re going to detail is obé Fitness. It’s $27 per month, so it’s a little more expensive than 8fit and much more expensive than some of the others we’ve listed. At the same time, it gives you a lot of value, much like 8fit.
Unfortunately, there won’t be nutritional tracking or meal plans in this app. On the flip side, its focus on exercises and workouts is admirable. It has live classes, on-demand workouts, excellent trainers, and a blog that gives you a lot of information to learn from. Additionally, obé also offers a free trial, so you can test it out before deciding!
Final Verdict: 8fit
There’s so much to like about 8fit, especially if you’re willing to cough up the $25 per month. While you’re better off with the bi-annual or annual subscription, you’ll be getting good value out of this app either way. It does everything you need it to do — and more!
Compared to some of its competitors — like Aaptiv, Sworkit, and obé Fitness — it goes above and beyond with the added nutritional tracking and meal plans. This is something many fitness apps don’t provide, which automatically makes 8fit a superior option above the rest.
With that said, it doesn’t include music (like Aaptiv does), the free version isn’t really worth it (like Sworkit), and the trainers aren’t as good as the ones on obé Fitness. Choose your poison, but you definitely can’t go wrong with 8fit!
