Try Before You Buy: Freegan Fitness at Wahanda

By Melissa Massello, January 3, 2011

My friend Isabelle just moved to NYC and went to work for a new (to me, anyway) startup called Wahanda. Intrigued, I popped over from her Facebook announcement to check it out, only to find a blissful bounty of health & fitness deals in a format that resembled a mashup of Groupon and Yelp, perfectly timed for my annual New Year’s resolution to get back to my fighting weight. (Yes, I am taking bets.)

As soon as I pulled up Wahanda.com and clicked on Boston, my inner freegan fitness fanatic went ga-ga at the sight of all the free trial memberships to fancy gyms I’ve longed to check out, like Equinox and Crunch. I immediately clicked over to Equinox’s website through their link, signed up for and printed out my free 3-day trial membership, and checked out the schedule of group torture sessions, including — wheeeee!! — yoga classes taught by one of my old skating teammates. (Embracing the pain that’s about to ensue, I immediately start searching for massage deals in my area towards which I can use that $10 sign-up credit.)

Though I still have no idea who or what a Wahanda is, I love the fact that the site understands spam — only emailing you once a week, unlike the other local deal sites, which send you stuff at least once daily. I love the fact that, like the other daily deal sites, Wahanda rewards you for recruiting friends to join or sharing their deals on social networking sites, actions which earn you credits towards making pampering that much more affordable. On a more altruistic note, I love that Wahanda is donating $1 per review of a participating business (read: that Yelp-like experience) to charity:water (a trend towards social responsibility that we’ve seen from other cool, new startups this year, like Warby Parker.)

I also love that Wahanda is enabling me to attack my second New Year’s resolution: putting my own oxygen mask on first and taking care of me before taking care of anything or anyone else.

Hey, if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, and mama’s pretty damn happy about finding Wahanda right now.