Track Workouts With Friends

track-workouts-friends

Try this today

• Start a text chain. Make a healthy living pact with friends and stay accountable by checking in on one another’s progress. If you made it to your yoga mat before the end of the day, as promised, let the group know. If a pal promised to eat a salad twice this week, text on Friday to see if it happened.
• Join healthy living communities online. Social media groups can help you meet new friends and stay accountable to your fitness goals. Want to become a better runner? Try joining a social media group such as No Excuse Runners. Connect with fellow hikers in the Hiking group, yogis in The Yoga Room or get some motivation to kick your sugar habit in the Healthy Eating Support Group.
• Have an in-app contest. Do you and a friend want to drop five pounds? Throw a little competition into the mix. Connect on your Fitbit accounts or use an app like Social Steps to track your walking. Add your friends and watch their steps add up. See who can walk more in a week and have the winner treat the other person to lunch.
• Let your pals track your meals. Apps like MyFitnessPal allow you to input your daily meals and share this information with friends. Seeing if a companion met their weekly calorie goal will likely inspire you to do the same.
• Get social during workouts. Does your fitness program offer built-in social connection? If so, use it! Peloton offers users the chance to follow friends within its app. You can see which workouts your friends and family have completed, “high-five” other riders as you bike and even video chat with friends during a ride.
• Get healthy together remotely. Recruit a pal and take the same online fitness class. You could even try a virtual cooking class together, then challenge one another to make the healthy cooking tips you learned part of your meal planning routine going forward.

Why

You know health goals are worth the effort. Eating healthy foods like blueberries and strawberries may help slow down cognitive decline. Fitness can help ward off conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, improve your bone density, and help you live longer. And regular exercise can cut your lifetime risk of Alzheimer’s in half. But adhering to your health goals might take some perseverance. That’s where pairing up with a buddy can help. One study found that with social support, people were 95 percent more likely to complete their workout programs and 42 percent more likely to keep the weight off. To stay motivated, try tracking your progress with friends.