Don’t underestimate the power of an accountability buddy when you’re trying to stick to your fitness goals and lose weight. When you are struggling how to lose weight, you could make plans with yourself to exercise, but are you good at being self-motivated and accountable to yourself? Or, will you cancel those workout plans because nobody’s around to hold you accountable?
It should be easy to find an accountability buddy to exercise with because all you have to do is find a friend or family member who also has weight loss goals. If you have a roommate, you could even ask them to be your accountability buddy. Many people are trying to focus on fitness right now, so it’s likely you’ll easily find an accountability buddy. Between festive baking, catered holiday parties and Christmas feasts with all the fixings, many of us have recently been quite indulgent. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s also nothing wrong with wanting to get back into a healthier routine.
How to Lose weight by having an Accountability Buddy?
First and foremost, they help You stick to your diet and fitness plan!
What you need in order to achieve your weight loss goals is some solid external accountability. You need someone to answer to, someone who keeps track of you and someone who motivates you. It helps to have someone doing the same diet as you, so you can motivate each other.
You also need a plan you won’t be able to duck out of. When you have plans to exercise with a friend, you’re much more likely to go than you are if you had plans to work out alone. You wouldn’t want to let down the person you had plans with, and you feel accountable. That’s why it works. That’s why you show up.
An accountability buddy, however, doesn’t have to be a friend or family member. A personal trainer, for example, is also someone you will be accountable to. This is someone you won’t cancel on as you’ll have scheduled appointments.
Unlike a group fitness class, when you book a one-on-one session with your trainer, you can’t exactly get away with pulling a no-show.
When accountability is found in an external source, you become significantly more accountable to the fitness plan.
Below we’ll review some reasons why external accountability in the form of an accountability buddy is the key to losing that holiday weight:
Having an Accountability Buddy Guarantees You’ll Exercise More Often
If you really want to ensure that you’ll exercise often, plan gym dates or outdoor physical activities with your accountability buddy several times per week.
You know that close friends and family members will forgive you if you cancel on them, so it works even better when your accountability buddy is a co-worker or an acquaintance. Choose someone whom you probably wouldn’t cancel on because you want to make a good impression.
The absolute best person to be accountable to and plan a gym date with is actually a personal trainer. When you develop a great relationship with your trainer, you won’t want to let them down. You’ll want to get results, work hard and share the before-and-after journey with them.
Your trainer is fully in it with you, and that’s a rare relationship to obtain. Your success is important to them because that’s their job.
An Accountability Buddy Won’t Let You Get Away With Bad Eating Habits
You might realize that you’re lacking accountability not just when it comes to fitness, but also when it comes to your eating habits.
A great accountability buddy will check in on you and help motivate you to eat better. They might even suggest you eat lunch or dinner together after your workout, and help ensure you eat something healthy.
Accountability buddies sometimes even meal prep together, where they go grocery shopping and make healthy food together that lasts the whole week.
The exercise in itself will help you eat better. This is because it’s common to crave less bad food the more we exercise. Food stimulates the brain’s reward centre, which is why some people binge on large quantities of food even when they’re not hungry. It’s common to binge when you’re feeling depressed or stressed because eating junk food can release dopamine. However, do you know what also makes you feel good and releases endorphins? Exercise. These happy hormones make you crave fewer treats.
Since having an accountability buddy is a social habit, and binge eating bad foods tends to happen when you’re alone, you’re likely to overcome bad eating habits the more you spend time with your accountability buddy.
Workout Buddy Will Make You Forget “How to Lose Weight”, But Enjoy The Time
Instead having the thought “how to lose weight” throughout your whole workout, it’s undeniable that exercise is more fun and more enjoyable when you’re doing it with a friend or a workout partner. Not only do they help motivate and encourage you, but they also allow you to do fun activities that aren’t safe to do alone.
For example, a beautiful winter hike is a fun way to exercise, but it’s not quite safe to do alone. It’s much safer to hike or snowshoe with a friend, and if your accountability buddy loves the same types of outdoor activities as you do, then you’ll be having a blast together while losing weight.
Having Someone To Answer To Keeps You On Track
You need people in your life who care enough to check in on you, remind you of plans to exercise together and keep you on track.
A good personal trainer, for example, might ask you about your eating and fitness habits in between sessions, as a way of keeping track of you and keeping you accountable.
Great friends or other accountability buddies will check in on you to see how your progress is going if they know you have similar fitness goals to their own. You will motivate each other.
Your workout buddy might even be willing to go on the exact same diet as you at the same time, such as trying the Keto diet together, so that you have a “we’re in it together” mentality with your accountability buddy.
The bottom line? Find something or someone to be accountable to, and your healthy habits and fitness goals will have a much higher chance of being actualized. Don’t sweat on “how to lose weight” alone, get someone to sort it out with you.
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