Thank You Gym Buddy!

For the last year and a half, I've worked out at my gym mostly by myself, generally five days a week, for about an hour. It was a good experience. By myself, I went through that initial phase in the first six months where it was hard to go, easy to skip. But I stuck with it and eventually got to the "I will miss it if I don't go" phase. Then came 6-9 more months of gradually increasing weights, inclines, time.

Then came boredom.

Luckily about the time I realized I was getting bored and not challenging myself enough, I found a gym buddy! I'm not a very social person, but Tina and I shared the same trainer, and it was easy to share war stories when we crossed paths.

So when I would see her on the treadmill, I'd go over and get on one beside her. We'd chat, and we really hit it off. I was further along in the food/exercise journey than her, so we had a lot of talks about food, and how NOT to get down when you have bad food days, and how you CAN, over time, make good food choices ... and that it DOES get easier with practice.

Anyway, eventually we started scheduling and doing our workouts together. I would work out LONGER with her, and I would encourage her to work out harder (more incline, more speed).

There have been SOOOO many times when I'd want to stop at 30 minutes on treadmill or elliptical, and she'd talk me into five more minutes -- or vice versa! Or we'd do arm weights, instead of heading home.

Having a workout buddy can really energize your workouts! The encouragement, the focus, the distraction, the support -- all of it will add up to more calories burned!

Find yourself a workout buddy today! Reach out to someone at the gym, or in the neighborhood, or at work -- both of you will benefit!