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Tips on picking a good workout buddy

Posted on Aug 7th 2007 10:06AM by Martha Edwards

Filed Under: Fitness, Motivation

One of the best things you can do if you're serious about losing weight is enlisting a friend to take the journey with you. It helps to have someone to motivate you, and also someone you are accountable to in case you feel like taking a nosedive off the wagon. But if you are recruiting a weight-loss buddy, make sure you choose wisely because that buddy can mean the difference between success and failure. Here are some tips from Fitsugar:

Pick someone who is fair and honest but not downright mean
Choose someone who has your best interests in mind, who won't enjoy seeing you fail and begrudge you if you do well
Find someone with similar goals. If you want to lose 100 lbs and your friend wants to lose 10, it might not work.
Enlist someone who you see regularly, but not someone that you live with
Choose someone who likes the same rewards as you. If your friend is a guy, he's probably not going to be motivated by the chance to shop for that perfect little black dress.

What do you look for in a workout friend?

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Tags: buddy, friend, goals, weight loss, WeightLoss, workout

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Raina 8-07-2007 @ 11:12AM

I think this is a good list. However, it kind of all depends on how you approach it. If you're going from a weight standpoint (you want to lose 20lbs), then you would want to work out with someone similar to yourself. But if your goal is just to become stronger, or have more endurance, then find someone with that goal - I lift weights with a friend of mine who weighs probably 40-50lbs less than I do, and we don't always lift the same amount of weight, but we do the same number of reps and we're supportive of each other.

Being supportive is the most important in my book. If someone is lording their 10lb loss over you when you haven't lost (or god forbid, have gained), and they make snarky comments about how much weight your lifting, then they're probably not the right partner for you.

I'd also say, set up a schedule - if you both figure that you'll work out when you'll meet, it'll be easy to blow it off, or reschedule for later. But if you always meet every tuesday and saturday, it'll be much easier to keep to it.

My health/fitness blog: http://steppin-up.blogspot.com/