Fitness and Friends

One of the most often overlooked things that can help you live a healthy lifestyle is this: Have healthy relationships. Studies have shown that we tend to emulate the people we’re friends with. So, if you want to gain weight, be friends with people who are overweight. If you want to be miserable, hang out with unhappy people. On the other hand, if you’d like to be well-adjusted and fit, hangout with people who care about themselves have fitness goals. It’s a sad reality, but the science shows that people can bring us down. If you’re a glass-half full kind of person, it’s good news. Your friends can also lift you up.

I’m not saying to ditch the group of friends you’ve been with since grade school. I’m just saying, it’s time to reevaluate things. Maybe it’s time to start adding some more active people to your group. Just be sure they’re not in the minority, or you might just bring them down. That’s just not nice.

Another thing you can do is to be the person who lifts others up. Your friends will be more likely to become fit themselves if they see you thriving with a fit and healthy lifestyle. You don’t have to be pushy. Just ask them to come along for a healthy lunch or take an afternoon stroll (or jog, depending on your fitness level). If they say no, that’s okay. It’s not really your job to change their lives. It’s only your job to change your own. As you lead by example, you can only hope that they’ll see how much better it is to be healthy than to be a couch potato.

If nothing else works, you can still hang out with your friends, but it might be time to find a new group to spend more of your time with. If you think about it, this is your life. If you want to make positive changes, you might need to make some tough calls.