Exercise with a Partner to Stay Motivated

Time and time again, new exercisers find that they begin to lose focus and energy for exercise as they attempt to stick with their routine on their own. The reasons for the collapse in motivation are simple and usually pretty common amongst most new exercisers: the exercise gets boring, the diet becomes tedious or the stress of everyday life distracts them from any sort of long-term weight loss planning.

However, it has been proven that working out with a buddy can help to keep most people on track. A buddy not only makes your dieting and exercising routine more engaging, but it also adds to your sense of accountability to your commitment. Working out with a buddy simply makes sense.

Here are some ideas and strategies for you and your exercise partner:

End-of-Week Report
Accountability is the most important element of working out with a partner. Consciously or not, if you know that you are accountable to someone else, then you will modify your eating and exercise habits throughout the week in large and small ways.

An end-of-week report is a simple method to help you keep track of your eating and exercise habits (or change in habits). Create a chart that has a separate column for each day of the week. Have a row for each meal and snacks. Have a separate row for exercise, including the type of exercise and the estimated amount of calories burned.

At the end of each day, tally the number of calories you ate and the number of calories you burned during exercise. At the end of the week, share your report with your partner. You and your partner can even develop a competition to reward the person with the fewest calories or most amount of exercise points.

Often times, being transparent about what you put in your body and what exercise you demand of yourself helps you to try harder to achieve your goals. You will also benefit from seeing how your partner handled her weekly schedule to accommodate dieting and exercise - so go ahead and create that report.

Make it a Routine
Making exercise a daily or weekly routine for you and your partner can seem like a no-brainer. However, for many busy people, it can be tough to actually find time to consistently work out together. Creating a routine assures not only that exercising will be built into your day, but it also will become something that you and your partner rely on.

For example, if you and your partner work together, then spend half and hour during lunch walking. You can walk 15 minutes to a café, have lunch and walk back to the office. Having a routine not only increases your accountability to your partner, but it helps you to create a stress-relieving diversion to your everyday routine that you will appreciate.

Reward Yourselves for Good Behavior
One of the greatest things about friends and partners is that they create a warm atmosphere of encouragement and motivation. Establish an arrangement with an exercise partner where if you are both good during your week, you will take turns treating each other to a small surprise, such as an hour at a local museum that you both enjoy, a trip to get coffee or a nice lunch.

By having and planning rewards, exercise will be fun. Sometimes, all you need to get out the door and into the gym is the knowledge that if you do it, you will receive a guaranteed surprise. Go ahead - engage yourself!