Use The Buddy System for Keeping Fit

My wife gave me a Fitbit for Christmas. Yes, I know I’ve told you that a couple dozen times, but I’m not the only one. She got it for me because her sister gave her one, she liked it, and thought it was the sort of thing I would like, too.

Well, before she got one for me, she and her sister got one for kid number one. He needed a watch, and he liked talking to his mummy and his aunt about their daily results.

Then, of course, my Christmas present.

Well, kid number two also really likes to see what his mummy, his aunt and his brother have for their numbers. Plus, he sometimes has trouble sleeping and he really liked hearing about my sleep scores, so we got him one for his birthday.

Now we have four of us tracking our daily movement. We compare resting heart rates and exercising heart rates, sleep scores and step counts. We challenge and taunt each other. Basically, my wife and older boys and I have all become workout buddies, challenging and pushing each other to do better.

I have always enjoyed exercise. This is a mystery to my father, who has never exercised a day in his life, and is wont to say, “I’ll drive to my jogger friend’s funeral in my Cadillac” (jokes on him, he has a Lincoln). In spite of that, he and mom always had me involved in physical activities, which instilled this lifelong love of fitness, a love I’m passing on to my own boys.

In doing so, not only am I setting them up for a lifetime of health and fitness, but I’ve raised myself a bunch of workout buddies.

And that’s the point of all this. If you have a workout buddy, or a group of them, you have accountability. When your boys are taunting you for not being active enough, it pushes you to do more, whether your boys are your sons, or your buds.

So get yourself a workout partner, or better yet a workout group. You’ll stay busier, and get healthier, and have a lot of fun in doing so.