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| How To Get Your Significant Other Motivated By: Marc David www.nobullbodybuilding.com Having your spouse/partner as part of your fitness lifestyle can take your own levels of fitness to a new level. Imagine that you go to the gym and workout and are around 100% intensity. Now imagine that you BOTH go to the gym and workout and are around 100% intensity and it carries over into other aspects of your life (sleeping, eating, etc). It's difficult when you are into working out and your spouse may not share the same levels of commitment or joys. Talk about frustrating too! You see beyond just you and her but to your daughter as well having parents around later in life that are healthy. What's worse is that your daughter may make the choice later to NOT to active even though you are very active. It's easier if the whole family moves as a single unit. I've seen several articles written on spousal support in the gym. * some love it as it's an extension of themselves * others don't like it as they want to do it on their own Obviously you are walking a delicate line. You want to get your spouse involved in fitness in some capacity. You also know she doesn't like exercise in general (my mom was the same way). The key is... To make exercise fun! Let me explain... You see, a lot of us find that bench pressing a lot of weight is fun. It makes us feel good. We get sore and we love it. That's fun. At least to me. But there's many people who find that really boring. Pointless. And not so fun. In that case, you've got to simply find something that's 'exercise' but fun as well. Walking, jogging, basketball, tennis, family Frisbee day, trail hiking... Thing that involve one thing and only one thing.... ACTIVITY! Get her active in some way without going full blown into a gym and hitting the weights and cardio machines. There's so many levels of fitness that don't involve weights and cardio equipment. But they all involve movement and activity. Over the last few years, I've received hundreds of questions about nutrition. Either it's a spouse looking to eat better and he's outnumbered at home or a teen who wants to eat better but his/her parents aren't into it. The #1 problem with this is... You may be looking for the other person(s) to take on your healthy lifestyle. The reason they don't is that it's so easy to make bad choices today (fast food, tv dinners, quick eats). The #1 solution to the problem is... COOK for the family. If you step up and do the shopping and eliminate most of the junk foods and start preparing meals, she'll be literally forced to eat better because you are supplying the effort. The effort to cook, shop and prepare is really a big reason why people eat poorly. Nobody wants to spend the time to do it. Rather than look to her to join you in this nutritional quest, simply take over and offer to help, shop and cook. If you start cooking well enough, it will taste quite good and she won't mind at all. Many people would gladly eat healthy meals if they tasted good and were prepared for them. As in the case of the teenagers who are looking to their parents to help them with their lifestyles or the spouse who wishes their significant other would eat better... What nobody does is simply... TAKE OVER! You wouldn't be putting her on any diet. You'd simply be eating better. If it's important to you, then you must do it. And while you're at it, cook a portion for her as well. She'll probably NOT want to invest the effort to cook her own meals if they are already done for her. So there you have it... First, find any activity you both can enjoy on a basic level. No guilt. No pushing. Just being active. Let's see if it progresses. Second, learn all you can about nutrition and eating properly for life (no diets). And shop and cook. Make portions for her. Chances are, she'll just accept it and eat what you are eating because it's there. Find recipes that make healthy foods taste better. Third, you can throw in subtle hints about how great she looks. What most men do is... Bring down their wife's self-esteem in an effort to make them better themselves. As you point out the unhealthy ways, you won't make her suddenly jump from the couch to the gym. You'll just bring any motivation she had to a screeching halt. So compliment her. Make her feel good. People who feel good move forward. People who feel bad, usually hide and become depressed. Do the opposite of what most men would do in this situation. That is, tell her how GREAT she is, how good she looks and maybe she'll come around to hanging out with you more during your activity. If you take the usual approach and tell her she needs to workout and she's eating poorly, she'll probably not respond in a positive manner. About the Author Marc David is an innovative fitness enthusiast and the creator of the "NoBull Bodybuilding System" method on www.nobullbodybuilding.com He can show you how to reduce your body fat thru diet, how to gain weight or create more muscle thru an abundance of workout tips by training LESS, not more! Once a self-confessed skinny, "135-pound weakling." Today Marc is a 200 pound bodybuilder who teaches thousands of people to gain weight, build muscle and reduce body fat with a workout and nutrition system so simple that even a complete beginner can understand it! Marc dispels many "bodybuilding myths", tells you what most people never realize about nutrition, and what the drug companies DON'T WANT YOU to know. visit www.nobullbodybuilding.com |