Motivation from others can help achieve fitness goals

This content was originally posted in 7DAYS UAE website at: Motivation from others can help achieve fitness goals Getting up at 5am for a workout is never easy. It can be a little less painful if you’ve arranged to meet someone for the activity – they say misery loves company after all. It’s widely accepted that having friends around influences your behaviour – so having athletic friends is sure to make you more inclined to be active. One man had a whole online community behind him on his journey to fitness. Jesse Shand couldn’t even weigh himself on a set of conventional scales back in May 2013. Weighing in at approximately 300kg, the American says he couldn’t even fit into his own shower – so hadn’t bathed in over a year. He signed up to Bodybuilding.com, an online forum for fitness enthusiasts, for a joke. Jesse recalls: “I was completely off the rails, and I decided to make a troll thread on a bodybuilding forum.” He posted photos of himself – expecting to be ridiculed. But he was wrong. Instead of ridiculing him, members of the site came back at Jesse with positive messages, such as telling him to start by cutting down his intake of junk food. One member posted: “The first step is eating less of the unhealthy food you are consuming now.” Another member sent Jesse a splash pool to bathe in and, as he progressed, others pooled in to buy Jesse a gym membership – which he says he couldn’t have afforded otherwise. He’s reportedly down to less than 118kg now, and has a GoFundMe website to help remove his excess skin (see gofundme/wetty). Jesse’s story shows that having a support network around to encourage you, celebrate your milestones and hold you accountable can be key to attaining your goals, shaking that excess weight or simply just getting you to think about exercising. Trainer and life coach, Nadine Du Toit works on connecting like-minded women looking to change their lives. She says the key is accountability: “Holding yourself accountable – to a coach, a peer group or the public is incredibly effective, especially when we are struggling in the follow-through and completion of goals.” “Choosing the right person or group to hold yourself accountable to is important, as we’ve seen with Jesse, there has to be elements of care, support, unfailing belief that the person can do it, problem solving and tough love on occasion. Letting yourself down is easy, but letting others down and for them to lose their belief in you is extremely hard, that is why accountability is such an effective tool.” Jesse was held accountable by members of the site. He says: “I was documenting the workouts, so when I didn’t upload one, there would be members of the forum asking me where I was, and knowing I’d missed it.” Nadine has programmes designed for people looking to connect with like-minded individuals, looking to get fit. She’s launching a programme in January, and runs the work out group, the ‘DubaiBells’. “I knew how much easier it is when you train with others, not sleep in when you don’t feel like training in the morning. I began training with kettlebells, which developed into DubaiBells, and now we are a community of women who’ve organically grown into a beautiful community who share in so much more than just exercise, we’re all very good friends too.” See glorygirlfit.com caitlyn@7days.ae Read the original story at: Motivation from others can help achieve fitness goals