What do you think is the most important factor for body transformation success? Is it what you eat? Is it what your exercise routine is like? Is it the quality and quantity of your sleep? Its actually none of those. They are all important, but they are not the single most important factor. The single most important factor in body transformation success is
*drumroll please*
Your social circle! Yep, its more important that what you eat. Its more important than your exercise routine, and more important than your sleep. Why? Because it determines all those factors.
Original source: here.
What do I mean by your social circle? I mean its the 5 or so people that you spend the most time with. Usually, thats a spouse, coworkers, and friends.
The what to eat is important but its not like you dont already know what to eat. More protein, more veggies, less junk. It aint complicated. Putting it into action IS complicated IF your social circle isnt conducive to that.
Imagine this: you want to lose weight, get toned, and have more energy. You start eating healthier, and going to the gym 3-4 times per week. But heres what your social circle looks like:
- Your spouse is a great cook. In fact, they are themselves a few pounds overweight. And they cook these delicious, rich meals, and it would be rude for you not to eat them. Theyre delicious. But not very healthy.
- At work, on a Monday morning, everyone shares stories of the amazing restaurants they went to over the weekend, and what (and how much) they ate. Or in the summer, they might have gone to the cottage, had a few beers, and relaxed by the lake, while reading a book.
- Your friends watched a sporting event, late at night, while having wings and a few beers. Or they had a girls night, where they had a few glasses of wine, gossiped, and shared recipes. This happens 1-3 times per week.
Original source: here.
In this kind of environment, what do you think will happen to your attempts to eat right and exercise? You might be able to pull it off for a few weeks. But for that to become a regular lifestyle is extremely unlikely, and will take lots of effort. Why? Because your social circle is holding you back. Imagine:
- Its Monday morning, and your coworkers are sharing stories of their epic pigfest over the weekend, but youre newly health conscious, and you didnt eat badly at all over the weekend. While theyre sharing their pig-out stories, you feel left out.
- Your friends go out for food and drinks, they all order beer and wings. You order a chicken salad, and a glass of water. You either feel left out, or worse, your friends make fun of you.
How much of this can you take before you revert back to your old ways? For most people, not much.
Now imagine a different scenario:
- Your spouse is a great cook. They love looking up healthy recipes and trying new things to make. They are conscious of how much oil they use and how much sugar they use. They want to make the healthiest possible choices, without sacrificing taste.
- Your coworkers hobbies are golfing, playing tennis, gardening, cycling, running marathons, etc. After a weekend away, the Monday morning conversation is centered around all those activities they did.
- Your friends idea of a good time is getting together for a game of pickup basketball/soccer/tennis, and they do that 1-3 times per week.
Original source: here.
Now, in this scenario, how easy would it be to stick to your nutrition and exercise habits? Virtually effortless. In fact, youd be the weird one if you didnt.
But what do you do if youre closer to scenario #1, than scenario #2? Are you out of luck? Nope. As you know, I dont really write purely theoretical articles, without giving some actionable advice.
So if youre interested (you may not be), how do you build a social circle conducive to your health goals?
Here are a few strategies:
Strategy #1: Start Cooking
If someone else in your household is responsible for the cooking (and their work is not conducive to your goals), you can take matters into your own hands and start cooking for yourself.
If you dont know how, either take a class, or go on Youtube.
Of course, if that person whos responsible for cooking in your house is supportive of your goals, even better.
Strategy #2: Get an Activity Partner
If all of your friends like to do activities that arent conducive to your goals, get an activity partner who would be up for doing something physical. So just think what do you enjoy doing thats physical? Do you like playing tennis (or would like to learn how to play tennis)? Do you like rock climbing? Do you like hiking? Do you want to shoot hoops?
Then, all you have to do is post on Facebook (or your social media of choice) looking for a tennis partner. Whos interested? Most of the time, youll have no problem finding at least one person willing to play.
If there are no takers, look on websites that specifically match people of similar interests together. A couple of examples would be meetup.com and Eventbrite.ca.
Start attending those events on a regular basis, and eventually youll meet other regulars, and voila you have a social circle conducive to your goals.
Strategy #3: Hire a Personal Trainer
You cant be surprised that I included this one in there, are you?
Of course, this makes sense. If your life at home and work isnt conducive to your goals, then you buy a friend. If the trainer is someone youre seeing 2-3 times per week, thats a fairly significant amount of time spent, which moves your social circle in the right direction. Oh, and as a benefit, you actually get professional guidance on your body composition. If only you knew a personal trainer
Strategy #4: Speak to Your HR Manager
Whats the role of the human resources manager? To make sure theres a good work environment. If there are enough people at the office who want more healthy initiatives, then bring that forward towards the HR manager, and who knows maybe there will be healthier options in the cafeteria/lunch room, maybe there will be on-site fitness classes, or seminars, etc.
After all, whats the worst that can happen? They just say no. No harm done.
And there you go now you know how to revamp your social circle in a way that is conducive to your goals, so you dont have to feel like youre living a double life. One life thats health conscious, and another that is the complete opposite.
