Create Healthy Habits Through Strength in Numbers

R. Aimee Ando, DO, a family medicine physician at Penn Family Medicine University City, discusses how a “partner in health” can help you achieve your goals.

Working in primary care, I have the privilege of learning a person’s most intimate hopes and challenges on a daily basis. Conversations with my patients often revolve around healthy lifestyle changes - eating sensible portions and more fruits and vegetables, exercising, quitting smoking - and the seemingly insurmountable barriers to achieving such goals.

I believe there is a better way to tackle these challenges. And that is by not doing it alone. Changing habits often works best when done with someone else, whether it be your spouse or significant other, a workout “buddy,” or with a group of like-minded individuals.

These four tips will help you and your partner get on the road to good health:

• No more excuses: We are social beings and at our core do not want to let others down. We often thrive on the support that a “partner in health” can provide. Having someone to whom one feels accountable keeps us motivated and committed.
• Choose wisely: Find someone who you like and who has an upbeat attitude. If you are single or if your spouse/significant other is not up for the challenge, broaden your scope. Look to friends or work colleagues with similar exercise schedules to go walk the neighborhood or hit the gym. Working out together can push you to keep moving and dig deeper than when solo. A little healthy competition can go a long way! And don’t give up hope on that spouse at home still sitting on the couch. The positive changes that you make in your own life often inspire those closest to you.
• Create fun incentives: Establishing rewards for your hard work can be a great motivator. If you are committed to quit smoking with your partner, make a separate fund with the money saved from cigarettes and use the funds for a getaway or something special for the house. The reward can even be psychological: sign up and train for a 5K run/walk a few months ahead and set a schedule that you both will stick to. Setting tangible markers of success helps you to keep your eye on the prize.
• Make it fit your reality: What works for some does not always work for others. As parents of two very young children, my husband and I rarely have time to do anything together, much less go off to the gym. Nonetheless, we block off time and space during the week when each of us gets to have her/his own time to be active while the other one watches the kids. And we don’t let the other one back out of it either. It can be so “easy” to make excuses, but when you make your own health a priority, those you love may make their health a priority too!

You never have to go it alone. We have learned time and again that when we partner with people who are more active, think positively, and eat well, we are more likely to do the same. So go ahead and be contagious!

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