Getting bariatric surgery can give your social life a major overhaul. The way you spend your free time will have to change if you want to lose weight. Spending hours on the couch with your family after work, getting together with friends for lunch on the weekends, grabbing a treat on Friday afternoons with your kids—these are all small actions that add up over time.
After weight loss surgery, habits like these have to modified, and you’ll need to incorporate more healthy habits into your daily schedule. This usually means cutting down on sedentary activity, but it doesn’t have to mean cutting down on time spent with loved ones. While adding more “you” time to your day can help with stress management, turning your workout into a social outing can provide a world of its own benefits.
Safety in Numbers: How Friends Can Boost Your Workouts
Picture this scenario: You’ve had a long day at work and your gym bag is sitting in your car. You get on the road and immediately get stuck in traffic. As you inch along the highway any remaining ambition you had to actually go to the gym dwindles. Instead, you head straight home and skip your workout.
Now change it up. You aren’t just going to the gym to work out on your own. Three of your closest friends are meeting you at the park. You are planning on walking several miles while catching up on your week. After an hour you get back in the car, feeling rejuvenated and ready to head home and spend quality time with your family.
This is the difference that working out with friends can make. There is no accountability to go to the gym by yourself, no draw to working out on a treadmill all alone for an hour. But when you add friends to the occasion staying home becomes tougher. Instead of just rationalizing your decision in your head, cancelling involves picking up the phone and providing an explanation.
Exercise is going to be a fundamental aspect of your life after getting your gastric band, so you might as well try to enjoy it. Don’t push yourself to suffer through workouts you can’t stand. Get your friends involved and find ways to get fit that are fun to you.
Walking, jogging, bike riding and swimming are all great aerobic activities that can be done outside with a few buddies. If you are up for something more organized, try joining a non-competitive sports team. Playing basketball, soccer or kickball a few hours a week is another way to add more fitness to your lifestyle without making it feel like so much of a workout.
