Personal Fitness Goals in a Relationship: Love and Support?

Getting up early for a run but your partner wants to sleep in? Going to the gym after work but your partner just stays on the couch? Cooking a healthy dinner while your partner orders take away? That’s ok, it’s your goal, you’re the one who wants a healthier body but do you really want to be in your fitness journey alone?

In a study published by the Australian government’s Institute of Family Studies, researchers noted that the longest married couples valued their shared experiences and memories as one of the most important factors in their relationship.

We understand sometimes we have different interests and goals or lack thereof.

A suggestion is to ask your partner to join in at SOME level. For example, get them to ride the bike while you run beside them on the way to the coffee shop. It can also be as simple as a sunset walk on the beach. Adding any type of physical activity as a shared experience will help a relationship.

Exercise will enable your body to produce more feel-good hormones like endorphins (bodies natural opioids) and Endoconnabiniods (improves mood). Exercising together will make you feel happier and maybe even closer.

Still can’t convince your partner to work out with you? Odds are they will still eat with you. It’s not about someone changing their whole diet and missing out on what they want to eat, it’s about loving each other in support of their goals. Having a healthy lifestyle starts in the kitchen. Planning out meals is a way for you to work together. Watching your partner eat pizza and drink beer while you chow down on a nice salad is not supportive. In a previous article, we mentioned about ensuring your environment was “temptation free” in order to have a higher chance of success.

Preparing meals together is another shared experience that can help both parties in a relationship get healthier while spending time together.

Like anything else in a relationship, you and your significant other will have different preferences when it comes to fitness. But don't let those differences keep you from playing active roles in each others journey. Stay supportive and respectful. Establishing boundaries when it comes to encouraging each other to go OFF track. Suggesting a calorie or alcohol binge together is just plain sabotage. Help each other to stay on track instead.

At the end of the day, a loving partner should support your healthy fitness quest. They don’t need to be on the journey with you but if you really want to succeed, they should be supporting and cheering you along.