Are Your
Overweight Friends
in the Way?
Article by
Author of
TURBULENCE TRAINING
-- Craig Ballantyne
--
By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS,
MS
Turbulence Training for Fat
Loss
This article might offend
some folks but the conclusions to a study that was published in
the respected New England Journal of Medicine, was that who you
hang out with does have a effect on your weight.
And then you have another
study, this time by the researchers from Harvard Medical school
who studied a pool of 12,000 people over a period of 32 years
and found that the folks with overweight friends who are obese
had a 57% greater chance of becoming obese themselves. Also,
this research found that friends of the same sex had a bigger
influence on each other than the friends of the opposite
sex.
All these researchers
emphasized in their reports that it wasn't just a common set of
behaviors that lead to obesity, but that the attitudes toward
obesity contributed to the risk. In so many words... if you
hang around friends who think "it's no big deal" to be obese...
guess what? Your risk of allowing yourself to gain weight
increases due to social conditioning of the people you like to
be around.
Makes sense to
you?
But the "social ring" can be
a double sided sword. Just as "social obesity" is contagious,
so is "social fitness." I know that a lot of my friends are fit
and healthy because they hang around me (a fitness expert). And
when my friends see what I have in my kitchen and how I
approach training (with bodyweight strength exercises and
interval training), they start doing the same things. And I've
noticed that as soon as one of them makes significant
improvements in their fitness, several others start getting
serious results too.
So, if you suspect that you
and your friends are unwittingly sabotaging each other's
efforts to lose weight
and get fit, maybe you can become the catalyst for improving
everyone's health. But first, you should connect with a group
of individuals who are collectively working toward their
fitness goals.
For starters, it isn't that
hard to find an online source of social support. There are
dozens of forums and message boards on the Internet that are
supportive and set up for this very purpose. Gyms are
everywhere, and they are full of friendly, helpful fitness
enthusiasts.
Click here =>
Turbulence Training
Craig Ballantyne
Author, Turbulence Training
About the
Author:
Craig Ballantyne is
a Certified Strength & Conditioning
Specialist and writes for Men's Health,
Men's Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle
and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines.
His trademarked Turbulence Training fat
loss workouts have been featured
multiple times in Men’s Fitness and
Maximum Fitness magazines, and have
helped thousands of men and women around
the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get
lean in less than 45 minutes three times
per week. For more information on the
Turbulence Training workouts that will
help you burn fat without long, slow
cardio sessions or fancy equipment,
visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com
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