Get yourself a health buddy

June 25th, 2007 | Being Uber Healthy

I feel really lucky to have a few close friends in my professional and personal life who are very health conscious, probably even more health conscious than me! One of the great things about these friendships is it gives me someone to talk to about being healthy, someone to shop with at the markets or health food stores, and even someone to be a little bit competitive with. Last night I made myself a really healthy dinner of organic steamed veges and brown rice. When I was cooking I was thinking, ‘ha, I bet I’m the healthiest one tonight!’.

My point is, get yourself a health buddy. Someone who can give you encouragement, someone you can share tips with and maybe even someone you can compete with to be the healthiest. If I was the only healthy person I know, I would feel a little bit like a crazy health freak. But at least I have a few people in my life who I know are just as crazy as me.

A few reasons why you need a health buddy

Whatever your motivation is to being healthy, whether you’re just starting out or maybe you’ve always been healthy, having support from another healthy person is great. The support can be things like sharing tips on how to deal with junk food cravings, help with what exercise to do or maybe sharing tips on what natural body products you’ve tried.
I’m not very motivated when it comes to exercising on my own, unless it’s a very solo sport like swimming. I love combining social and sport together so I skate with an inline skating group a couple of times a week, go to the same yoga as a couple of friends and walk or cycle with a girlfriend when we’ve got time. The best part of social sport is stopping into a cafe after and sharing a meal (super healthy food or not, you just did some exercise!).
My work health buddy has been really handy too, especially during my sugar free diets. At times when I’ve been eyeing off that cake for somebody’s birthday, she’s looked at my sternly and said ‘no Fran’. Not that I have to listen to her, but geez it helps keep me focused.
I’m a little bit of a competitive person so I find the competition to keep up with my healthy friends a great motivator. When I get a bit lazy with my diet or can’t be bothered to start that regular yoga and meditation I keep meaning to do, I think of my healthy friends and how their great diets or daily yoga has paid off and I want to be just like them! Note, I’m still working on this one.

So, thanks health buddies - you know who you are. Thanks for the chats on spirituality, thanks for the motivation to switch to organic foods, thanks for showing me that I’m not a freak for almost completely giving up alcohol (yeah, it’s the new black, didn’t you know?) and thanks for all the support when I’ve needed it :-).

Frances Kerr

Fran Kerr is the founding editor of High on Health. To cure your acne, sign up to Fran's FREE acne cure mini-course or download her latest how to guide, Eat Away Your Acne.