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What is an accountability partner? In fitness, it’s someone you workout with that holds you accountable for your workout. It’s not that you make them your boss or your guardian, it’s just the courtesy you extend to a friend. If you know you’re meeting someone at the gym, you’ll be more likely to go. They’re also accountable to you for the same reason. There are huge benefits from working out with another person, besides the fact that you’ll be more accountable to go to the workout.

Personal trainers act as accountability partners.

You make an appointment with a trainer, just as you do with other professionals, and you’re more apt to go to that appointment than you would if you were simply going to the gym. Besides the fact that the trainer has a great deal of knowledge that helps you get fit faster and creates the right workout for you, it’s one of the reasons people are more successful when they use a personal trainer. He or she is that person’s accountability partner. Yours could be a friend or a family member. You could also have more than one. If you’re going to group training, find a friend to go with you, then you’ll have both the trainer and the friend.

You can have fun with an accountability partner and still get a good workout.

If you’re the competitive type, you might find yourself working harder or pushing further just to get one up on your partner. It’s healthy, friendly competition that will drive both of you. If you’re not competitive, you might find that commiserating together over tough workouts or cheer each other onto to a successful completion.

An accountability partner can provide more safety and some good insight into a workout.

You can’t be perfect at everything, that’s why four eyes and ears are better than two and two heads are better than one. If you’re working with an accountability partner, he or she can often fill in the gaps on anything you missed while watching a workout or learning a routine. You do the same for them. They also provide more safety for sports like weight lifting or a safety net when running early in the morning or at dusk.

• You’ll be more likely to push harder and accomplish goals when you have an accountability partner. People tend to do more when they know someone is watching.
• Not only does an accountability partner provide an appointment for a workout, they make a workout more fun. Time goes more quickly and you barely notice how hard you’re working, so you tend to work longer.
• If you’re working out at a gym on your own, an accountability partner can provide interesting input on exercises they’ve tried, for more variety.
• Working with an accountability partner makes you more adventurous. You tend to try new types of workouts and alternative methods of exercise.

If you though only women were prone to eating disorders, think again. Today, the rise in male eating disorders is disturbing. In fact, one in every three people with an eating disorder is a male. It occurs for the some of the same reasons female eating disorders occur, but many have the added burden of trying to hide their disorder and avoiding seeking help, since it’s often thought of as primarily a “problem faced by women, not men.”The type of disorders are the same and include binge-eating disorder, anorexia and bulimia. These, especially anorexia, can affect males as young as 8.

Just like their female counterparts, it starts with societies vision of the perfect body image.

You don’t find overweight and flabby men who flaunt sex-appeal and attractiveness in commercials. Check out GI Joe action figures. They’re buff with the perfect V and if they were human, would have no body fat. Little boys look at the images presented by society as the ideal physique and hope to achieve those unattainable results. It’s similar to young girls idealizing the bodies of Barbie dolls, who would have a bust line that’s 39 inches, a waist that’s 18 inches, hips that were 33 inches, a shoe size of three and she’d be 5’9″ in height if you used the same proportions of her body.

Men have another disorder that’s more a male thing.

Men who have eating disorders may also have an unsatisfied need to develop huge muscles. I use the term unsatisfied, because no matter how buff they are, it’s never enough. They may even see themselves as skinny or underweight. This dysfunction is called muscle dysmorphia and is seem often in body builders. It reflects a compulsion to build muscle tissue, spurring the individual to spend hours at the gym bulking up, eating an odd selection of foods specifically to build muscles, spending far too much on supplements and even taking dangerous substances to enhance muscle building, such as steroids.

It’s not just how those with eating disorders view the media hype that causes these problems.

While media hype may put the “perfect” body in front of men, there’s more going on than just blindly following society’s perception of perfection. Many of those suffering from it have other issues, like lower self-esteem and feeling out of control and helpless. Controlling their weight and the way they look may be their way of regaining control of their life. Perfectionism tends to be a trait that these men have in common.

• Eating disorders are linked to depression and other mental issues. While it’s unclear, which came first, the disorder or the depression, one thing is certain, those with eating disorders have a disproportionately higher incidence of anxiety disorder, depression and substance abuse.
• Watch for signs of danger, such as extreme dieting, weight loss and over exercising for those with anorexia and bulimia. Anyone who binges frequently, may be the start of binging. If you notice the obsession with food has affected other areas of life, that man may need the help of a professional.
• People with bulimia don’t necessarily share an issue of perfectionism with anorexics, but rather have a more spontaneous and impulsive nature.
• If you recognize yourself or others in any of the descriptions, seek help. These disorders can damage organs, like the brain, heart and bones. Karen Carpenter, famous for her singing in the 70s and 80s both solo and part of the group, the Carpenter’s, died of heart damage attributed to anorexia at the age of 32.

You don’t spend yur entire day in the gym or with your personal trainer, so for the times you’re on your own, consider using technology as an aid. There are great apps to help you stay fit that can track your food intake or steps, help you make smarter choices in food and provide a host of other help. One of my favorites is RunKeeper. This app tracks you as you run and gives you information about things like distance, pace, number of calories burned and time. It offers audio coaching with a tool to share socially.

Fuducate helps you make smarter decisions when it comes to food.

Just like a personal trainer, this app doesn’t provide a diet, but teaches you how to make smarter decisions when it comes to buying food. What’s even better is that it makes label reading easier by providing a tool that scans the bar code and instantly provides all the ingredients, healthy alternatives and nutritional facts about each product on the shelf. There’s a database of 200,000 products, so it spans most of the choices available. It also has food tracking tools as well as a grocery list.

Get the beat to keep you moving.

Some of my clients love to exercise “freeform” on the days they’re not at the gym. Some do simple calisthenics at home, others run, while many often dance to fast music putting their heart and soul in each movement. There’s nothing wrong with those options. Just walking is good for the heart, so you can imagine how great boogying down can be for cardio. Fit Radio provides non-stop streaming high-energy music that will make your workout easier and fun.

Paprika helps you eat healthy and is good for your budget.

Do you find yourself stumped when it comes to grocery shopping and even more confused when you’re trying to decide what to eat. This app helps you plan meals and even helps you shop. You can save recipes on it and make a record of the food you have already. That way when you choose the recipes you want to make, it can tell you the ingredients you need. You can plan meals for a week or for as much as a month, so there’s no last minute quest to figure what’s for supper, which might otherwise end up as less than healthy.

IEatWell is an app that focuses on how well you eat providing rewards for eating healthy judged by what you tell it you’re eating or the photo you provide.

Fooducate helps educate you on how healthy food is, grading it on its nutritious value. It also helps you find the healthiest foods.

Eat This Much first learns your eating goals and food preferences, then makes suggestions with recipes also based on the number of meals you eat daily and the amount of calories you want to consume.

If you want help creating workouts at home, the Johnson & Johnson Official 7 minute workout app will provide them. It not only has the original 7-minute workout, it also has many others that vary in length and intensity.

There are good reasons to workout in the morning. That doesn’t mean that if morning is an impossibility for you that you should skip the gym and give up, just that if you’re one of those people who have the ability to choose between a morning workout and another time of day, choose the morning. Normally, the gym is less crowded and you’re not yet wound up in the dramas of the day, so it creates a peaceful atmosphere, like a mini vacation with sweat.

You’ll jump start your metabolism for the day.

Whether you’re a morning person or not, an early morning workout gets your body going. I’ve had clients that told me it takes several cups of coffee and about two hours before they could mumble cohesive sentences whom I convinced to come to the earliest session. Their day was already hectic and a workout became harder to fit into their schedule as each hour passed. Each one of them took me up on the challenge and each one of them were amazed at how different they felt once they did. One study at Brigham Young University showed that when people worked out in the morning, they were more active the rest of the day. Another showed they burnt more calories throughout the day than those who didn’t exercise early.

When you workout early, you’ll be more likely to be consistent.

You know it yourself, as the day wears on, there are new demands on your time. A project can run overtime and before you know it, you’ve missed your workout session. Getting an early bird start avoids many of the conflicts that occur throughout the day. If you’re the checklist type of person, you’ve checked it off your list and can focus the rest of your day on other things.

You’ll become a human dynamo.

Even though you go into the workout with one eye closed, it will soon change before the end of the first set. While you might want that first cup of coffee to make it to the workout, once the workout begins, your body will provide the wake up call and become the source of energy. Studies show that exercise is a better stimulant than even coffee. It gets the blood circulating and wakes up the mind. That super zip to your step is one reason you shouldn’t exercise at night or you’ll find it hard to fall asleep. The water you drink to rehydrate also provides more energy than coffee.

You’ll do a better job throughout the day and be mentally quicker. One study shows that a brisk workout can boost your cognitive abilities by 12 percent. Coffee only gives a 6 percent boost.

Do you shower in the morning? Then a morning workout actually saves you the time it takes. You’ll get your after workout shower/hair/make-up prep and morning shower all at the same time.

Start your day with a smile. Sure you’ll face many challenges and rigors of the day, but you’ll have the happy hormones on your side that the body creates during a workout.

You’ll get many health benefits, one of which is lower blood pressure. One study at Appalachian State University showed that people who worked out in the morning had the benefit of lowering their blood pressure by 10 percent and that not only stayed lower throughout the day, lowered to up to 25 percent at night.

You can get back on the fitness wagon, but the longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes. It’s not impossible, but don’t expect to pick up where you left off when it comes to fitness. Every week you don’t workout, your level of fitness goes backward. A study at the University of Copenhagen tested not only how much muscle mass was lost by inactivity, but also how long it took to regain it. After having one leg immobilized for two weeks in a knee brace, men in their 20s lost between 22 percent and 34 percent of the muscle strength, while those in their 60s and 70s lost between 20 and 26 percent. It took six weeks of regular exercise to regain muscle mass, but their leg strength was still 5 percent to ten percent lower than when the study began.

It may take a little longer than planned but you can do it.

Don’t expect to hop of the couch and run a marathon, but do expect to see results quickly with the right program. As a personal trainer, I create programs that help people maximize the time they spend working out and get the most from each session at the gym. You’ll build muscle mass while you shed pounds. The longer you workout, the better your results will be.

Losing weight is easier with a program of regular exercise.

One of the reasons that exercise is so beneficial to weight loss is that it builds muscle tissue. Increasing muscle tissue not only tones your body, it also burns calories faster. That’s because muscle tissue requires more calories than fat tissue does, so you’ll be boosting your metabolism and burning extra calories 24/7. You’ll look slimmer too, even if you never lost a pound. One cubic inch of muscle tissue weighs far more than a cubic inch of fat, so it takes up less space. It’s like comparing the container for a pound of metal to one for a pound of feathers. The feather container will be much larger.

Find out that working out can be fun.

You may start out dreading your new journey back to fitness, but you shouldn’t. It actually can be a lot of fun. It doesn’t have to be all calisthenics and push-ups. There are many new ways of exercising that you’ll enjoy and even look forward to doing. Working out with a group also increases the fun and motivation. Everyone supports one another and cheers each other on to victory.

You’ll burn off the hormones created by stress. That clears your head and leaves you feeling far better. One of the hormones, cortisol, is associated with the accumulation of abdominal fat, so you’ll shed fat there too.

You’ll improve your posture quickly. That improved posture also makes you look thinner and more confident.

When you combine a healthy diet with regular exercise, you’ll see dramatic results quickly and watch pounds seem to fall away.

No matter when you start a fitness program, it can help you live longer and healthier. One study noted that for every minute you workout, you’ll get seven minutes more of healthy life.