Picture this with me- it’s the first day of kindergarten, you’re super fly with your sexy overalls, your shoes light up and they conveniently match your bedazzled top. Your teacher assembles all of the kids to head towards the cafeteria as she says the words “buddy system!!” so no one gets lost, duh!
Buddy system has been around since the beginning of time!! One could say it’s freaking timeless 😉 It holds us accountable, prevents us from getting lost and everything is just better with a buddy. So there’s that.
Meet my buddy, Ruthie. She’s absolutely hilar (like I may have peed my pants a couple of times…). We are OBSESSED with all the same things, we could talk exercise and nutrition for dayzzzz and she has been the best thing that has ever happened to my workout life- like for realz! Before her, I was workout-lost. I would jump on some train for like a month, get bored, quit, get flabby, decide I need to workout again and do the same thing over and over, for yearssssss.
When I met that blue-eyed beauty, everything changed. Our husbands work together and we both got suckered into a convention they needed to go to in Atlanta. We went to do the whole “supportive wife” thing and had no intentions of falling in friend-love. She had her friends and I had mine. We all drove up together and chatted here and there, but that was the extent.
Once we arrived at the house we were all staying at, I decided (like I do every hour) that I needed a snack. Of course I went full blown psycho crazy girl beforehand and had like four bags of groceries with me because something told me we were going to be hitting up a lot of fast food (blah!). Plug- Be prepared folks!
She saw me put organic jelly and PB2 on a rice cake and our eyes locked. It was like we knew; I offered her one and that was it, BFFLs from that point on, it was almost like a friendship rice cake offering (we’re weird-clearly). That trip we talked about a bajillion things and really encouraged our already hardcore healthy habits like organic tampons and even moon cups were brought up a time or two 😉 (do your research). Needless to say, we got close pretty fast.
We started talking “working out” and realized we were both into the same types of fitness. I was a loner “worker outer” and so was she. We compared schedules and solidified times and decided we would meet five times a week and hit the ground running- literally. We got gym memberships and matching polar watches and were basically too cool for school. That was two years ago this July….
Since then, we have stayed pretty consistent. Sometimes our schedules are too crazy and we don’t see each other for a week, but we text back and forth to keep each other accountable. We send super cute/gross sweaty selfies to each other when we are done working out as proof (I have a bank of photos saved on my phone- jk, jk 😉 ).
We have done a ton of different workout plans together and are constantly switching it up since we do get bored easily, so each week looks pretty different. We’ve done Yoga, Pilates, TRX, 30 Day Shred, bootcamps, running, walking, stretching, and Bikini Body Guide. We have been SUPER guilty of going to the gym and doing nothing, but laying on the ground and chatting for like two hours, so don’t think we are massively productive all the time. Regardless, those talks made a HUGE impression on me though. They honestly shaped so much of what The Balance Culture is now and what it will be in the future.
Working out with a buddy is just more fun, too! There have been a bajillion times when I haven’t wanted to workout out, but I made the commitment, so we met up and we had so much fun! It makes it seem more like hanging out and less like a chore. It usually flies by and if it doesn’t, then there is something there that is dying just as much as I am 😉 . So, pretty much we are two peas in a pretty and freakin’ fit pod!
Find a workout buddy, peeps!!! Even if you aren’t able to meet every day of the week, hold each other accountable and send selfie pics of your sweaty self. I promise you will workout so much more than you would have if you were alone and boring… I mean bored 😉 .
