Is your New Year’s Resolution to lose weight?

If so, you’ll most likely be more successful IF you enlist a girlfriend in dieting and exercising with you. See this article from Prevention magazine, then call up a girlfriend and started on making 2009 a healthier year with your best friend!

Weight Loss x 2

You’ll drop pounds faster and keep them off longer if you team up with a buddy. Six dieters show you how.

By Karen Cicero

Anyone who enjoys a sport like tennis or golf knows that having a partner who plays as well as you do–or even better–motivates you to practice more and play harder. “So why wouldn’t that same dynamic work for people who diet together?” wondered Rena Wing, PhD, a behavioral scientist at Brown University.

To test her theory, Wing studied 109 people who wanted weight loss, and their diet partners. Sure enough, she found that those who had successful diet partners dropped twice as many pounds after a year of serious weight loss effort than those who dieted on their own. But men and women whose diet partners dropped the ball and gave up were no more likely to shed pounds than those who tried losing solo, says Wing, one of the founders of the National Weight Control Registry, a group of more than 4,000 people who have dropped at least 30 pounds and kept it off for a year or more.

The diet partners in Wing’s study knew each other, but weight loss support doesn’t have to be one-on-one or even face-to-face. In fact, the latest trend is having a virtual buddy, one you can keep in your pocket or e-mail in the middle of the night. Here, six successful dieters talk about the buddies who helped them meet their goals–and point the way for you to imitate their success.

Chat Room Cheerleader

Alicia Wilson, 35 Height/Weight: 5′8″, 184 lb Diet Buddy: eDiets.com Lost: 63 lb Gained: The ability to jog, and the confidence to do it in public

Two years ago, Alicia Wilson’s 4-year-old daughters made an announcement that motivated her to take action. “They told me they wanted to be fat, just like me,” recalls Wilson, a stay-at-home mom who weighed nearly 265 pounds at the time. “They were being affectionate, but my heart sank. I didn’t want my kids to grow up with the same low self-esteem I had.”

However, during that period, Wilson was slowly losing weight without really trying. Since moving with her family from California to Grandfield, OK, a year earlier, she had dropped 20 pounds. The farming community of 900 people doesn’t have a single fast-food restaurant, so her burger-and-fries habit had suddenly become history. But there was one real drawback to the change of address: The town doesn’t have a single weight loss support group, either.

Exercising with Kids

Wilson found a compromise in eDiets.com, a weight loss Web site with 247,000 subscribers as of March 2005. In October 2003, Wilson logged on, selecting the eDiets plan from the more than 15 options, ranging from Atkins to vegetarian. Within minutes of entering her height, weight (then 247 pounds), and 60-pound weight loss goal, she received a week’s worth of 2,200-calorie menus, shopping lists, and a workout schedule. Today she walks or jogs 40 minutes 3 or 4 days a week, and strength-trains 3 or 4 days a week. At the end of each week, Wilson logs in her weight on eDiets.com, which adjusts her daily calorie level (she’s now at 1,600) and provides new menus.

The aspect of eDiets.com that has helped Wilson the most is the 24-7 chat room. Being able to check in with someone at the very moment she’s struggling with temptation has made all the difference in her weight loss. “One night early on, I was in a chat room at midnight trying to stop myself from eating leftover pizza,” recalls Wilson. “Talking to other members about everything from celebrity gossip to shopping took my mind off food.” Wilson has augmented the member support with e-mails and phone calls to the Web site’s diet and fitness experts, who are available by phone 13 hours every day.

The greatest benefit of Wilson’s “Net loss” is her relationship with her daughters, who now want to be fit, too. “They often ask, ‘Mom, can you come bounce on the trampoline with us?’ and I say, ‘Let’s go!’”

eDiets.com Price: About $8 per week.

Research results: Mixed. One in-house, 2-year study of 244 members found that everyone had lost weight at 6 months no matter how often they went online, but those who checked in most often lost the most weight. An independent study published last year by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania comparing eDiets.com with a diet manual found that participants following the book were slightly more successful. However, those who interacted with eDiets.com did so only minimally.

Pros: Around-the-clock nutrition and fitness chat rooms; meal plans tailored to your food preferences; fitness plans adjusted to your exercise level; frequent e-mails with recipes, shopping lists, news, and tips.

Cons: You may not receive weight loss support from the same person each time.

Best for: People who don’t live near a weight loss support group, travel a lot, appreciate anonymity, or sometimes need middle-of-the-night advice.

For the full article visit: Weight Loss and Diet Partners – Prevention.com.

There also are a lot of diet books and exercise books/equipment that can help you and your girlfriend get in shape in 2009.

Partner with a girlfriend and make 2009 the year you both get healthy together!

See Amazon.com’s list of Top 10 Resolutions and find out which ones are getting the most customer votes!

Related articles: New Year Resolutions Girlfriend Gifts, what I should have done in 2008 and Start 2009 out STRONG!

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Tags: dieting, eDiets.com, girlfriends, health, New Year Resolutions, Weight loss

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Be a Better FRIEND. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.