There is lots of good information out there on how to get a spouse to do just about anything but I wanted to try to put my own spin on it and give you some tools that may help your relationships beyond just helping your mate to get more sexy... um.. I mean healthy!
You know your spouse best so you know if you can come out and say what you're thinking or if you need to be more slick about it.
If you need to be slick about it, I recommend asking him for help with your fitness. For this to work you have to be willing and able to do every workout and eat the diet with him. Tell him you could really use some accountability and you just don't think you can do it without him. Remind him of how happy you both were when you were more fit and healthy.
Success is it's own motivator so you just need to help him or her get the ball rolling. If there has ever been a time when your spouse was more active, or if they are any form of a workaholic, I have a feeling that once he gets a hold of something, they'll usually run with it.
When do you get family time in? What do you do as a family? If you have a television, you have time to workout! Start by turning it off! Make him take a walk with you and the kids after dinner. Take the kids to the local play ground and play with them on the monkey bars for a while; this is the start of pull-ups.
Step this up on the weekends by looking for short hikes up fair hills. Not being able to keep up with your kids can be a great motivator for us middle-aged men! Getting winded will force him to admit and vocalize, "I have got to get myself in shape." BAM! You got'im! Each time he joins you on this, make sure to give him rewards that he can appreciate.
- Words of Praise- Tell them how proud of them you are for sticking with it.
- Physical touch- I find this follows couples as they get more fit
- Gifts- usually small gadgets that support the fitness theme can help here.
- Acts of service- if this is it, ask for his help and support.
- Quality Time- if this were his love language, he wouldn't miss a trip!
Use one of these techniques to let him know how much it means to you that he joined you even for something small at first. Once that's in motion, maybe consider a home workout program like P90X. These programs are great because you don't have to leave your home, you get max results in minimum time, you don't need to tolerate the hassle of a gym, and many of them require little or no equipment (see INSANITY by the makers of P90X).
I brought P90X home for my wife and I several years ago and it has changed our life together. Keep with the praise in the way he receives it best!
As for time management, you may ask him his priorities. Have him rank them in order of what's most important to him. Is health on this list in any form? Later, ask him to check his calendar and assess how much time he spends on each of these priorities. If he spends the most time on the least important thing, it should be an eye opener. If health is on the list but he spends no time towards it, he will have to face that. I find that after this exercise, it's easier to get a person to budget their time proactively rather than letting time boss them around. Time is just like money: You tell it what you're going to do with it or it tells you what's left over.
Looking at your time budgeting proactively, it's easier for a person to look at their calendar and say, "no matter what, I am going to wake up early and exercise 30 minutes per day."
Who cooks the meals and does the shopping? If it's you, stop buying junk and start packing his lunch. I will help you with that in other posts.
Feel free to contact me or Gena if you can't find the information on one of our pages.
Links:
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Love Language Personal Assessment
Amplify Your Relationships with Fitness
The Fountain of Youth
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