Since the Internet first went public, people have been using message groups, bulletin boards and forums to form communities dedicated to losing weight and leading a healthier lifestyle.
Now with the rise of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media players, people are more equipped than ever when it comes to finding and maintaining the perfect fitness plans to meet their individual needs.
Social media may not be the best place to find some serious medical advice (please turn to doctors when you have an actual health problem) but it’s an awesome place to find motivation and inspiration when it comes to living healthy and fit.
Facebook offers great tools for researching different kinds of fitness regimes, as groups talking about various healthy living plans tend to congregate on these sites to talk about their experiences.
An added bonus of using this platform is that you can easily find and become part of a support network made up of people trying to achieve similar goals to yourself, something which can be an incredible motivator for people who are having a hard time sticking to their plans.
Quick tip: Grab your close friends and create a closed Facebook group to motivate each other to eat healthy and get fit!
Twitter is less personal than Facebook meaning that you are very likely connected to strangers but at the same time it makes it the easiest to monitor your favorite topics.
- I use Twitter lists to create combines feeds to monitor my favorite healthy living accounts
- I use hashtags to track random tips and articles to discover new healthy lifestyle blogs and read outside of my chosen resources from time to time:
- #healthyfood
- #letsmove
- #asana
- #paleo
- #fittip
To better organize those feeds, I use a separate Cyfe dashboard that combines all those hashtags and lists together.
Another amazing source of fitness inspiration and motivation is Instagram. I don’t follow too many people there (because I am selective) but I have added a few trusted accounts that always inspire me to challenge myself.
Speaking of that, Instagram is a great way to discover and join fitness and healthy challenges that help a lot in diversifying your life and offering you new memorable experiences. Here are a few examples:
- #abchallenge: This one encourages you to work on your abs
- #yogachallenge: This one helps you discover new yoga poses and tips
- #jmplankchallenge from @jillianmichaels: This one teaches you to hold a plank for 5 minutes
Youtube Vloggers
As anyone who has ever tried to lose unwanted weight will know, half of the battle is finding a technique which works well for you.
This is where YouTube comes in extremely handy, as there are a huge amount of people who use Vlogs to chronicle their own weight loss experiences, with some even going so far as to provide videos showing others how to perform certain types of exercises, or how to cook certain types of food.
Most of my workouts are being powered by Facebook fitness trainers with these being my favorite ones:
- GymRa Plus
- Becky Overbeck
- POPSUGAR Fitness
- ICON UK
- BodyFit By Amy
Niche Social Networks
For those who need even more support, there are specialist social networks that are completely dedicated to various types of fitness groups, such as MyFitnessPal or Fitbit which not only provide a place for like minded people to meet up and discuss their fitness regimes, but also presents tracking tools so that individual users can document their progress and more easily share that information with other people online (if they want to do so).
Never before was it that easy to find great fitness experts and connect to them. Starting a fitness site is a breeze, and getting found online is doable through personal branding and building local citations.
One of the best aspects of social media in terms of living a healthy lifestyle, is that it encourages people to be consistent in their regime. This is because if people’s friends know that they are trying to lose weight or sculpt their muscles, they are quite likely to use social media outlets to ask how they are doing, or to share videos, radio shows and blog articles they think may be helpful.
These small daily affirmations from friends and family can make all the difference when people are struggling to reach their goals.
Whilst only you have the power to take the steps that will lead to a healthier lifestyle, you don’t need to do it alone. Social media provides the perfect opportunity to learn from others, whilst sharing the burdens of your journey, making it a very useful accomplice to any fitness regime.
Image source: Pixabay