Want to Lose Weight?

Here’s how to double your chance of success…

Your spouse or partner can help you ditch bad habits. Really help you.

Research from Britain says that when it comes to quitting smoking, exercising more or shedding unwanted pounds, you can actually more than double your chances of success if it’s a joint effort.

Of course, it isn’t exactly a new idea, that support for any goal, whether from a friend, spouse or co-worker, would boost the chance of success. But the degree of that increase is interesting.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, looked at nearly 4,000 married and cohabiting couples over age 50.

For people trying to stop smoking, 48 per cent of men were successful if their partner also quit. This compares with only 8 per cent for people whose partner didn’t ditch the cigarettes.

When it came to exercise, men had a 67 per cent success rate if their spouses became more active. This is compared to 26 per cent for people with couch potato partners.

In both of these situations women had a similar result.

And if you doubt your partner is a bad influence when it comes to caving to late night food cravings, consider this: 36 per cent of women lost weight if their spouses also started dieting. This compared to a 15 per cent success rate for women going it alone. For men the comparison was 26 per cent vs. 10 per cent.

But here’s the thing. Researchers didn’t say if it was having the support from a loving spouse, or, err, the energy of having a close competitor that fueled the success.

My bet: Get your game on.