Are You Summer Body Ready?

Have you been sun inspired last weekend?

We all want to look awesome on the beach, right?! Well here’s a start to your holiday checklist to help you on the way to your ‘summer body!’

1/ Plan, start and benchmark

Write down a plan of action, something you can commit to, and that fits around your busy lifestyle. Perhaps you can team up with a friend for support and extra motivation.

We all have a starting point, Make this yours. If we start now we will be further towards our goal than if we don’t.

Identify your baseline- where your current health and fitness levels are. You can do this with numerous tests for example how many press ups or lunges you can do in 1 minute, or how long you can hold a plank, or a wall sit. Additionally, you can take body measurements using a tape measure to refer back to. From here make it one of your goals to beat this in a months’ time.

2/ Set Realistic goals

These goals must be your own and personable to you, and not someone else’s. Your friend may want to lose 3 stone but that is their goal not yours so come up with a goal relevant and important to yourself. It maybe you want to drop a dress size, be confident in a bikini, or lose a certain number of pounds. Your goal needs to be achievable in your given timeframe. So, if you have a holiday booked for August and your goal is to lose a stone then this gives you 3 months to lose a sensible 1-2lbs a week and achieve your end goal. If however, you don’t start now, then with a month to go you decide you really need to get on it- you are not very likely to achieve this goal. In addition to not achieving your goal, you may be in the mindset that you haven’t done what you said you were going to do, so carry on as you have been and have a blowout on holiday, as what’s the point in starting now!?

3/ Sleep

Make sure you are getting enough sleep! A lack of sleep can send your hormones all over the place and lead to weight gain. The hormone ghrelin tells you when you are hungry, and a lack of sleep may send it into overdrive, and the hormone cortisol encourages us to store fat around our midsection which is produced when we are stressed i.e. after not getting enough sleep. A good quality 6-8 hours sleep will make you less likely to snack as your energy levels will be up, so less dependent on food.

4/ Eat right

We believe in following the 80-20 rule, that if 80% of your diet is good combined with exercise, then it is absolutely fine to treat yourself the other 20% of the time. You don’t need to be on some crazy calorie restricting diet, you can still achieve your goals and feel happy along the way. Choose protein rich foods to help keep you fuller for longer, help those muscle fibres repair after a workout which can help boost your metabolism and also help stabilise blood sugar levels, so you are less likely to crave sugary foods.

5/ Stretch

Incorporate stretching into your plan, targeting the muscles you are using during your workouts. This will reduce your risk of injury and muscle soreness the next day and makes sure nothing holds you back hitting your goal. It will also help give you a better posture.

7/ Fitness Friday

Exercise before you go out on a Friday night. You will have burned the extra calories already that you may consume that evening, and the endorphins will make you feel really good. You may even end up making better choices...

8/ Playlist

Add songs to your playlist that are motivating and really want to make you move to get you ‘in the zone’. Loud songs with a fast beat and good bass may help push you to work out for longer at a higher intensity.

9/ Flavoured teas

Try some flavoured teas as an alternative to sugary fizzy drinks. There are so many to chose from, each providing a variety of minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. Research suggests green tea contributes to weight and fat loss, and peppermint tea can help reduce stomach bloating. A favourite of mine at the moment which I find helps reduce a sweet craving is coconut and chocolate green tea!!

10/ Just do it!

Everybody always talks about getting their bodies beach ready, so what are you doing? Don’t make excuses, stay focused on your goal and action it!

Combine a few cardio sessions with a few resistance training sessions each week focusing on large muscle groups. Try including a HIIT session which increases your metabolism after working out due to an oxygen debt being created during the workout. This means the body continues to use energy and break down fat stores to get back to its original resting state.

Incorporate some of the points above into your daily routine to start making progress towards your summer goals. Excuses only waste your time, a little hard work on the exercise and discipline front can start to make you feel happy and confident about strutting your stuff around the pool, making others look!!

Start at your own level and build up from there, this may be going out for a brisk walk and working up to a jog/run using intervals or heading down the gym and trying a class or some resistance exercises. Mix it up and do things you enjoy!

Here at Build a Body we provide classes and boot camp circuits during the day and evening along with Personal Training sessions, which you can buddy up with a friend as well. We can also arrange small group sessions if there are a few you wanting to work out to hit your goals and support each other together. Come and talk to us, and book in for a free consultation and taster session. Let us know how we can help you and support you to look fab this summer.