Tips On Getting A ‘Summer Body’ Safely
Many people have summer holidays coming up, which they want to look their best for, but let’s be honest, fad diets and quick fixes probably aren’t going to give you the body you want.
The best way to approach fitness and nutrition is simply to be consistent and have a healthy attitude to how you train and what you eat. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with having an aesthetic goal, as this can be motivating and help you commit to a training or nutrition programme.
However, adopting some celebrity-endorsed diet, such as a meal replacement shake, or cutting out food groups will simply lead to short-term achievements, meaning your bikini body may only last as long as your suntan.
So how do you get the summer body you want in a safe way for the long-term?
Start early
A good online personal trainer will say training hard and eating well is the answer, as this will reduce fat and develop your muscles. Although most people want quick transformations, long-lasting results take time.
There is a famous saying that ‘summer bodies are made in winter’, as fitness enthusiasts tend to eat more during the colder months, which puts them in an anabolic state and allows them to build muscle more effectively. Then in the summer, they simply need to diet down, shed fat, and reveal the incredible physique they’re built! Therefore, it is a good idea to start as soon as possible.
Lift heavy weights
If time isn’t on your hands, don’t worry, as you can still build muscle if you are new to training.
Those who have never done a bicep curl, hip thrust or Romanian deadlift before will give their bodies a shock when they start handling weights. Therefore, they will benefit from what is known as ‘newbie gains’.
Although some women are afraid to lift weights, as they think they’ll end up ‘bulky’, this is far from the truth. It actually takes years of eating in a surplus to build a substantial amount of muscle, but lifting weights can help you lose fat while maintaining your metabolic rate.
By working your muscles, you make them more energy-demanding, which means they can burn more calories at rest. At the same time, preserving muscle loss in a calorie deficit means people are able to prevent their metabolism from slowing down too much, as a study by Gary R. Hunter and colleagues shows.
On the other hand, those who partake in fad diets and dramatically cut calories will lose muscle as well as fat, subsequently resulting in their metabolism declining. In the long-run this means they will find it harder and harder to lose fat, and they could pile on the pounds quickly when they come out of their dieting phase.
Eat in a deficit
If you want to shed the inches, you simply need to eat less. The best thing to do is work out what your maintenance calories are, i.e. the amount of calories required to maintain your weight.
Obviously, the more calories you cut, the faster fat will drop off you. However, you might struggle to maintain a larger deficit and are, therefore, less likely to commit to it long-term. You also won’t have enough fuel for your workouts, which means you may lose some of that muscle you worked so hard for.
Instead, reducing calorie intake by around 200 to 300 a day will mean you are more likely to stick to the diet and will see slower, but more consistent, fat loss. A study from the American Heart Association also found that a more moderate calorie restriction was just as effective for weight loss as an intensive one.