With summer on the horizon and summer holidays coming up, many people want to shed those pounds gained over the winter and early spring. There’s no better time to start than now.
I encourage everyone to set the deadline for that date when they’ll be hitting the beach or when they’ll be barbecuing in their shorts or bikini in their garden this summer.
Here are my top lifestyle tips as you approach summer to help you get fitter, leaner and feeling great:
1) Have a Goal in Mind: During the winter and spring months many people won’t usually have had a goal to focus on other than maybe just keeping some moderate exercise going to keep things ticking along. With the summer months fast approaching it’s important to have a clear goal and to go towards that goal. Whether it’s to get that ‘beach body’ or just to lose some extra fat it’s make sure you define your goal. This will help with your aims for overall fat loss and focus your training and diet.
Rather than weigh yourself and only focus on the scales, perhaps focus on how you appear when trying on those Speedos or bikini in the mirror and how healthy you feel overall. Your goals might also be ahead of an event or challenge in the autumn like a marathon or half-marathon. Whatever your goal is, choose one and go after it with focus and discipline and you will achieve a level by going towards that goal.
2) Drink More Water: Drinking water has many health benefits. It will leave you feeling more energised, less dehydrated as well as helping to alkalise your body’s pH levels meaning that you are less susceptible to colds or gut irritation.
3) Eat more Fruit and Vegetables: During the winter and spring months, we’re all tempted by lots of goodies and chocolate. Now that the warmer weather is here, you don’t need that extra body fat to keep you warm. Swap sweets, chocolate and carb laden foods for fruit and vegetables which contain lower cars and natural sugars and minerals. Overall this will improve the function of your gut by boosting good bacteria which in turn help you to burn calories and digest food more quickly. British seasonal summer fruits to try include strawberries, gooseberries, rhubarb, raspberries, cherries, blackberries and black currants.
4) Exercise Outside: Whilst training in the gym is great, less rain and more sunshine is a great opportunity to get outside. From the point of view for exercise, the temperature tends is warmer which means you don’t have to warm up for as long and the extra day light means you can work out either in the morning before work or later in the evening. From a health point of view getting outside can help you to de-stress, neutralise your adrenals and get some of that good old vitamin D which is lacking during the winter and spring months due to cloud cover and staying in due to rain, wind and cold.