Building a summer body improves your confidence and gets you ready for the beach season. Are you wondering about how to go about shedding excess pounds and building that well-shaped body? Well, it’s not as complicated as you think it is. And if you think you left it for too late, the good news is that some simple strategies can help you achieve your goal, though being consistent is very important here:
- Eat Light, but don’t Starve Yourself: Aim to burn 2000 calories per day, including your meals with protein content foods instead of having protein powders, and consume more vegetables. “You should get 40% of energy from protein, 30% of energy from carbs, and 30% of energy from fat”, says Leo Savage, a personal trainer. You will still be at a fat-burning deficit, but you will still remain healthy. Consider eating about a two-fist sized portion of veggies and a palm-sized portion of high-quality protein with every meal, your body will transform faster than you think. But don’t restrict too many calories suddenly – it will stall your metabolism and actually keep you from losing weight.
- Stay Hydrated: Consuming water always improves your physical and mental performance. It reduces fatigue, helps you focus better, eases blood flow, helps muscles work efficiently, enhances mood, and more. Try to drink at least 2 liters per day. Carry a water bottle and drink water at regular intervals to avoid dehydration.
- Be Mindful: You can lower your stress level and improve motivation by focusing on what is happening at the moment. Be more mindful at mealtimes. Have your meals away from the TV and other distractions, and focus on what you are eating and know what it makes you feel. It will make you conscious about what you are putting in your body, which can prevent you from over-eating. By focusing on what you are eating, you will be able to understand which food is easy for your system to digest and which is not.
- Take Proper Rest: Research shows that poor sleep may decrease your Resting Metabolism Rate (RMR). RMR is the number of calories your body burns when you are at complete rest. It is also believed that poor sleep leads to muscle loss. Muscles are able to burn more calories at rest than fat does therefore muscle loss leads to a decrease in RMR. So, good quality sleep is essential to build muscles and get lean.
- Eat Around the Clock: You need to time when you eat what to optimize how your body handles what you put in. When you consume carbs, the digestive system breaks down the digestible ones into sugar and it enters the blood. When blood sugar level rises, the pancreas produces insulin, and if the insulin level rises, it is particularly bad at turning food into fat, especially if you particularly have a sugary diet and it results in weight gain.
Insulin levels are stunted in the morning, so it is better to avoid carbs until dinner, ideally after a workout, which sends the hormone soaring and directs nutrients to the now hungry muscles, not to your love handles. “You need to earn your carbs”, says Savage, a personal trainer in a London gym (www.fashionbeans.com).
Savage recommends a total body-dumbbell session twice a week instead of cardio workouts to build beach-ready definition and strip away fat. Moves like deadlift, rows, and pull-ups help with more muscle movement, which helps recruit more muscle fiber and burn more energy.
These are some of the workouts you can follow to build your summer body:
The Heavy Metal Workout
- Bench Press:
- Lie on the bench press with your eyes under the bar
- Grab the bar with a should width grip (thumbs around the bar)
- Lower the bar squeezing your shoulder blades together to your mid-chest
- Drive it up using your chest until your arms straight, make sure you don’t roll your shoulders forward
- Perform four sets of ten reps, rest 60 sec in between.
- Deadlifts:
- Stand with your mid-foot under the barbell on the floor
- Bend over and grab the bar with both hands, with a shoulder-width grip keeping your weight on your heels
- Bend your knees until your shins touch the bar
- Take a big breath, hold it and drive up to standing
- Pause and lower
- Perform four sets of five reps, rest 60 sec in between.
You can also do the Bulgarian split squat, Cable cows, and Single-arm kettlebell clean and press. Remember to do your cardio, after your weight workouts, says Savage. Your body needs to burn fat for fuel because shifting tin will have exhausted your carbs stored in your muscles.
The Fat-Burning High-Intensity Circuit
- Burpees:
- Set your feet shoulder-width apart
- Push your hips back bend your knees
- Lower your body to the steep of a squat as you can
- Jump as high as possible, land and sink straight back into a squat
- Repeat
- Pull-ups:
- Grip the bar with both hands with your palm facing forwards
- Hang with your arms and elbows fully locked out.
- Lift your body up so your chin clears the bar.
- Keep your back tight and relax your neck
- Bring your shoulders away from the ears
- Pause and slowly lower yourself
Other workouts to try include Mountain Climbers, Kettlebell Swings, and Hollow Body.
The summer body workout practice is split between heavy metal and high-intensity metabolism-boosting exercises. Perform the weights two times in a week, with at least two days between each session and the same for the circuit workout. Follow a better lifestyle and you can achieve a summer-ready, healthy body in four weeks.
