Whether you’re 20 or 50, getting your body ready for summer is a challenge. Between the stress of work and family life, it’s tough to find the time to eat healthy food and exercise regularly. Still, follow these simple steps – which can be easily fit into your normal routine – and your body will thank you in the long run!
We’ll start with the important stuff: If you don’t have a good diet, there is no point in going to the gym and working out. Your body will lack all the necessary nutrients and won’t function as it should. Therefore:
- Get rid of junk food from your fridge and eat more fresh veggies and fruits instead.
- Swap white pasta for whole wheat or brown rice.
- Try to eat more fish and less red meat (meat is still good, just not as much as before).
You don’t necessarily need to do anything drastic. Just replacing a few meals now and then will bring huge benefits! However, you should keep doing whatever you usually do – just eat more fresh food along the way.
Now onto the working out part: If you don’t want to work out, don’t do it! However, if you’re looking forward to bulking up or just getting rid of that holiday belly, then this is what has to be done.
Start with doing some cardio for at least 20-30 minutes. The longer, the better. If you can run or bike outside, that’s great! Otherwise, do some interval training on your elliptical machine at home.
After this, start with light dumbbell workouts for your arms and shoulders. Feel free to add some different exercises if you want! Just keep it simple in the beginning.
For your legs, try to do squats with a barbell. If that is too hard, then grab dumbbells and do squats.
After this, start doing cardio again – 20-30 minutes of it will suffice! Add in another round with weight exercises for your abs and back.
Once you’ve tried this for two weeks, you can start adding more weight to your exercises, but only do one or two extra rounds! You don’t want to get injured because of overdoing it in the beginning!
Make sure you keep drinking at least 2-3 liters of water every day. Also, try not to eat in the two hours before bed. If you go to sleep with a full stomach, your body will have more work to do while you’re sleeping and won’t get the chance to recover from everything that happened that day!
After a few weeks of this program, your body will be ready for the summer! Just make sure you listen to your body and don’t overdo it. If something hurts, take a break from working out until it feels better! It’s key not to get injured during the summer because nobody wants to miss out on all the beach fun!
Good luck with getting ready for the summer! Diet and workouts only provide one part of the equation – but they are both very important nonetheless.