8 Tips to Perfecting the Beach Body

When beach season arrives, will your body be beach-ready? I have complied a list of eight diet and training tips that will help you get a body you’ll be proud to show off when shirts come off. Let’s not waste any more time, here’s what you need to do for a leaner physique:

1. Start with your Diet: Diet, not training, has the biggest influence on whether you’ll shed the necessary fat to get the perfect beach body. You can work out 20 times a day, but it won’t do you much good if your diet sucks. Besides plenty of lean protein and vegetables, your diet should consist of smart fats and complex carbohydrates. Choose nutrient dense foods – if it used to run, swim, was grown in the ground or picked from a tree its good to eat. Nutrient dense foods give you the most nutrients for the fewest amount of calories. In other words, nutrient dense foods give you the “biggest bang for the buck.” You get lots of nutrients, and it doesn’t cost you much in terms of calories. The next step is meal frequency. Turbocharge your metabolism and burn through body fat by eating five meals a day, that are small enough to fit in your palms. This keeps your blood sugar stable and prevents you from getting so famished that you chase cheeseburgers with chocolate doughnuts.
2. Keep your Workouts short: Monitoring rest periods can see drastic changes in your body composition if you stick to them! Keep your workouts to 45mins or less and rest no longer that 45 seconds between sets. You’ll be amazed at the amount of volume you can get through when you accurately monitor rest periods.
3. Drink enough Water: Drink at least 2.5 liters of water to stay sufficiently hydrated throughout the day – and even more if you’re training daily. Water composes 75% of our muscle tissue hence being dehydrated leads to weakness, fatigue, dizziness and electrolyte imbalance.
4. Prioritize the Pecs: Ofter referred to as the centre piece of the male physique building a bigger chest is an essential part of perfecting your beach body. If you feel you chest needs work – hit it at least twice per week!
5. Cardio: Some say high intensity cardio, other say low intensity cardio – they both have their place in a weekly training regime. Use the low intensity cardio after a strength training workout and save the high intensity cardio for a separate day by itself.
6. Get enough Sleep: Although some people can run on as little as five hours of sleep, aim for 7-8 hours. Lack of sleep or poor quality sleep may contribute to weight gain – not to mention an assortment of other health problems. If you’re having trouble sleeping, start meditating or do some basic breathing exercises before you go to bed. Couple this with some Magnesium, Melatonin & Vitamin D3 and you’ll be in deep slumber before you know it.
7. Drink Coffee: Its loaded with antioxidants and beneficial nutrients that can improve your health. The caffeine from coffee can increase the fat burning potential in the body, boost the metabolic rate, increase adrenaline levels and release fatty acids from the fat tissue.
8. Not all carbs are bad: It is a myth that eating carbohydrates after 4pm makes you fat. Eating excess calories makes you fat! Complex carbohydrates are the good carbs because of the longer series of sugars that make them and the time it takes the body to them break down – these include brown rice, sweet potato, white potato and quinoa. Simple carbohydrates, the bad carbs, are composed of simple-to-digest, basic sugars with little real value for your body and include sweets, sugar, bread, biscuits and pastries. My general rule on carb intake is that all of them (yes all 100%) should be eaten around your workout – 40% before & 60% after. No workout – no carbs.

Have you ever accomplished anything great with an inconsistent effort? You must be consistent with everything to get the results you want! Even the best training programs and diet plans are ineffectual if they are not followed on a consistent basis. Consistency is key – map out a detailed plan and stick to it!