Summer shape up planning
After a winter spent eating holiday treats and hiding under oversized sweaters, you might’ve noticed that your body needs a little extra attention. Fortunately, there is still plenty of time before summer to start improving your health. Want to look your best in bikinis and have energy to explore the outdoors all day long? This guide to getting in shape for the summer will help you plan every step of your journey.
Start By Defining Your Fitness Goals
The very first thing you will want to do is look at your current condition and think about how you want to look by summer. You can use an total daily energy expenditure calculator to figure out how many calories you need in a day at your current height, weight, and energy level. Then you can decide whether your goal is cutting fat or gaining muscle, figure out how long you have to achieve that goal, and calculate the number of calories you need in a day. This can all sound a bit confusing, but fortunately there are lots of online calculators that make this simple!
Figure Out Your Macros
After your overall calorie count, your macronutrient levels are one of the most important things to look at. Going with higher carb levels can be helpful if you are doing a lot of cardio, while lower carb levels help with weight loss. Higher fat and protein levels add calories, but they’ll help you stay full longer.
Plan Your Meals
Once you have a good idea of what calories and nutrients you need in your diet, you can start creating meals you will enjoy. If you want to get truly healthy, you will probably want to shift away from processed foods and towards more whole grains, fresh fruits, and fresh vegetables. Things like vegan and gluten free meals can always enhance health even if you aren’t strictly following a diet.
Get a Little Professional Help
Trying to plan out your own meals might seem confusing and time consuming enough to make you give up all together. If you are struggling to come up with a plan, there are lots of professionals who can help you. You can find all sorts of online services that provide you with premade plans. A weight loss nutrition plan may offer smaller recipes with portions to help with shedding pounds while a muscle growth nutrition plan will have more protein. Depending on your goals and how much time and effort you have to invest, a resource like this could be just what you need to get in shape for summer.
Track Your Progress
When you see your body every day, it is hard to notice the differences. Try to weigh yourself at least once a week. Since changes to muscle and fat levels can affect your body composition without causing your weight to change, you should also use a tape measure to track your shifting size. This will help you get a more accurate idea of whether or not your plans are working.
Don’t Get Discouraged
It’s easy to get frustrated by a few days of blowing your diet or not losing any weight and decide to give up altogether. However, you need to remember that the key to getting in shape is simply consistency. Making smart decisions over the course of several weeks will outweigh a few unhealthy meals, and even if you feel like you look the same, your body is slowly but steadily changing.
Following these steps makes it easy to get in shape for the summer. Remember you still have a few months to work on your fitness goals, so now is the perfect time to start!
