Planning For a “Summer Body”

By Coach Adam

Here’s a subject that I, as a coach, still find generally uncomfortable:  

Building your perfect “beach body.”

This probably stems from my distaste for fitness magazines, and, more recently, the onslaught of social media influencers and “experts” that contribute to the misconception that there is not only one right type of body, but also one right way to attain it.

With that being said, looking good (or, more specifically, feeling like we look good) is a primary goal for many of us, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that — provided we are able to keep perspective, and not chase aesthetics to the detriment of our overall health or happiness.

And that’s what I’d like to address today: how do we, as summer approaches, take steps toward improving our body composition and feeling good (mostly) naked, without taking all of the fun out of what this season brings?

First things first: Don’t panic.

All too often, we see people drastically reduce their food intake, increase their frequency in the gym, and add on hours of cardio in an attempt to quickly lose weight or lean out.  When this fails to yield fast results, and leaves us feeling exhausted and frustrated, we bounce back to our prior habits (with a vengeance), and wonder why we can’t make progress.

Instead, we need to come to terms with the fact that significant change takes time, and is the result not of drastic, sweeping overhauls, but of small habits, repeated over and over again.  Like compounding interest, things might take a while to get going, but once they do, we are rewarded for our patience handsomely — and don’t have to suffer as much along the way.

If we start now, there is plenty of time to see real results by the time we are heading off for vacation, so, please, don’t fall into the trap of trying to do too much (or eat too little) too soon.  A great quote I read recently regarding fitness/body composition:  “We overestimate what we can do in 3 weeks, and underestimate what we can do in 3 months.”

Step One: Move more.

It’s only natural that we find ourselves a bit more sedentary in the winter; I mean, c’mon — we just got our sidewalks back a couple of weeks ago.

But our overall caloric output in the day is determined in large part by how active we are throughout the day, not when we are at the gym.  For this, I defer to the tried and true: walking as much as possible.

Not only is walking great for our recovery, and an easy way to increase our non-gym activity, it’s a great way to reduce stress, AND get some sun on our faces.  

Is 10,000 steps/day a magic number?  Probably not.  But it’s a good goal for those that know they don’t currently get close to that, and striving for SOME target is better than none.  

Some easy ways to get this (if you don’t have a dog): 30-minute morning walks with your favorite podcast (Alecia loves Good Hang w/ Amy Poehler); 10-minute walks after meals; taking calls while you walk; 10-minute cooldown walks after you work out.

Again, this adds up over time to increase our overall metabolic activity, so, even if we do everything else the same, we are decreasing our net calories every day by doing something easy and enjoyable.

Eat in a conservative deficit

Okay, this one can be simple, or it can be really complicated.  The truth is, if we really want to know how much we are consuming each day, we need to track our food.  This concept can seem daunting, and, for some people, very stressful.  But, if our goal is to lose weight and/or body fat, the best way to do so is to take in slightly fewer calories than we put out each day.  

Now, if there are some high-caloric and/or less-than-ideal foods that we generally consume a lot of (for example, soda), then simply cutting out or reducing these would certainly suffice — and I don’t NOT recommend that.  However, we might eat “clean” 85% of the time, then go so overboard on the weekends that we are actually eating in a surplus, and don’t know — until we do some investigating — why we can’t lose some stubborn body fat.

So, if not using an app like MyFitnessPal (which actually makes things really easy, once you get the hang of it), at least taking some time to journal your food can be an eye-opening experience, and give us great insight into where to start.  You don’t have to track forever.  Just getting a baseline is great.

Train to get stronger/fitter.

Instead of giving a prescription like “3 strength training sessions each week,” or “60 minutes of cardio,” I’ll say this: do resistance training with the goal of getting stronger, and do your conditioning with the goal of building aerobic capacity.  

Your intention behind your training should be clear.  If it is, then how often you work out and how hard you push become much easier to figure out.  If you’re reading this, you most likely do the above recommendations, but it’s important to note that your effort needs to be focused on progressing, and your training should aim to do just that.  Simply going through the motions is ok from time to time, but that’s not where our progress is made.

I should note that, if body composition is your biggest priority, then the priority goes to strength training (along with the other items outlined above regarding activity and nutrition).   Conditioning is great for your overall health, and is extremely useful, but getting stronger and building muscle require a lot of energy, and doing tons of cardio is only going to take away from that (especially if you’re piling it on all at once).

Enjoy life.

I feel like I end most of these posts like this, but it bears repeating:  if you’re not at least somewhat enjoying yourself during this process, it’s going to be very difficult to stick with.  And difficult is OK sometimes, as it teaches us how to have discipline and patience.  But a solid plan, and creating structures around us that support us in that plan is a much better strategy for lasting change, and moving in the direction we want to go.

P.S. If you would like to discuss your goals, your nutrition, or anything else related to what we do here, I’d be happy to help.  Send me an email, and we can chat!