5 Health Tips For The Summer

As well as travelling and marketing, my next passion is health and fitness. I have always been slightly obsessed with this subject, however recently it has gone into overdrive, while I can’t even explain the amount of people I have met recently that have claimed they wanted to get into shape for summer, but haven’t actually done anything about it.

Below I have written up a number of tips to help you get that summer body and to feel proud of the body you’re in.

1. Avoid Sugars

You will be surprised how many sugars you consume in a day. If you don’t use up sugar in your system, it is converted into fat. I considered writing all the scientific facts here, however decided to keep this post simple and to the point, basically check how many sugars are in the foods you are eating and make sure you keep them to a minimal. The ONLY time you should be eating sugar is directly after exercising to replenish depleted levels and first thing in the morning when your body is coming off a fast.

2. Count Your Macro Nutrients

If you want to know if you are achieving a calorie deficit, you have to start counting your calories. But if you really want to make progress, you need to work out how much protein, fats and carbohydrates you should be eating in each meal. The more precise, the better the results. There are a number of online calculators you can find which will work out your macro nutrient requirements based on your weight, height, age and what you are trying to achieve. These should be used loosely as everyone’s body is different, but they offer a good starting point.

3. Don’t Fear The Fats

So many people avoid fats, however healthy fats are really important to lowering your actual body fat. The important first point is to work out the breakdown of fats. Firstly you have saturated fats (generally bad) and unsaturated fats (good). Of these unsaturated fats, you have mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated. You need to be consuming these from a combination of sources but some of the most missed out fat sources is omega-3. In general we need a 2-1 ratio on omega-6 over omega-3, however in the UK we average 20-1, as we don’t tend to eat any oily fish. If you don’t eat fish, you can try flax seed oil and walnuts.

4. Weight Training Time

We know and agree that cardio is very important to cut down the fat from your body, however you also shouldn’t leave out weight training. Cardio burns off calories at a higher rate than weight training during the exercise, however weight training has a longer thermogenic effect on the body as it will burn more calories over a 24 hour period. Weight training will also help you to build muscles in the areas needed to help you appear toned and cut. Females need to remember one thing if they are scared of building big bulging muscles, it basically isn’t possible as females don’t have the testosterone levels in their body to achieve these results…without taking hormone enhancements.

5. Mix Up The Cardio

With any form of exercise, eventually your body becomes accustomed to the movement, which is why it is so important to change how you exercise regularly. If you run one day, try to use the bike the next day and then the cross-trainer the day after. If you are sitting down on a bike and can casually read a magazine or watch the tv, you probably aren’t increasing your heart rate to a point where you are actually burning fat. Try out different types of training such as HIIT (high intensity interval training) and attend classes such as a spin class.