The warmer weather, and everything that goes along with it, can make summer your favorite season. Regardless of how you feel about summer, it comes around every year and brings a chance to become healthier. So, if the summer sun ignites your inner desire to put focus on your health, here’s everything you need to make this summer your healthiest one yet.
#1 Establish A Benchmark
A successful workout program requires complete tracking. You’ll be more inclined to improve your fitness by keeping tabs on it. Create a baseline fitness test, including moves that measure the strength of all of your major muscles. Then make it your goal to beat those numbers in one month.
#2 Switch To Healthy Food Time
People who eat their meals early in the day lose more weight than those who eat the same later in the day. So keep your dinners light and try to dig into your lunch around noon or early afternoon. It’s best to consume most of your calories before 3 p.m. if you have scheduled a weight loss.
#3 Stretch More
The power of stretching is most underrated and often forgotten; try to develop a stretching routine targeting the muscles you use the most, probably in your legs and butt. After you cool down, devote about five minutes to static stretching, and hold each stretch for about 30 seconds.
Learn more about stretching from our blog, “The Difference Between Static And Dynamic Stretching“
#4 Juice Up Your Diet
Herbal and fruit teas are free from stimulants and diuretic chemicals that can dehydrate us. Sip the fresh juices that keep you hydrating. Intake of fresh juices boosts your vitamin levels, giving your skin a rosy glow and providing a little natural SPF for your skin.
# 5 Add Yoga
Even without rolling out a mat, You can get the mind-body benefits of yoga. You can do some shoulder openers in the shower while shampooing, blow-dry your hair upside-down to stretch out your hamstrings, and lunge into a warrior III while making your bed.
# 6 Avoid Restaurants
If you’re working toward a weight loss goal, consider cutting back on eating out. Eating lunch at a restaurant can make it harder to lose weight. Pack your midday meal, and you’ll not only save calories, but you’ll save cash too.
# 7 Drink Coffee Before Workout
Coffee before exercising is good for more than just powering your runs or play sessions. And it also helps protect your body from the harmful effects of the sun. Make your pre-warm-up coffee so the energizing effects of the caffeine peak when you reach the toughest part of your workout.
How coffee helps you in a workout, check out our blog, “Drinking Coffee“.
# 8 Turn Fridays Into Fitness Day
The weekend often means meeting the girls for happy hour—but sweating together can be fun too. Have just as much fun by joining your friends for a different fitness class each Friday evening.
# 9 Workout Without Tech
Listen to your body what it is telling you to know when to push forward and when to dial it back. Try a tech-free workout to see how it feels. You may surprise yourself by going harder than before or by realizing your current regimen is setting you up to harm your body.
# 10 Drink Tea
Replace your carbonated drinks with tea. Grate some ginger into hot water, squeeze the fresh lemon juice into the cup of hot water, strain, and drink once the tea cools slightly.
# 11 Try New Workout Routines
the same workout for a long time, your body does not get as much of that workout. Find new workout routines to help mix it up and keep things interesting.
# 12 Update Your Playlist
A strong beat can help you pick up the pace of your cardio routine and seek out remixes or mash-ups of your favorite music to freshen up your playlist. Only add songs that make you want to move.
# 13 Barbeque Better
Summer doesn’t feel complete without backyard barbecues and burgers, and you don’t have to miss out. You’ll still get to enjoy a juicy burger while adding extra flavor, vitamins, and those beneficial monounsaturated fats.
# 14 Add HIIT To Your Workout
Cut your mileage and enjoy the weather with high-intensity interval training HIIT. Full-body circuit training not only burns a load of calories while you sweat, but it also torches additional calories in the hours after by keeping your metabolic rate high.
# 15 Skip the Chips
Eating salsa and chips every evening isn’t the best strategy if you’re aiming for weight loss. Instead, sub foods such as endive leaves or slices of red pepper or carrots as you scoop up salsa, and you’ll still get that great crunch—without the extra fat and calories.
# 16 Dance Cardio
The bigger the arm and leg movements, the more intense the workout; make sure you push out your limits in dance cardio class. To get the biggest burn, exaggerate your steps, lunges, slides, and kicks to boost your heart rate.
# 17 Cut Sugar From Your Cocktails
Cocktails tend to be super sugary drinks; try a shot of your favorite spirit with a splash of soda and squeeze of citrus for around 100 calories.
# 18 Pony Up
Don’t let your hair get in the way of your summer body goals. Play around to find a style that will keep your hair from distracting you from your summer body goals.
# 19 Switch Up Your Coffee Order
If you can’t stand your iced coffee without sugar, add a dash or two of cinnamon. Overweight subjects who drink soy milk-based coffee lose more weight than those who consume a traditional dairy-based diet drink.
# 20 Target Your Major Muscles
During strength-training sessions, focus on your legs. Moves like squats and lunges work the biggest muscles in your body, which means you get the biggest calorie burn during and after exercise.
# 21 Set The Scene Of Success
“Out of sight, out of mind” surely applies to eating. Keeping serving dishes in the kitchen and not in the dining room can help nix the tendency to go back for second helpings, cutting that meal’s calories by about a third,
# 22 Get Enough Sleep
Too little sleep leads to 50-percent higher carb cravings. Stay jazzed all day and kick cravings in the face by getting about seven hours of sleep a night, which research suggests is the ideal amount to feel recharged in the morning.
# 23 Dance
Add fancy footwork to your morning commute, dance while washing dishes, or bust out some moves while sitting through a boring conference call to add movement to your day. Have fun all day long imagining you’re moving to your favorite song.
Check out the dance classes near me to enjoy your workout with dance.
# 24 Prioritize Protein
After each sweat session, reach for a protein snack To help your muscles recover after a hard workout. Twenty-five grams is required to help your muscles repair and build, and adding lean muscle mass will ultimately help you burn more calories all day long.
# 25 Take Fitness To Go
Lump your workout in with your errands by riding your bike on trips within a few miles of your house. With the weather warming and the days getting longer, hopping on a bike can help make a trip to the grocery store fun, not like a chore.
# 26 Hydrate
Have a water “appetizer” before each meal. You’ll stay hydrated as the heat rises, making exercise feel easier. Drinking 2 cups of water before eating can help you consume fewer calories when you dig in.
# 27 Rest Less
Turn your resistance-training sessions into circuit-training workouts by shortening your rest periods to less than 30 seconds between sets. You’ll get more done faster, And as you breeze through that strength workout, you’ll also be getting your cardio in, which can burn extra calories.
# 28 Recruit A Workout Buddy
People who exercise in a group tend to work longer and harder than those who train solo. Once a week, ask a workout buddy to join you in the weight session, go jogging with your brother, or meet with a cycling group to make sure you’re really pushing yourself.
# 29 Tweak Your Salad
Pass on the creamy salad dressings and choose oil-and-vinegar-based ones. Remember to skip the fat-free ones—your body needs fats to feel satisfied and absorb the veggies’ nutrients.
# 30 Exercise Outside The Gym
Mini-exercise blasts done all day long can easily add to the suggested 30 minutes of physical activity. So, you don’t have to be wearing sneakers to burn extra calories. Take the stairs instead of the escalator option or stand on the bus, not sit. You move less wearing cute but uncomfortable summer sandals or heels and switch to more-feet-friendly footwear during the day.
CREDIT: WESTEND61/GETTY IMAGES
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