How You Can Get Beach Body Ready

It was 2003, I was working at a local up scale gym in my home town as a gym instructor.

I had taken on the responsibility of the cardio area, in addition to the personal training I ran. At the time my objective was to gain more understanding on gym facility management to help with my MBA thesis, Sport management applied to leadership.

And as I walked by the treadmills and elliptical machines, I noticed a lady that I had seen several times on the treadmill for nothing ever less than 90 minutes at a time.

I approached her, introduced myself and asked about her choice of exercise, looking at the timer, she’d been somewhat fast pacing for 1 hour and 20 min and she said

“I’ve been doing this for weeks now! everyday 90 minutes fast pace walk on the treadmill with an incline and I haven’t lost a pound or an inch… I’m so frustrated, why isn’t this working?”

It was 18 years ago and I wish I could say things changed… no not about the lady who walks for hours and doesn’t shed a pound but rather the mentality and misconception that “cardio” is what you need to do to lose weight.

It’s not! while yes cardio contributes, there are limitations and variations to weight loss that aren’t directly linked to cardio or simply High Intensity exercising.

My next question to her was “what a typical day in your life look like?”

I was not surprised that almost everything was off. Her sleep was irregular and she rarely had a solid 7 to 9 hours of sleep. She drank no more than 2 glasses of water per day and was convinced that fizzy drinks, coffee and tea were sufficient liquid intake, and she ate typical Mediterranean stews; therefore it was very difficult to gauge protein Vs carb Vs fat intake. In all cases, it was clear that the majority of calories intake was not qualitative and the choice for calories out was insufficient and inadequate.

The point being that there is not one element in isolation that you can do that will bring you to manage your weight and with that said here is a direction of where you can start to get “beach body” ready:

  1. Don’t do countless hours of cardio

  2. Don’t starve yourself by going on harsh 3 peas and an olive type diet

  3. You can skip the high intensity interval training, the kind that get you sweating and heart pumping from the first minute of the warm up.

  4. Don’t do target area exercises like tons of ab crunches in hopes you’ll have 6 pack in 28 days

  5. Don’t follow fads and 3 weeks transformation plans

Instead, do this

  1. Get in touch for personal training tailored around your requirements

  2. Follow a meal plan that is right for you and again, I personally use Matter Nutrition. They have been my meal plan partners as their produce is fresh and food is nutrient dense not calorie dense meaning that little amounts keep you satiated for longer. The taste and variety is great so you don’t feel like you’re on a diet and that makes it sustainable enough to see results and keep seeing results.

  3. Engage in resistance training 3 to 4 times per week. Get in touch for more details on what that can look like for you

  4. Stay active. Activity breeds energy and as long as you are moving, then you are burning

  5. Be patient. There is not magic formula. Weight loss done properly just as weight gain require time and patience to see results and to keep those results.

Very simple and straight forward and Here’s Good News: You Can Make It.

A perfect routine is not one that makes you sweat and requires 3 days of recovery; it’s the one that is most adapted to your needs.

Get in Touch and we can work together to get you Beach Body Ready with flexible training options one on one or remote exercise programing with regular follow up to keep you motivated and going.

Make sure to drop by Matter Nutrition for more information on meal plans and use the magic words “Tarek Azmi sent me” for 10% off your meal plan.

Take Action and see results

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Written by Tarek Azmi.

Founder of Here’s Good News, a training and development company dedicated to your personal and professional growth, offering learning modules, coaching sessions and personal training with this blog and the podcast to motivate and drive you to TAKE ACTION!

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