Summer time is upon us and the summer holiday is looming.

Here are five tips to help you get ready for summer, perhaps improve your body before you go.

Tip1

Track your calories! Despite the ongoing debates about calories, most dietitians and registered nutritionists will tell you that tracking calories and reducing your caloric intake will make a difference. This has become increasingly easy to do with various Apps that will help you. I can highly recommend MyFitnessPal. It can be downloaded on phones or tablets, is quick and easy to use and the more you use it, the easier it becomes.

Tip2

If calories are king, then protein is queen. Eating between 20 and 30 grams of protein at each meal will make you feel less hungry. Sufficient protein will help to maintain your muscles while you reduce your calories, so you’ll drop bodyfat, and not muscle mass.

Tip3 

Do some resistance training. Train your whole body twice a week. If you are a gym member and know what you’re doing, do a full body workout twice a week at least. If you’re new to exercise you can link up with me for some online training where we use www.healthclubtv.com to give you new and fun workouts to try every week.

Tip4

Walk everywhere you can. The evenings are lighter, the weather is mostly better, take advantage of it by walking as much as you can. Walk to shops, walk to work, walk to see friends. Any distance of less than a mile can be walked in under 20 minutes. Do this three times a day and enjoy the benefits of extra calories burned and an improvement in fitness.

Tip5

Sleep. It can be harder to sleep in the summer with the lighter mornings, but making sure you get enough sleep keeps the hunger hormone ghrelin at bay. Reduced sleep has been shown to be a factor in gaining weight. Try black out curtains if you wake up too early, or my own favourite, a rolled t-shirt over your eyes.

I hope you find these tips useful, and if you have any questions I can be contacted by any of the means on my website.

Happy, healthy holiday!