It’s getting warmer outside and stores are advertising all the summer fashions.

You can tell people are starting to get that “get in shape for summer” itch.

Of course, do people start eating well and working out for bikini season now?

NOPE!

They wait until it’s no more than a month before they are going on vacation/wearing a swim suit/buying summer clothes to start working toward “their ultimate beach body.”

When really they need to start working toward their bikini body months in advance! I know it sucks, but guess what!?! IT’S TRUE!

I hate this crap. Really!?! Two weeks till my ultimate beach body!?! OMG!

While it is possible to drop quite a few pounds in just a month, your results won’t be as good (or as easily maintainable) as they would be if you started NOW.

Actually, I take that back. I would even recommend starting earlier than now if you want to be in tip-top shape the second the pools open Memorial Day weekend.

For one, if you are looking for great results in just a month, you are going to have to do something drastic. Drastic to me usually means UNMAINTAINABLE.

And when something is unmaintainable it means that the second people reach their goal, they will start backsliding and potentially backslide to a point that was worse than before.

They haven’t created a habit or taught themselves to live a healthy lifestyle. All they’ve done is stressed out their minds, bodies and self-control for a month.

But I’m not saying you can’t diet intensely to reach your goal. There is a difference between that drastic one month diet plan and a “cutting phase” or an intense month of dieting.

From January 1st until March 1st, I did a cutting phase. I dieted INTENSELY, but it wasn’t DRASTIC. I still gave myself cheats. AND while it wasn’t something I could maintain forever, it built a base that I could then MAINTAIN.

Also, those two months weren’t that extremely different from what I was doing previously. I didn’t go from eating fast food every day to eating an apple, oatmeal and plain chicken breast.

Yes it was a change. And no at points it wasn’t fun (especially with the low carb flu at the beginning), BUT it wasn’t a SHOCK.

I cut out indulgences and was more regimented than I would be during a maintenance phase, but again IT WASN’T DRASTIC.

It wasn’t a “depriving myself of everything that I love for a month so that I could barely stand it and couldn’t wait to binge for the next three months” diet.

It was more of an “ok I can’t have the foods I like whenever I want and I wouldn’t want to do this forever, but the slight sacrifice is worth the results” diet.

Don’t get me wrong…when you are cutting it isn’t necessarily fun and it is more intense than you would want to diet on a normal basis, but it gets you results quickly in a realistic fashion – it helps you create a base which you can then maintain!

And it isn’t a one month process. I had to spend at least two months (and I had a solid base before) to get truly great results that could be maintained

Anyway, the point of all of this is that you can’t really get the results you want in one month. Even if you reach that goal weight, I guarantee you don’t look near as good at that weight after one month of dieting as you would if you spent two or three months working to reach the same weight. And you will be way more likely to gain all the weight back after that one month crash diet than after the two or three months of cutting!

So next time you want to drop a few pounds or tone up for bikini season, don’t wait till the last minute! Actually this goes for any event that you want to look your best at!

I recommend this same thing to all of the brides I work with. Don’t decide the month before that you want toned arms in your strapless wedding dress! You should have a workout/diet program mapped out for the entire year you spend planning your wedding!

Tomorrow, I’ll post some great recipes that you can eat during a Man Bicep cutting phase (And guess what!?! Two are BLTs!)

And below is a workout you can do to help you get a great beach body!

Strength:

Deadlift 5×5

Auxiliary lift circuit:

30-25-20-15-10-5 (Complete the set number of reps for each exercise before moving to the next rep range. Ex: Do 30 reps of all exercises then 25 of all the exercises.)

RDLs (Straight leg deadlifts, Romanian Deadlifts)
Burpees (chest hits the ground)
Split Squat jumps (Lunge, jump up and switch legs..Also it is the rep number per leg..ex: 30 per leg, 25 per leg…)
Ab roller (ouchie!)

P.S. I haven’t forgotten about the foam rolling video. I apologize I haven’t gotten one up yet! It will be up by next weekend!!!!