Motivation

5 Important Steps toward that Perfect Beach Body

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Getting the perfect beach body that you’ve always wanted takes work, but the payoff for that work will be well worth it. There’s more to getting your body ready for the beach than just doing a few basic exercises, and you’ll need to know how different muscle groups work together to tone your body and build the physique you ultimately desire. Here are five things to keep in mind while working toward your ideal body so you’ll be ready for the beach when the time comes.

  • Set Goals
    The key here is to set multiple achievable goals, not just an overall goal that will seem miles away once you start working toward it. Having an overall goal is important, but by creating smaller milestones you’ll actually have incremental steps to work toward that all feed into that larger goal. You can choose how you want to structure your goals, and whether you want to measure them in inches, pounds, or just the way you look in the mirror.
  • Adjust Your Diet
    It’s been said that you can’t out-exercise a bad diet, and you’ll probably need to make some changes to what you eat if you plan on being ready to show off your beach body. Cut back on carbs and fatty foods, up your leafy green intake, and start bringing your daily caloric intake down to create a calorie deficit which will help fuel weight loss. A nutritionist can help you to create a diet that’s right for you without the health risks associated with some fad-of-the-week diet plans.
  • Burn the Fat
    Cardio is king when it comes to fat-burning exercise. Running, swimming, biking, jump rope, aerobics… they’re all great ways to burn calories, which increases that calorie deficit and makes your body burn more fat. It may take a little while for you to notice some of the results because your body burns fat from all over (which means that you may notice your arms and legs becoming thinner before that stubborn belly fat seems to budge), but as you keep exercising, you’ll start seeing steady results.
  • Tone the Muscle
    While you’re doing cardio to burn fat, you should also add in strength training to build and tone your muscles. Lift weights or choose different strength-training exercises that focus on different major muscle groups, working on not only your arms but also your legs, abs, chest, and back. You should also keep in mind that muscle has weight too, so you might not lose weight as quickly because the weight of your muscle is replacing the weight of the fat you’ve burned off. You’ll certainly notice the difference in the mirror, though.

Keep At It!

It isn’t always easy to get in shape and sculpt the body you want for the beach. Breaking bad dietary habits can be hard, and sticking to an exercise routine containing both cardio and strength training can be even harder. This is why it’s important to force yourself to stick with it until it becomes habit, and to celebrate each and every milestone that you hit in a way that won’t hurt your goals. This will help you to keep motivated, and all of the hard work that you’re doing now will be totally worth it in the end.

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Proximity Matters

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Ahh yes. Girl scout cookies are here and they are one of my weaknesses. Who can resist those little smiling faces when they ask, “Do you want some cookies?” It also doesn’t hurt that they’re yummy cookies.
So, how do you balance your weakness with a healthy lifestyle? The answer is simple. Proximity. As you may have realized, we don’t like effort. We are much more likely to limit our intake if we don’t have to exert ourselves to get more. For example, if you take two cookies out and then put the box away, you are more likely to limit yourself. But, if that box is sitting right next to you while you sit on the sofa . . . well … you know what happens.
However, most people forget that the same process will work in your favor when you want to develop good habits. For example, do you want to go to the gym? If your gym is on your way home, you are much more likely to go. But, if you have to travel across town, then you’ll likely find that excuse. Better yet, if you have your fitness gear at home, you just have to go downstairs. Still not working? Set a routine. If you work out first thing in the morning, have your clothes next to the bed, and your gym is in your house, you have eliminated virtually all of the “effort and proximity” issues.  Your brain has less reason to resist. Then, if you are able to do this for 21 days, you have developed a habit. Your brain will then push you to continue; since we are “creatures of habit.”

So, simply put, proximity matters. If you have bad habits you want to eliminate, put more distance and effort between you and the behavior. If you want to want to develop those good habits, eliminate the effort and distance required. Put the TV remote up and take out the batteries. Put the book next to your favorite chair. Place the icon for your new language program on the center of your desktop.
Simple but it works.

My Motivation

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I have been asked several times to recount my motivation to continue with my fitness and personal development routines every day. I always hesitate to answer this as its much more complicated than saying, “to get fit.”

I’m a general surgeon. Although the TV and media may present this in a certain manner, it consists of long hours and a lot of stress. I see people in a physically and emotional vulnerable state. They come to me acutely ill with infections or, often in my world, with newly diagnosed cancer. Despite the pervasive image of a surgeon, I feel emotionally vested in the care of my patients, especially the young ones. In them, I see myself. So, when I have to tell a young women in her 40s that she has breast cancer or I see a husband bringing in his kids to see their mother in the ICU, I am continually reminded of my own mortality. Its draining but keeps me grounded and certainly humble.

Why do I get up at 5 am everyday? Why do I surround myself with positive and uplifting people? Why would I rather watch comedies instead of depressing dramas? Why do I always see the best in people? I see life as a simple choice. You can either embrace every day with the full appreciation of the miraculous nature of our existence or you merely exist. Life is finite. As Henry David Thoreau stated, “I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life …” Therefore, I wake up at 5 each morning, to exercise, watch the sun rise and see my girls as they wake up. It keeps me grounded, awake and alive.

Each person will find there own motivation and the most profound is uniquely individual. At some point, each of us gets to some point where we tell ourselves that we cannot continue on our current path. And, so, we don’t.

– Shawn Tweedt, DO

 

 

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
– Henry David Thoreau