How to get “beach body ready” in 4 easy steps

Every year when the sun comes out it starts, doesn’t it?

The magazines are filled with diets, exercise plans, celebrity bodies circled and we get ads like the controversial Protein World advert telling us that we simply don’t measure up.  We’re reminded that summer is almost here and we better get our backsides ready for a bikini.

And they have just the “thing” to help.  Or do they?

There is a psychological trick that advertising and sales people globally have been using for years.  They play on innate fears of being abandoned or outcast from society and then present their product or service as the solution to that.

Let me say this in plain English.

They purposefully make you feel inferior and like you don’t fit in so you feel lacking in some way.  The answer to this – buy this car / lipstick / protein powder / slimming pill / dress / shoes – or whatever it is – and hey presto, your prayers will be answered.

Bullshit right?

So what do you really need to do to get beach body ready?

“We should be celebrating our bodies, not shaming them”

Firstly, Focus on what you love

5% of the population can naturally and healthily have a supermodel figure.  So that’s 95% of us who are mere mortals.  Welcome to the majority.  Every one of us will have a part of the body we don’t entirely like or would want to change. If you focus on that every time you look in the mirror and criticise yourself, you’ll start to only see the negative.

The brain focuses on what you tell it to and it’s trained most effectively by repetition.  The more you repeat negative thoughts, well hey presto, you think badly about yourself.

So instead of looking in the mirror and berating yourself for the areas and body parts you don’t like, focus on the parts you DO like.  Start small, even if it’s your little toe, and tell yourself how much you like that part.  How great you look in a particular item of clothing.  Focus on the positive and keep repeating it.  Then let that grow.

2.  Build positive habits with food

Habits are behaviours we have taught ourselves that we have repeated so often they become unconscious.  When we learn something new the synapses in our brain create a new pathway and the more we repeat the behaviour the more these pathways are accessed so the behaviour becomes “natural”.

So think about the habits you have with the way you speak to yourself and treat yourself.  Are they positive habits?  If not what can you do to cultivate more positive behaviours, especially around food? It’s not about crash diets and the “no carbs before Marbs” style mentality – that’s setting yourself up for failure and not caring for your body.

It’s far healthier to look after yourself year round than panic in the weeks before the beach!

3.  Buy a swimsuit

Now ladies, this is a biggie.  There are hundreds of gorgeous styles to choose from.  From bikinis to swimsuits there really is something for everyone.  Buy something that makes you feel gorgeous.  There are shop assistants and personal shoppers in so many stores now that can help you find a style that works for your shape and style.  Don’t squeeze yourself into something that makes you feel more uncomfortable just to fit in, don’t hide behind a cover up and hide your figure either.  Maximise and be proud of what you’ve got!

4.  Find a beach and relaaaaaaaaax

I find it sad that the time we’re meant to use to get away from it all, feel ourselves and relaxed actually creates so much fear for women.

I spent some time in Brasil and anticipated being surrounded by Gisele Buchannen style women on Copacabana and Ipanema beach. But do you know what I found instead?  Women of all shapes and sizes embracing their bodies and enjoying the atmosphere and weather.  Laughing with the beach hawkers.  Playing volleyball.  Swimming and enjoying themselves.  I found it liberating to see women in all shapes and sizes in the tiniest (and I mean tiniest) bikinis I had ever seen and feeling care-free.

Because they realised – no one was judging, no one was looking and the only critic they were facing was themselves.

So in short, you don’t need to do anything special to be beach body ready – you simply need to feel confident in your body, buy a bikini and go.

So what are you waiting for?!