5 Tips on How to Get a Bikini Body by Summer

Even if you are locked in the midst of a cold winter, bundled in layers of clothing and sipping hot chocolate by the fire, NOW is the time to start thinking about how to get a bikini body by Summer. It’s not just about losing a few pounds – you’ll want to make your body as lean and trim as possible so you can not only wear a bikini but look really good in it.

The five most powerful moves you can make immediately are:

1) Eat clean

Not only is “junk food” loaded with calories, fat, sugar, and sodium, it does terrible things to your body, inside and out. It provides little energy for your body; it makes you retain water; it creates hormonal and chemical imbalances in the body; it elevates your blood glucose levels and slows down your metabolism; and the poor nutritional content makes you feel hungry constantly. Ditch the garbage foods! See them as big obstacles that have been fried, glazed, and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, which now stand between you and your goal.

To get a bikini body, you need to eat “clean” foods – i.e. natural, healthful, unprocessed foods – as much as possible. Vegetables, fruit, lean meat or protein alternatives (beans, tofu), and healthy fat from sources like fish, olive oil, and avocadoes. Before you eat any food, ask yourself whether it grows naturally in its present form. Or, like many foods today, has it been created in a laboratory somewhere, or processed to death so that it no longer resembles its natural form? Has it been bleached, fried, smothered in fatty sauce, or otherwise been made almost unrecognizable? If so, skip it and eat some real food.

2) Drink more water

The more water you drink, the easier it will be to lose excess weight. But that’s not all. Drinking plenty of water gives your organs what they need to do their jobs – including your kidneys as they flush out toxins and excess glucose, and your liver as it steadily metabolizes stored fat. Make it your daily mission to drink at least the minimum recommended amount of water: 64 ounces. However, if you live in a warm climate, are significantly overweight, or if you work out a lot, you can safely increase that amount.

3) Cardio workouts

To get a bikini body by Summer, you’ll need to make cardiovascular exercise a daily commitment. Cardio workouts boost your metabolism so you burn more calories and fat. However, you don’t have to dive into hours-long workout sessions – start with just 30 minutes a day and add a little more time or intensity as you get stronger. Good cardio workouts are brisk walking/running, aerobics, swimming, cycling, spinning, step aerobics, and elliptical machines – any brisk activity that gets your heart and lungs working harder.

4) Resistance training

If you want to get a bikini body, you’ll need to tone all areas of your body that will be on display (which is pretty much everything, right?). Resistance training is an excellent way to tone your muscles so you get that lean, sexy physique. Exactly how to tone your body requires more explanation than we can fit into one article, but for starters check out some good DVDs or join a health club near you that has weight machines. Resistance training a few times per week for several weeks can reshape and tone your body.

5) Motivation

No matter what, don’t allow yourself to slack off just because Summer is several months away. Keep reminding yourself that you’ve got to do what you can to get a bikini body NOW. Take photos of yourself wearing a bikini now, and hang them up where you’ll see them every day. Also hang up photos of bikini models who look like you want to look and get inspired by them. Each and every day, renew your commitment to a new lifestyle, and a slim, sexy, new you who looks great in a bikini or anything else you want to wear.