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By: Chris Gates

When spring rolls around, it’s natural to start thinking about how you’re going to look and feel on vacation, at the beach, at the pool, at the lake, or anywhere else where you might shed clothing for some summertime fun.

So, it’s time to get fit for summer!

I want to share with you six tips that have worked REALLY well with my clients when it comes to losing body fat and achieving that ideal physique.

And if you’re interested in signing up for online personal training to get a customized program, support, and guidance as you start your own fat loss journey, I’m currently accepting new clients! Visit my coaching page to learn more, or submit an application to get the process started!

Let’s dive in!

Tip 1: Strength Training

Let’s start things off by making one point extremely clear — you shouldn’t plan to do hours of cardio every single day to lose weight.

Can cardio be beneficial? Of course.

Can it make a positive contribution to your overall goal? Yes.

But from my experience in coaching people since 2017, focusing solely on cardio often leads you to be disappointed in the end result of your diet.

That’s because strength training is the foundational piece to every fitness program and dieting plan.

In order to get the look you want — many people call it “toned” or “cut” — you need to develop a base of muscle mass. No, this doesn’t mean you need to get “bulky” or “jacked.”

But if you want to cut down and reveal that toned physique, you need to have some muscle definition. So focus on implementing the following types of exercises into your workout routine:

• Pushing
• Pulling
• Squatting

Those are the three major motor patterns for your body, and if you do exercises that involve each one, you’re very likely to build muscle during this process.

For pushing exercises, you can do exercises like the dumbbell chest press, machine chest press, or seated shoulder press.

For pulling exercises, you can do a lat pull down or rows (barbell rows, cable rows, or machine rows are all great options!).

And for squatting, you could do a barbell squat, a dumbbell goblet squat, or box squat!

All of those exercise variations are compound movements that will force your body to work and build some muscle.

Tip 2: Workout Schedule

To incorporate those pushing, pulling, and squatting exercises, you’ll need some type of workout schedule so that you can plan ahead and know when you’re working out and how to get the work in. I’ve got your back!

Let’s break down options for any schedule, ranging from lifting two days a week to lifting six days a week!

• 2-Days: On day one, you can do a full upper-body routine. On day two, you can do a full lower body routine.
  • OR… you can do two full-body days with 1-2 rest days in between to promote proper recovery.
• 3-Days: On day one, you can do your pushing exercises. On day two, you can do your pulling exercises. And on day three, you can do your squatting/lower body exercises.
• 4-Days: I’d recommend you do an upper body routine on day one, followed by a lower body routine on day two. Then give yourself a rest day and follow that up with those same routines a second time.
• 5-Days: We can mix and match for this one. Start with an upper body day followed by a lower body day, and then give yourself a rest day. Then follow that up with a pushing day, then a pulling day, and finally a squatting/lower body day. Rest on day seven.
• 6-Days: Very few people have their recovery dialed in well enough to train hard on six days a week, so this is not something I recommend to many people. If you’re one of those people, you can do a pushing day, followed by a pulling day, followed by a squatting/lower body day. Then repeat that cycle a second time, and finally rest on day seven.

Tip 3: How to Build Muscle

So you know building muscle is important, and you now understand how to properly map out your training… But how hard do you need to train to build muscle?

In short: legitimately hard.

I’ll be a little bit more specific…

You need to continually train harder and harder over time.

Building muscle is really incredible, if you think about it. You provide your body with a stimulus through strength training that your body recognizes, and it actually grows tissue to try to better handle that same stimulus in the future.

So the harder you train, the more muscle you’ll grow.

Here are six different ways you can guarantee that you’re training harder over time and promoting muscle growth:

1. Increasing sets: If you’re able to progressively add sets over time (Ex: going from 3 sets of bicep curls this week to 4 sets of bicep curls next week) you’ll be training harder.
2. Increasing reps: If you’re able to progressively add reps to certain exercises over time (Ex: going from 3 sets of 8 bicep curls this week to doing 3 sets of 9 bicep curls next week) you’ll be training harder.
3. Increasing load: This one isn’t always practical, as continually adding weight to certain muscle groups isn’t realistic. But for the compound exercises (pressing, rowing, squatting, etc.) if you can add 5 pounds a week progressively over time, you’ll be training harder (Ex: Squatting 180 pounds this week, and then 185 next week, and then 190 the week after that).
4. Decreasing duration: If you’re able to complete the same amount of work in a shorter period of time, that would mean your intensity is increasing and you’re training harder (Ex: Doing a full pushing workout in 45 minutes this week, and doing it in 43 minutes next week).
5. RPE: This stands for “rate of perceived exertion” and essentially means how intense you perceive workouts or exercises to be on a scale of 1-10. If your workouts feel like a 6 when you get started, and then they go up to a 7, or 8, or 9, then you’re very likely training harder.
6. Form/Technique Improvements: If your form and technique clearly improves over time while doing the same exercises, that means you’re getting a better training stimulus and have developed muscle mass to perform the exercise correctly. This is a sign that your body is adapting, which means you’re building muscle!

Tip 4: Nutrition Plan

By now, you know a ton about how to get your training right in order to get fit for summer. So let’s pivot and talk about nutrition, because your nutrition is really going to be what sets your results apart from the rest.

The BIGGEST mistake I see people make when they want to get fit for summer is drastically cutting way too many calories out of their diets.

That’s right.

Just because you can lose weight on 2,000 calories, it doesn’t mean you’ll lose twice as much weight on 1,000 calories.

Losing body fat is done most effectively with a slow and steady approach. When you get too aggressive, human nature takes over and the results typically look like…

1. You’re motivated, slash calories, and get going on your weight loss journey.
2. Things go well for 1-2 weeks. You see progress.
3. You eventually get burnt out because you dieted too aggressively, and on your second weekend you binge.
4. You wake up on Monday, and you’ve gained back nearly all of the weight you lost.
5. So you cut calories aggressively again.
6. But by Friday, you’re craving all of those foods you love again.
7. So you binge over the weekend.
8. Yo-yo dieting continues until you quit.

Don’t do that to yourself.

Get yourself in a modest calorie deficit (which means burning more calories than you consume through food) and stay there for several weeks without making any changes. Monitor your weight, and compare the averages across several weeks.

If you’re losing weight, keep going! That means you’re doing things right.

Losing 0.5-1.5 pounds per week is healthy, sustainable weight loss.

Tip 5: Calorie Deficit and Calorie Cycling

I mentioned a “calorie deficit” in Tip 4 and gave a brief explanation of what that is. Let’s dive in a little deeper, because being in a calorie deficit is the No. 1 most important piece to the puzzle when it comes to losing body fat.

Being in a calorie deficit means your body is burning more calories throughout each day than you’re taking in from food. Another way to describe it is being in negative energy balance.

There are two main strategies you can use to accomplish this…

1. Daily Calorie Deficit: This is the most straightforward and simple approach. You get in a calorie deficit, and you eat the same amount of calories every day.
2. Calorie Cycling: This is a bit more flexible. You view your calories across the entire week — so imagine if your daily deficit calories are 2,000. That means your weekly deficit calories are 14,000. You can distribute those 14,000 calories across the days of the week in any way that you like, as long as for the week you’re eating 14,000 calories or fewer at the end of the week.

Tip 6: Meal Prep

Prepping food for the week is a game changer. And this isn’t a foreign concept. I’m sure you know that the more you prep, the less guesswork you’ll have throughout the week, and the more likely you’ll be to stay on track.

But let’s take it a step further.

After you do your meal prep, go ahead and physically plug the food you’re going to eat this week into your nutrition track (Ex: MyFitness Pal). If you know you’re going to eat chicken and asparagus for lunch on Monday, and have a salad and steak at dinner, put that in the app NOW.

And do that for every day of the week.

Because that will give you a global view of what your nutrition looks like for the week before the week even gets started!

This can be a huge benefit, because you’ll be able to identify potential nutrition problems ahead of time if they exist. And you’ll also be able to identify where you have some extra calories to play around with — and you can choose to use those calories however you’d like!

Planning ahead is crucial, and this is a step most people miss.

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I hope you found these tips helpful! If you’re interested in getting support and guidance as you go through your dieting and fitness journey, please check out my coaching page and fill out the coaching application form. That will get us connected, and we can talk more about your goals and what type of program might work best for you!

Thanks for reading!

CGF