With the number of overweight and obese people rising every year, being in shape has become a desirable goal for more people. There are so many different workout programs, diet options, gym choices, and little tips and tricks available now that you would think more people would be in shape.

But they’re not. This is often because people will walk into a gym after New Year’s Day, do some random exercises with no plan involved, and after a few weeks, just fall off of their routine and never come back. That’s why it’s so important to have a well-developed workout plan.

Define Your Fit Body Goals

When it comes to getting in shape, not everyone is going for the same goal. There’s no good one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to fitness, but rather tons of different body types that people might be going for.

Some people might want to put on weight, while others might be looking to lose pounds. Some might just be looking to maintain where they’re at. When it comes to formulating a good workout plan, you have to have this clear goal in mind, so that you can create a plan that’ll get you there.

For example, some people might want to bulk up and put on more muscle before summer comes around. These people won’t have nearly the same workout plans as someone who’s trying to cut down on their weight.

You should also have a clear idea of what you want to do specifically when it comes to putting on or taking off weight. For example, when it comes to putting on weight, you can either be bulking or just gaining muscle.

Bulking is just getting larger in general, not necessarily retaining the same body fat percent. By putting on muscle, you want to stay at a low body fat percent, but lift weights to put on some more muscle.

The same idea applies when you’re thinking about losing weight. There’s a significant difference when it comes to workout routines if you want to cut, or if you want to just be thinner.

When people cut, they’re shedding their fat while retaining their muscle, giving them a much more toned look. However, by just getting thin, you focus almost entirely on weight loss and not as much on lifting weights.

Having a clear goal is key for any good workout plan, because there’s no way you can create a map if you don’t know where you’re supposed to be going. Generic fitness advice isn’t recommended, since everyone has a different starting point with their body, and everyone has a different goal.

These goals can get as specific as a certain body fat percentage or a certain weight, or as general as just looking good or being able to fit into a smaller swimsuit. No matter what your goal is, you need to be sure it’s something specific and clear, so that you can map out the best workout program possible to suit your needs.

Readymade Fitness Plan Versus Creating One from Scratch

When you’ve decided on your goal, you can start to decide how you’re going to approach it. Deciding what kind of plan you’re going to use in order to get to your goal is important, because it needs to be something that you can reasonably do and something that, if you follow it, will help you attain your goal.

There are two large groups of plans out there: premade plans, and plans that you develop yourself. There are tons of premade workout plans, all focusing on different workout regimens for different goals.

They even come in a variety of forms, from all text based, to audio, and even video based. All of these suit the personal needs of whoever’s using them, though there are some advantages and disadvantages between them.

When it comes to videos, you’ll typically need a home gym setup to use them. It’s not exactly convenient to go running around your gym with your phone in your hand trying to keep up with the workout.

Video based workouts also sometimes cost money if you’re getting them as DVDs, but there are some free online videos out there. Videos do give you the advantage of seeing exactly how the workout is supposed to be done.

Text and audio workout routines are often more portable, and a lot more accessible for either little or no cost whatsoever. Creating a workout on your own allows you to craft a workout entirely suited and customized to just you.

You get to pick the days you work out, what you do on those days, how much you do it, and so on. However, with all of these options and customizations, it can be a bit tricky to create a plan that works for you.

This is especially true if you’re new to working out or aren’t really experienced with making a good workout plan. You might not know what workouts to include, or which exercises are even available.

You might not know how often you should be working out or for how long, or even what you can handle. With all of this uncertainty, it’s important that you look at a few premade plans first, and then restructure a workout like that to fit something more suited to you.

However, if you are well versed in fitness, then creating your own workout is like a dream. You know exactly which exercises you like and which ones you don’t. You likely know what works best for you, how it all fits into your schedule, and so on.

This option gives people like this way more flexibility to design something that will suit their needs best. Overall, both options are solid if you know how to use them. If you’re following a flawed premade plan, you’ll struggle with getting the results you want.

If you don’t create a good workout plan, you won’t see much fruition of your work. But if you use these correctly, you should be able to get to your goals. You might even want to hire a personal trainer to help you get started on the right path.

Committing to the Time It Takes to Improve Your Body

There’s one common excuse that almost everyone gives for falling off of their workout plan: time. Every year, thousands of people set out to finally get in shape, and they’ll set their goals and have their plan, but after a few weeks, they miss a day and never come back.

They’ll usually pin it all on one thing – that they just didn’t have the time. It just wouldn’t fit in their schedule – they’re too busy. Time commitment is what ends so many attempts at getting in shape.

One reason that so many people have trouble following their workout regimen is that they put too much on their plates. Someone might already be working full time in addition to other obligations and try to fit in some 4-day per week workout schedule that involved 2 hours a day of working out.

It’s all well and good at first, but they quickly realize that it’s just taking up way too much time in their schedule. When you’re creating your workout plan, you need to be honest with yourself.

If you have a lot of stuff to do, don’t try to fool yourself into thinking that you can cram a ton of extra exercise into your schedule. You will see way more results in the long run if you stick to a modest exercise routine than you ever will with an intense regimen that you can’t keep up with.

Many months or years of working out for half an hour a day will get you in shape, but five days a week for two hours a day for only two weeks won’t get you anywhere. At least not in the long run.

You need to make sure you have a workout that’s feasible, but you should also try to make sure it’s actually a worthwhile workout. If your workout only consists of about 15-20 minutes here and there each week, sometimes it’ll feel like it’s not worth even going.

Who wants to make a 15 minute drive over to a gym so they can work out for that short of a time? You want to make sure you’re actually getting the most of each workout when you go, so try to get in somewhere around half an hour to an hour each time you show up at the gym.

This not only yields better results, but it also makes you feel like you’re actually making progress. That sense of making progress is just as important as the actual results, because not feeling good in either category can drive someone to quit out on their routine.

You should also try to move your schedule around in such a way that you actually have a free slot in the day to work out. This might mean waking up a bit earlier, or going to bed a bit later.

Many gyms these days are open 24/7, so you can go in there as early as 4 or 5 A.M. to get in a quick morning workout or even as late as 10 P.M, to work out before you head off to sleep.

These workouts actually have some decent advantages, as well as working better in your timeframe. There shouldn’t be any excuse for not being able to work out at some point in the day.

Gym Versus Home Workouts

The only way you can successfully work out without bodyweight exercises is by having access to workout equipment. There are a number of places and ways you can work out, but there is one major divide among fitness enthusiasts: gyms, and home.

Each one has their own unique benefits and drawbacks, and either one might suit you more or less. Once you decide where it is you’re going to be working out, you’ll be all set to get started with your regimen.

When it comes to working out at home, there can be some initial complications. First, you essentially need to find a room that you can dedicate to a workout room, unless the equipment you buy won’t take up too much space.

On that note, you’ll need to buy the proper equipment, which can be expensive, bulky, and somewhat difficult to transport and put together. You can always purchase space saving equipment, too – those that fold up and stash away out of sight.

However, once you have a home gym completed, it can be quite nice. It’s entirely customized to what you want in a gym. If you’re new to working out, you never have to feel as if someone else is judging you, because you’re likely the only one there.

You’ll never have to wait for a machine to be open, or worry about someone using a set of dumbbells you’re waiting to use. The music playing or TV channel is whatever you want it to be.

Most importantly, it’s always accessible whenever you want to use it. When it comes to gyms, there are many different kinds, each with differing equipment, costs, and general personalities.

You’ll find gyms that are really fancy, and some that are strictly barebones. Some gyms attract a more easygoing crowd, while others are homes to serious weightlifters and gym rats.

One downside to a gym is that you’ll always have to pay for a membership. With a home gym, it’s expensive at first, but from then on it’s all free. With a gym membership, it can be as low as $10 per month, but that fee never ends.

Some gyms have limited hours, so you’ll have to work it into your schedule a bit more carefully. You’ll also have to travel to your gym, even if it’s only a few minutes away. Sometimes this can hurt your motivation.

Gyms also have their fair share of benefits, though. At a gym, you’ll find that there’s tons of specialized equipment you may have never even heard of, and hopefully plenty of space to go around.

There’s also no serious commitment when it comes to a gym. If you don’t like it or you stop working out, you can just cancel your membership. Some have annual fees or contracts, but you can choose a gym that allows month-to-month plans if you prefer.

With a home gym, once you’ve bought and moved in all of the equipment, it can be hard to get rid of it all. Most people start off at just a regular gym to see if they enjoy working out, and then might move up to a home gym if they decide it’s right for them.

Tracking Your Progress and Leveling Up

A very serious problem that many people have when it comes to working out is the feeling that they’re not making progress. When you’re working out frequently, it can be hard to feel as though you’re making any kind of genuine progress.

You see yourself in the mirror almost every day, and so the changes you’re making are so gradual that you almost don’t notice them at all. This can turn out to be discouraging to a lot of people, and might even drive them to stop working out altogether.

First, there’s one thing more people need to realize. When you start working out, you won’t see results after just a few days or sometimes even a month of working out. It simply doesn’t work that way.

It takes some time to build up your muscles or break down fat. People set expectations way too high when it comes to workout routines, as if they’ll be able to just lose all their fat in 3 weeks.

That’s usually not the case. Another reality about working out is that there will be times when you hit plateaus, where some weeks your weight will remain the same instead of losing a certain amount.

Next, there are plenty of other ways you can track your progress without just looking in the mirror or stepping on a scale. For example, if you’re working on building up muscle and getting stronger, you’ll be able to track your progress easily by the amount of weight you can lift.

If, when you first started out, you were bench pressing 115 pounds, you’ll know you’ve improved once you can handle 135 pounds. Even if you don’t look much more ripped, you’ll know that you’re making positive progress.

Many people like to take progress pictures to help them along their journey. It’s recommended that you take some frontal and profile view pictures of yourself, and then check back in on it every few months.

By seeing the pictures side by side, you’ll get a much better idea of how much you’ve changed than you do just checking in the mirror each day. When you try to view your progress that way, you won’t notice it, since the daily changes will be so minute.

Some people have employed the use of technology in order to better track their fitness efforts. One of the most popular brands, FitBit, offers tons of wearable technology that helps you track your weight and exercise on graphs, which can often give you a very clear view of what you’ve been accomplishing.

You’re able to set personalized goals with them, and can view your progress from your phone or online. This can really help motivate someone to keep on working at their routine.

You can also use a gym tracker or at home tracker to give you statistics on your BMI, bodyfat measurements, muscle and more. Don’t just go by the scale if you tend to lose motivation, because your bodyweight will fluctuate as you work to achieve your goals.

You can order an at home scale and some calipers to track fat loss and muscle toning as you work out. You’ll know which exercises are working to move you closer to your goal and which are simply a waste of time.

With the impending arrival of summer comes the need to get into shape. You want to make sure you have your summer beach body ready when it’s time to have fun in the sun. To do that, you need to take action without another moment’s delay.

Consider Plans You Can Stick To

To have your beach body ready to go, you need to think about choosing a fitness diet plan that you can stick to. They’re not all the same and if you pick one that you find too hard, too boring or just isn’t doing the job for you, then you’re going to end up getting discouraged and abandoning it before you achieve your goals.

You’ll want to consider a few things when you’re trying to decide on a plan. Think about the amount of money that you have to invest in your fitness and diet. Some plans can be expensive, and you don’t want to start something you won’t be able to afford after a few weeks.

When considering what you can spend on your plan, you have to look at everything that goes along with it. Some of them might want you to buy supplement products or others might have you purchasing instructional videos.

Sometimes people think that if they spend a lot of money, it means the fitness plan will give them the exact beach body that they want. But keep in mind that expensive doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best option for you.

You also want to keep in mind any extra issues or constraints that you may have. If the plan has you eating a lot of foods that don’t go along with your particular needs, then it won’t work out.

For example, if the diet plan calls for a lot of fast paced workouts, but you’re still nursing an injury or you have a mobility limiting health problem, then that won’t work for you. You also want to factor in the convenience level for you.

If you’re someone who’s hard pressed for time and you’re always on the go, then choosing a plan that calls for making everything from scratch at home may not be the best selection for you.

If you don’t have time to make healthy food choices that can help get you the beach body you want, then you need the simplicity of having those meals readymade. When choosing a plan, you also have to consider if you’re good to handle it on your own or if you need more guidance.

Having someone in your corner to cheer you on and give you instruction through your fitness goals can be the difference between failure and success if you have a hard time going it alone.

To get the future beach body you want, you have to look back. Think over what you’ve done before. If you did something that was successful before, then consider trying that plan again.

But if you tried to lose weight and get fit in the past and it didn’t work out, then you need to know why. You don’t want history to repeat itself – not when summer is fast approaching.

If you had a fitness plan before and couldn’t stick with it, then examine why that happened. This will help you to avoid problems with a new plan. If your prior plan was too boring so you didn’t stick with it, then your beach body plan needs to offer you more variety.

Choosing a plan that you can stick to will help you achieve your beach body in time for summer. You want something you can commit to for several months at a time, so progress is on the horizon – not something you’ll walk away from shortly after you get started.

Be Careful Not to Sabotage Your Nutrition

When you want to lose weight so you can get into shape for summer, it can be tempting to take a few shortcuts. One of these shortcuts might be foregoing nutrition so that you drop the weight quickly.

Eating healthy to get the right nutrition is the best way that you can lose weight and get fit. You don’t want to hurt your health just for a few weeks’ worth of looking good. The best way to make sure you don’t sabotage your nutrition is to make sure that your eating plan is filled with foods that are nutritionally dense.

This means eating lean meats and including more fish or poultry while avoiding processed or fast food meats, which are full of chemicals. Keep your nutrition on course by choosing foods like leafy green vegetables and plenty of fresh fruits.

Give up eating foods that are packaged for convenience. These foods are high in salt, fat and just aren’t good for you. If something is a grab and go item, then it’s usually bad for your health.

That means you should stay away from those. Let go of empty calories. You’ll usually find those in beverages like sodas. Consider the carbs when you think about nutrition. You can drop your carbs and eat a low carb diet to get fit faster without undermining your health.

You might think that following a quick fit plan would be best, but anything that involves you not eating healthy is not good for your body. Especially if it’s a fad diet. Fad diets rob you of nutrition and can be extremely dangerous.

To get the beach body you want, you have to protect your nutrition. Any plan that severely limits your food intake, or has you skipping meals might not be one that’s best for you.

There are plenty of diets you can follow to obtain a beach body. The ones that focus on good nutrition, filling meals, healthy snacks and steady weight loss will help you lose weight the right way – and keep it off.

Most of the low carb diets, diets for diabetics or diets for people with heart health issues are great to follow. Some people choose to follow a low fat diet, but you want to be careful with these kinds of diets.

Low fat doesn’t necessarily equal nutritious. In fact, many of these eating plans have you eating a lot of carbohydrates found in foods that are known to cause health problems.

When you’re ready to choose an eating plan, look for one that gives you three meals or five to six smaller ones per day. Make sure that snacks are part of the menu. You’ll want to ignore any kind of weight loss plan that sounds too good to be true.

Pick a Plan that Targets Your Trouble Areas

While you can choose from a selection of different diets, it’s always best to choose one that’s customizable to whatever your personal needs are. Some people struggle with getting their tummy in shape.

Other people have a problem with bloating. You might have inflammation that causes you to struggle. Pick a plan that can deal with that. Your summer fitness diet should be one that targets the areas you have the most trouble with.

If you do that, then you’ll have greater success. If you’ve been having trouble getting your tummy in shape and it’s been making you wonder if you’ll ever get the beach body that you want, rest assured that there is a way to deal with that.

While it can sometimes appear that you might have a lot of abdominal fat, that might not be the case. Sometimes, just eating the wrong foods can cause your stomach to pooch out.

You might feel like you’ve gained weight in that area. If that sounds like what you’re dealing with, then you might be having a problem with abdominal bloating. This can happen whether you’re a man or a woman and the older that you get, the more likely it is that a sagging or protruding tummy is connected to bloating.

This can be caused by eating certain foods – especially foods that are high in fiber. Your stomach pooch might be caused by eating beans or broccoli, by having dairy products and even certain fruits such as apples.

Choose a summer fitness diet that avoids consumption of foods that are known to cause bloating. If you do this, you’ll notice a marked improvement. For people who struggle with tummy fat that’s not caused by bloating, you’ll want to focus your diet plan on eating foods that are known to promote a slimmer stomach, thanks to their minerals or insulin leveling ability.

Some of these are foods like bananas, green tea, yogurt and avocados. Having a problem with inflammation in the body can cause you to have all sorts of fitness issues including bloating, swelling throughout the body, fatigue and more.

To beat inflammation, choose a healthy diet that’s anti-inflammatory. While a diet that’s anti-inflammatory won’t heal a condition, what it does is it limits your body’s reaction to inflammatory triggers.

The fewer inflammatory foods you eat, the less your body has to deal with the side effects caused by certain foods. This means fewer painful reactions in addition to eating healthy.

Because the anti-inflammatory diet is considered healthy and lower in calories and carbs, you will lose weight and trim your shape. It kills two birds with one stone – pain relief and weight loss.

Save Money Shopping for Plan Foods

Having a food plan can help you discover how you can eat nutritionally balanced meals and still get a summer beach body. Though there are dozens of food plans available for you, when it comes to saving money when shopping for plan foods, the steps you’ll take are the same for each of the different plans.

You might think that you can’t afford to buy the foods on a fitness diet plan, but it’s actually easier and less expensive than you think. Contrary to what some believe, you don’t have to eat only organic foods and you don’t have to buy everything fresh.

You do want to eat lean meats and you do want to have plenty of fruits and vegetables as most plans suggest. But you can buy these in a different section of the store rather than from the fresh meat counter or the produce section.

When it’s time to shop for your plan foods, take a look in the freezer section. You’ll find a big selection of foods that are listed on your plan. There’s a mistaken belief that if a food is frozen, then it’s not as good for you as buying it from the other sections, but that’s simply not true.

If you’ll read the packages, you’ll see that most frozen foods are the best of the pick and aren’t prepared with chemicals. You just get the vegetable or the fruit. But best of all, you spend a whole lot less.

For the cost of two fresh apples, you can get an entire week’s worth of apple slices for your menus. You can choose a bag of frozen green beans that will keep for a month or longer versus fresh ones that keep a week, if that.

Besides the frozen area, don’t forget the canned goods. You might assume that foods in a can aren’t as good for you as fresh foods, but that’s not true either. The majority of canned fruits or vegetables don’t contain anything extra.

All you have to watch out for is to make sure the food isn’t packaged with anything that adds calories such as gravies or syrup. You can make canned healthy foods last longer than fresh foods and they’re just as good for you nutritionally.

You’ll spend less money, the food won’t spoil as quickly and you’ll be able to stick to your fitness plan. When you buy frozen or canned healthy foods, it can be easier to make what you need and freeze the rest so you get the added convenience of having already prepared foods that you simply thaw out and use.

Even if you’re one person, it’s cheaper to buy meat in family size portions. You can divide these up into individual recipe portions and freeze them. When shopping for meat on your fitness diet plan, make sure you keep an eye out for sales. Most stores will put meat on sale after a holiday event.

Should You Go Delivery or Start from Scratch?

The kind of effort you’ll have to put into what you eat will depend on the diet plan that you choose. You can find some of them that will bring the food right to your front door. But in other plans, you’ll be the one doing all the work.

So how do you know which one is the right plan for you? Look at the pros and cons for both. With a delivery diet service, you don’t have to spend any time shopping for the food. Here are some of the pros:

• You don’t have to make it to the grocery store when you’re tired. Your food is just there when you need it.
• Delivered food is nutritionally sound. All the guesswork is done for you. Plus, if you need something extra because you have a health issue or you have strict food preferences, those are taken care of for you.
• The food comes in disposable packages. You won’t have to spend time in the kitchen after the meal washing dishes or loading the dishwasher.
• When you use a delivery service, you get a lot of healthy choices. The person preparing the meals makes sure that the foods that you eat are going to offer you tons of different options.
• You’ll get fruits and vegetables galore.
• The calories will be figured for you. No more wondering if you’re dieting right. You’ll know that you are.

On the other hand, there are some cons to using a delivery service:

• They can be extremely expensive.
• You won’t always enjoy the foods that you get because while you have choices, these aren’t unlimited.
• Some of the options might be foods you’ve never heard of and just aren’t what you’d prefer.
• Sometimes there can be a lot of repeat foods.
• If there’s a problem with your order, you might not have the food that you want when you need it.
• There is a risk of the food spoiling if it’s not delivered to you at the right temperatures.
• You sometimes have to arrange to be home when the food is delivered.

You can choose to make your diet foods yourself when you’re following some plans. The pros to doing this are that you always get to pick exactly what you want. You can make sure that the foods are ones you know you like. You can make your diet meals bigger so that you end up having leftovers to take for lunch or to use to create another meal.

It’s much cheaper to buy and prepare your own foods than it is to pay a delivery service. But a big con is that when you’re tired, it’s easier to skip making a healthy meal at home and stop for fast food or order take out.

When you’re lacking time, you can find yourself just throwing things into the shopping cart so you can get done with the grocery shopping. What you pay for when you use a delivery service is the convenience – and you just have to decide if the cost is worth it to you.

Planning your summer fitness diet is something that requires consideration for your personal preferences, your budget, your available time and most importantly – its ability to help you achieve your goals.

You might need to lose weight or you might already be at or near your goal weight, but want to get started on a plan that will help you tone your body and build muscle, so you’ll want to pick a plan that caters to your needs and isn’t something generalized for the masses.