Summer is in full swing. The beaches are full of people in their bikinis, crashing by the waves, surfing, swimming, and even just enjoying margaritas by their home pools! But before you can head out to the beach, you’ll most probably want to make sure that your body is in perfect shape for that new bikini you want to wear so bad! Not to worry, though, because there’s always time to get that perfect bod you crave for so bad.

Exercising regularly and eating healthy are the two main ways you can lose that excess weight and look great so that you can stroll confidently across the beach.

Here are some useful tips if you’re looking for answers to “how to get the perfect summer beach body.”

Healthy Eating

Eating healthy is one of the main ways to stay and remain fit and get your body ready for the beaching season!

Consume Adequate Amounts of Protein

Oftentimes, we tend to forget the importance of protein in our diet, and this is where many of us go wrong. Remember, if you are trying to lose that excess weight, the last thing you should do is avoid eating altogether.

Food deprivation never really works. In fact, if anything, depriving yourself of sufficient food and drink is only going to make you irritable and annoyed for the most part. Remember, if you are always frustrated, you won’t go far in your journey of staying fit and losing excess weight.

Protein is important for a number of different reasons. Most of us are aware that protein helps when it comes to building muscle mass. This is why so many athletes drink protein shakes regularly as part of their fitness regimes – so that they are able to develop sufficient muscle mass.

But this isn’t the only reason protein is good for you. Protein also aids in fat loss, according to a study that was published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Researchers from this study concluded that those who consumed sufficient protein throughout the day, well spread across all of their different meals a day, saw much better results for weight loss than those who did not.

Moreover, the consumption of the protein not only helped them lose excess weight but also helped preserve lean muscle mass in all of these people.

The ideal beach bod requires all of these things – excess fat loss and a decent level of muscle mass. So before you can get your bikinis out this year, make sure that your diet is one that is rich in protein.

Be Careful With Your Food Choices

Make sure that whatever foods you eat are those that can help break down cellulite. Cellulite is one of the main problems most women face every summer. Cellulite is basically loose fat. It develops when the skin’s connective tissue or collagen breaks down.

Cellulite is so common that approximately 90% of all bikini-wearing women face this problem each year!

Not to worry, though, because there are ways to avoid this problem. Collagen is basically a sort of protein. As a result, even just consuming sufficient levels of protein can help strengthen your collagen fibers and prevent your collagen from weakening.

Another useful way to strengthen your skin’s collagen is by drinking tons and tons of water!

In fact, you might have noticed in periods where you have increased your water intake, that your skin no longer looks loose and no longer hangs loosely around your body.

There are other ways to strengthen collagen and get rid of loose fat, such as by eating flax seeds. This is because flax seeds are rich in and are a good source of collagen. Even certain berries are rich in collagen.

Just be careful about your food choices, but remember not to starve yourself in the process. This is because starvation can have an almost detrimental effect on your metabolism, and your weight will almost certainly remain stagnant.

Make Sure Your Diet Is Low-Bloat

The one thing that will ruin your entire bikini look is if your stomach is bloated. If your tummy is bloated, your beach body can end up looking extremely puffy, and no one wants that! It doesn’t even matter if you don’t have any excess fat. So long as your tummy is bloated, your beach bod just won’t look all that great!

There are pretty simple ways to avoid bloating. For starters, try to avoid packaged foods as much as possible. Typically, packaged foods are high in sodium and can cause water retention. You would be surprised at how much of your bloating is actually just retained water in your body.

This isn’t even the most surprising bit, though. No matter how much you try to eat healthy, sometimes, even the healthiest of foods can cause bloating if you aren’t careful. This is especially true for foods that are difficult or take longer to digest, such as chickpeas. While chickpeas are generally considered to be extremely healthy, they are slow-digesting. As such, they can cause bloating. Similarly, vegetables such as kale and broccoli and even fruits like peas, apples, and beans can be slow to digest and can, therefore, cause bloating.

To overcome bloating, you should try to include certain high-potassium fruits in your diet. These fruits include oranges, avocados, bananas, and kiwis. You can even eat certain vegetables such as cucumbers and asparagus. Both of these are known for their anti-bloating properties.

Even if you do end up a little bloated, there’s no real reason to worry! Try to make yourself some detox water with cucumber to reduce the bloating right away!

Try To Cut Back On The Cocktails

You must certainly have heard of the term ‘beer belly.’ Everyone knows that drinking an excess of alcohol, especially beer, can really cause your stomach to bloat up.

Although the desire to sit by the beach, with your legs touching the waves, the sun in your eyes, and a margarita in your hand can be overwhelming, sometimes you have to push back that desire and cut back on the alcohol!

There are many reasons alcohol can prevent you from ending up with your dream body. The most blatant of these is the high caloric content of alcohol and alcoholic beverages.

Each sip of alcohol that you take, you end up ingesting tons and tons of useless calories.

According to a study by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people tend to consume an additional 400 calories on the days in which they have even just a few drinks.

So while it’s understandable that you may want to have cocktails all the time in the blistering summer heat, if having a lean and toned beach body is, in fact, important to you, you must avoid this at every cost.

Avoid Unnecessary Snacking

Snacking is never really good for you, even if your snacking is relatively healthy. The problem is that most people tend to snack more than ever during summer, especially during the long, lonesome summer nights.

Any sort of snacking can seriously prevent you from losing excess pounds or that extra weight off your body. This is especially true if you are actually serious about getting your bikini bod ready to hit the sand.

Snacking can be addictive, and once you get into the habit of snacking, it can become nearly impossible to cut back.

Even if you opt for a relatively healthy snack such as nuts or fruits, it can still add up to a lot of calories ultimately, and this can be severely detrimental to your beach bod progress.

Instead of resorting to snacks, make sure to have fulfilling, wholesome meals three times a day so that you feel so satisfied that you do not even feel the urge to snack during the day.

Make sure to have set particular mealtimes for yourself. Setting specific mealtimes for yourself makes it far more possible to keep track of the calories consumed each day. This way, you make sure that you do not end up overeating.

Exercise

Exercise is obviously crucial to having the body of your dreams. Even if you eat all the right things, you can’t hope for a perfect beach bod without putting in at least some effort in working out regularly.

Exercise is important even if you do consider yourself to be of ideal body weight. This is because you can never get enough exercise. No matter your body type, exercise can still help you achieve your dream body – to get it toned and structured.

Certain exercises are especially useful in helping you tone down, including the following.

Swimming

Swimming is considered to be one of the most useful and most effective exercises out there, not just for losing excess weight, but also for dealing with cellulite or loose fat.

Swimming is so effective because you have to use almost every muscle in your body. There are many different strokes you can master, such as freestyle, breaststroke, etc. Each stroke can have separate beneficial effects for your body and can tone different areas of your body very well.

Swimming is the perfect combination of both cardio and strength resistance. Because it is inside the water, it is all the more helpful. This is because water is far denser than the outside air. Your muscles will be constantly in use, and as a result, it will be an overall excellent workout for you.

Regular swimmers tend to look and feel younger and regular swimming is also great for your lungs. So if you think it’s too late to get that perfect beach bod, think again! Start swimming today and be ready to hit the waves in no time at all.

Surfing

Another great summer-time activity that can also help tone your body is surfing. Surfing the ocean waves is so much fun, but that’s not all it is!

Surfing is actually considered to be one of the most vigorous activities and exercises out there! This is because surfing can burn approximately the same amount of calories as an intense gym session, a game of football, or even an activity such as rock-climbing!

Moreover, even though it is a high-intensity workout, it is low impact, so it does not negatively affect your hip joints or your knees as running would, for example.

Furthermore, surfing makes use of almost all your body muscles, similar to swimming. As such, it helps to build and strengthen your entire core. In some ways, surfing allows for a full body work out. According to research, while we surf, we use our triceps, trapezius, deltoids, biceps, rectus abdominis, and obliques, among other muscles.

Moreover, surfing is the perfect summer activity, so it won’t even feel like work. You’ll lose weight while having a ball!

Stand-Up Paddling

Stand-up paddling is just another variant of a paddleboat. It took root in Hawaii but is now popular in many areas of the world. This form of paddling quite literally requires you to stand up while on a paddleboat. It is a great way to burn calories and stay fit while enjoying yourself throughout!

Bike Rides

Bicycling has always been a great way to stay healthy. In fact, before gyms were even a concept and car usage was less frequent, people, especially those living in smaller towns, would cycle everywhere in order to stay fit and healthy.

So if you haven’t seen your bicycle since you were a teenager, now would be the right time to take it out and get your body beach-ready!

These were just some of the ways you can adopt if you want to learn how to get that perfect summer beach body.