We’re weeks away from summer, and the beach is becoming irresistible with its hot sand, crashing waves, warm sun, and frozen margaritas.
But instead of strapping on your sandals and sprinting to the seashore, you’re stressing out and scrolling through the bathing suit section of online stores. If only I had another month, you think to yourself. I’m not ready to wear something this tiny!
Just the thought of our bare bellies and exposed thighs can send us scurrying back indoors. But this year will be different. Today, I’ll teach you three tactics to feel confident in that itsy-bitsy bikini before your beach vacation.
Shrink Your Waistline with Confidence
When you recognize that you have so much more to offer than appearance, your inner confidence and self-worth grow. Several studies have found that the higher someone’s self-esteem, the happier they feel.
When your confidence and happiness increase, something magical happens. That subconscious mental shift changes the way you look to those around you. Researchers have consistently found that confident people are perceived as being more attractive.
Here’s the catch: Your level of confidence cannot hinge on your weight. Confidence has to do with your view of your own worth. It’s hard to not feel like our worth waxes and wanes with the scale, so try these 4 steps to shift your mindset toward inner confidence:
- Write down the names of the top 3 people you genuinely love to be around.
- List two or three reasons why you love being with them.
- Now write down three reasons why you think these 3 people love to be around you.
- Mark the reasons you listed with a check if they have to do with appearance.
My guess is that your list won’t have a single checkmark. This simple exercise can help you snap out of the harmful mindset that equates value with appearance. In reality, the people we want to be around aren’t consumed with how they look—they’re happy, positive, and caring friends. Others feel the same about us.
Try this to foster confidence: Each time you catch yourself thinking negatively about your appearance, remember your list (or even keep a copy with you when you shop for bathing suits). Keep training your brain to not equate your value with your appearance. This simple practice will help you remember that you are free to show up at the beach just as you are.
Manage Your Macros Instead of Cutting Calories
We all know that crash diets aren’t good for us. But because they give us quick (albeit very short-term) results, we keep falling for them. As summer vacation quickly approaches, it’s easy to start drastically cutting calories.
Study after study shows that restrictive crash diets harm our bodies and actually hinder our weight loss progress. Research suggests that rapid weight loss deprives your body of essential nutrients. Plus it can slow down your metabolism, leading to future weight gain.
But now that you’ve started to shift your mindset from inner criticism to inner confidence, you’ll be much more likely to make healthy decisions regarding your diet. And guess what? Healthier diet choices will lead to faster and more long-lasting fat loss. Here’s why:
When you drastically cut calories, the number on the scale goes down, but your fat loss hasn’t necessarily picked up. Much of your weight loss is from loss of lean muscle mass (the part of your body that makes it easier to lose fat and keep it off).
Managing your macros (the protein, carbs, and fat that you eat) instead of cutting calories will guarantee that you’re:
- Eating just the right amount to supply your body with what it needs to thrive
- Giving your body the balance of macronutrients it needs to lose excess weight healthily
- Creating healthy habits that you can stick with for years to come
Try this to manage your macros: Use my free macro guide to learn how to calculate your daily macros and calorie intake for healthy, sustainable, and effective weight loss.
Tone and Trim in Half the Time with HIIT
Don’t you love spending an hour every day on the treadmill? Of course you don’t. No one wants to complete the same, boring, grueling workout day after day.
HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts are perfect for those of us who want to see results and don’t have a lot of time to spare. A HIIT workout should last no longer than 30 minutes. Its typical structure (30 seconds of low intensity, 20 seconds of moderate intensity, and 10 seconds of high intensity), keeps these workouts interesting.
Research has found that HIIT is one of the healthiest workouts you can complete. Studies show that HIIT workouts improve blood pressure and blood sugar balance and boost cardiovascular health.
HIIT also rockets your body into major calorie-burning for up to 24 hours after you finish your workout. So not only are you torching calories while you complete the workout, you don’t stop burning them until the next day.
This workout creates beautiful muscle definition and helps you drop body fat and shrink your waist circumference similar to traditional endurance exercise, even with a much smaller time commitment. HIIT is the perfect workout if you want to see changes in your body fast.
Try this HIIT schedule for noticeable results: Complete this HIIT workout (or a similar 30-minute HIIT workout) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This schedule will maximize your metabolism and give your body time to recover between sessions.
Bring It On, Bikini!
Healthy living is worth so much more than shrinking our waists down another inch. It’s about feeling confident to move past insecurities and having the energy to enjoy the moment with our friends and families on vacation and afterward.
Join me and a crew of other health seekers who are finding out how to reach our health goals and enhance our lives all at once.
Sign up for a LEAN session today, and hop on our weekly newsletter, so that you can keep moving forward in your health journey.
