Beat Summer Weight Gain With These 4 Tips

If you tend to gain weight during the summer, then try these 4 tips to beat summer weight gain for good!

In this blog:

• Revise Your Fitness Approach
• Make Mindful Food Choices
• Revamp Your Alcohol
• Change Your Outlook

WHY DOES WEIGHT GAIN HAPPEN DURING SUMMER?

The summer months can be some of the toughest months to maintain your regular fitness and wellness routines, even harder than Christmas time.  People go camping, do some travelling, get married, attend festivals and outdoor concerts, and so on. They eat what they want, drink what they want, and enjoy the feeling of freedom that summer brings. Before they know it, they gained a bunch of weight.

When people ask, “Why is it that I gain weight in the summer and become so unmotivated to stick to my workout schedule?” the answer seems obvious to me.  Summer brings on a sense of  “letting go” of regular routines. With that said, many people do tend to really let themselves go…for months. Not just for a week.

They are most like not deeply connected to their current fitness and wellness routines because they are too rigid and feel more like daily chores and less like a meaningful lifestyle.

And that right there is the big problem. It’s not summer but the system they are on that takes them from one extreme to the other. Balance has not been established and there is no meaningful connection. They are either on or off.

Some people claim that they need freedom for mental health. I find this a bit of a contradiction. How is their mental health post-summer when they realize they gained 10lbs and have a ton of guilt? So again, it’s a balance issue.

To help you beat summer weight gain, here are 4 tips to help you create a more balanced way of living so that when summer hits, you don’t feel that you need to drop the ball on your fitness and wellness goals in order to have fun. Your goals should be part of the fun!

By creating a more enjoyable balanced lifestyle that you can maintain all year round, you will gain freedom and flexibility while at the same time building and maintaining a healthy body.

TIP 1 – REVISE YOUR FITNESS APPROACH

Explore new fitness activities that can be easily maintained all year round. This is an adventurous and fun way to help you beat summer weight gain as it can be carried through all summer long.

Have you ever tried sport walking? Sport walking is different than regular or leisurely walking. It’s done with more oomph in your step and with the intention and purpose to build and maintain fitness. You usually set a goal for your sessions, such as increasing walking distance or speed.

Sport walking is highly versatile. For example, if you want to increase your walking speed you can incorporate speed walking intervals. You can also climb up steep hills to increase your walking strength.

Most local running events now have a category for walking. You can sport walk with the intention to enter a race or local charity event. It’s a very social and fun way to build fitness and burn calories.

This is an activity that you can do year-round. You can sport walk anywhere, even on vacation. It is the easiest activity to execute compared to something like cycling or weightlifting where equipment is required.

If sport walking is not your jam, then find your favourite jam. Choose something that you can take with you wherever you go. To help you beat summer weight gain, you need to find an exercise you love to do that can be done year-round and you will commit to doing it on a very regular basis.

Need help? CLICK HERE to try my 4-week walking for weight loss and fitness plan.

TIP 2 – MAKE MINDFUL FOOD CHOICES

Calories matter! That argument needs to be put to rest. It’s been proven time and time again that if you eat more calories than you use on a daily basis, you will gain weight. If you consume fewer calories than you burn on a daily basis, you will lose weight.

In the summer, people generally gain weight because they consume more calories while attending parties, weddings, vacations, and so on. I’m not going to tell anyone to stop going to these activities because that’s ridiculous. However, you can make a big impact by being mindful of your food choices and practicing self-discipline during these occasions.

Here are two of the biggest things I do that help me – practice portion control and make trade-offs.

For example, if I am at a backyard BBQ, I take smaller portions and make trade-offs. I’ll choose grilled chicken and leafy green salads instead of the sausage and creamy salads. I will skip desserts and have a drink instead. So not denying myself, just making small adjustments.

This kind of mindset and behaviour works. By doing this on a regular basis during the summer (and all year-round), I literally avoid consuming thousands of extra calories that would take a lot of extra effort to burn off.

Remember, consuming an extra 3500 calories equals roughly 1 lb of weight gain. If you think a little reduction in portion sizes and making occasional trade-offs don’t make a big difference, you’re wrong! This behaviour is a preventative measure and it works.

Do you struggle to find low-calorie recipes that also taste great? CLICK HERE to try one of my LipSmackers recipes – Crustless Quiche. Also, CLICK HERE to get my low-cal recipe video tutorials.

TIP 3 – REVAMP YOUR ALCOHOL

Do you really need that glass of wine every night?  Switch it up to bubbly water or herbal teas.

Choose lower-calorie drinks too. Alcohol is not only a huge way to pour a ton of calories into your body but it also causes bloat and fluid retention.

For most people, it can lead to hunger cravings. Soon you find yourself gorging on high-calorie foods.

Pair these two things together and you have another reason why you gain so much weight during the summer. Backyard BBQs and vacations don’t have to become weight-gainers.

Just by making a few adjustments, you can save yourself thousands of liquid calories.

Not sure which drinks are lower in calories. CLICK HERE to download my Alcohol Calorie Guide.

TIP 4 – CHANGE YOUR OUTLOOK

Summer should not be a time that you feel like you need to escape your fitness and wellness “chores”. They should be included and be a big part of the fun.

And if they feel like chores, that’s the first thing you need to address. They should feel like a lifestyle and conveniently fit into your everyday life.

Seek balance throughout the entire year. Find a way to smooth out those highs and lows. Ask yourself what you want the most. Choose one or two things that give you the biggest bang for your efforts and are super easy to maintain no matter what you have going on in your life.

For example, my two main lifestyle habits that I carry out all year long no matter what I have going on are creating time for daily exercise and eating a high-protein diet. Simple!

Need more help in changing your outlook, finding your balance, or being consistent? CLICK HERE to read ‘How to Be Consistent in Fitness.’

I hope these tips helped. Let me know which one speaks to you the most in the comments below. Also, feel free to ask questions if you need help with a specific problem. Or, if you have been successful in finding your balance, tell us about that too.