Time to Tone Up for Summer!
The amazing weather upon us these past couple of months has many of us keeping our fingers crossed that a nice long drawn out Summer is just right around the corner.
To get fit for summer many are starting their beach-ready body countdown with a detox like that of Wild Rose or various juice cleanses. The thing is that all these cleanses have one thing in common: eliminating a large variety of foods from your daily diet.
The main problem with pretty much any cleanse is that none of them are scientifically proven (with double blind studies in controlled environments) and are mostly designed to sell one product or another. Ask anyone and they’ll say the same thing, that as soon as they stopped the cleanse the weight and inches came running back to their waistline.
These cleanses are not sustainable, frustrating and can seriously hurt your self-confidence time and time again, so why do them in the first place?
In fact, the healthier and smarter plan is to actually cleanse your kitchen of all the processed foods and high carb & fat culprits. The reason this is so important and effective is simply because without the temptations you are ten times more likely to stick to your healthy eating plan.
Wondering what items to keep out of your kitchen? Take a look at this list:
- Any food that has processed ingredients (cookies, cereal, chocolate, ice cream, chips, cheese, mayonnaise, etc.)
- Fruit juice that comes from concentrate or doesn’t expire within a week’s time
- Foods that have sugar, flour, or oil as the first or second ingredient
- White rice or pasta
Instead replace and fully stock up on these items:
- Fresh berries, fruit, and lemons
- Fresh vegetables such as Kale, beets, broccoli, onions, peppers, spinach, cucumber
- Fresh herbs like mint, parsley, basil
- Beans of any kind
- Lean meats like chicken breast, salmon, sirloin
- Organic eggs
- Nuts like almonds, walnuts
- Unprocessed oats for oatmeal
You pretty much can’t go wrong with a grocery list like the above. And it doesn’t mean you can’t go off the path every once in a while, but make it so that it’s not readily available and you have to leave the house occasionally to enjoy a fun brunch or ice cream cone.
This advice is gold when it comes to getting beach ready so take it seriously, put it in action and make sure to keep your grocery buying only to include foods from the list. You’ll be extremely pleased 12 weeks down the line when you’re at the beach in your new body and your confidence is through the roof.
What do you think of the above plan for healthier cleaner eating? Are you motivated to get this under way? Please leave a comment below…
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Thank you for visiting! Weight Loss and Training is a health blog which features all the best weight loss tips that I have learned over my 20 years of training. My background includes a degree in Kinesiology from the world renown Simon Fraser University, certification in nutritional sciences from UBC, and Personal Trainer Specialist certification from Can Fit Pro.