Your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life and for most brides and grooms to be, it often comes with a goal of slimming down for that special day. Being confident in your own skin is important but when it comes to your wedding day it will have more significance when all eyes are on you – after all Wedding and Honeymoon photographs are forever. A study undertaken by Cornell University in 2007 found that 70% of 272 women recently engaged wanted to lose weight for their wedding day typically around 20lbs, and that 80% of those women failed to lose anywhere near their original goal by the time of their wedding, procrastinating as soon as the word diet is mentioned. Most Brides turn to crash dieting choosing to leave dieting for their big day to the last minute “I have loads of time” – a recipe for disaster! Weddings are extremely stressful as it is, and the stress only increases the closer it gets to the wedding date. The last thing you want is to be on is low calories, feeling moody, grumpy and having regrets that you left it too late on the lead up to your wedding. The Solution? Plan your diet in the same way you are planning your wedding. Your wedding day body should be seen as a project and properly mapped out with milestones along the way. The ideal time to start your body transformation is 12 months before your wedding, this allows you to coast into your ceremony and down that isle without your diet taking over your life and most importantly without having to remove social events, alcohol and treats completely. Having worked with several brides in the past, the brides who gave themselves 6 to 12 months to prepare all achieved more than they set out to in the beginning, whereas those who gave themselves 4 to 12 weeks struggled due to the pressure with less than 50% achieving their goal. Next year I get married and as an example I have mapped out my entire regime based on similar plans I have designed for my bridal clients in the past. I use to compete on stage so my goal was to try and reduce my muscle mass because I want to look more feminine for my wedding day rather than having everyones attention on the size of my shoulders or how defined my back muscles are! inPhase 1: This is pre wedding dress shopping. There is nothing worse than feeling self-conscious trying on wedding dresses. Making decisions based on your current physique is very difficult. You may find that the dresses which suit you best at the moment are A-Line, but who’s to say that will be the case 9 months down the line if you have lost a lot of weight? – you may now prefer to go for a more figure hugging dress, resulting in over expenditure from purchasing two dresses. Starting your diet 3 to 4 months before wedding shopping can help you make more informed decisions on the style of wedding dress you would like. It also allows you to see how well you can stick to your new lifestyle changes and what a realistic dress size you can order that gown in based on how you have been performing to date. Moreover, shopping for dresses is a fantastic experience and it’s great to go in there feeling confident! During this phase I stuck to pretty much the same macro’s throughout the 4 months on a 20% deficit. On social events I followed my calorie target. I had 4 weekends away during this 4 month period and 2 weeks in America. I was also struck down by a severe kidney infection for a week. I made sure that my daily diet was made up of mainly whole foods (except for the almost daily chocolate bar!). Each day I hit anything from 12,500 to 20,000 steps. I trained 5 days a week for 60 minutes. This consisted of 2 upper body workouts and 2 lower body workouts, with one 60 minute outdoor run. Each resistance workout was made up of HIIT circuits with weights lasting 30 minutes, warm up and cool down cardio was a total of 15 minutes, and I also incorporated 15 minutes of yoga and stretching at the end of each session. At the end of phase 1 I went from a size 10 to a size 6/8 losing a total of 24.8 cm across my entire body. I only lost 7.5 pounds in weight. You can following my weekly progress by clicking here. My goal was to lose 32cm across my entire body in phase 1 but what i achieved given the circumstances was still amazing so I shouldn't be too upset! Phase 2: After the dress fittings you now want to start a new training program and have your macros re calculated. It’s time to start making weekly changes to diet either from habits or macro alterations. A new training program should also be designed, changing your training each week or having no consistency won’t maximise your results. Always try to follow the same program for around 8 to 12 weeks, this will make allow you to see progression in what you’re doing. I plan to switch over to a strength and fat loss program at this point. Heavy compound movements combined with post workout cardio. I still plan to keep my weekly yoga session in and small daily 15 minute practices. Many women are scared to lift heavy thinking they will become big and muscly. Women’s bodies are not designed to hold high levels of muscle, it’s virtually impossible for this to happen unless you are training correctly and eat in a surplus – it can take years of intense training for muscle growth to occur. When training on a calorie deficit for weight and fat loss you want to train heavy and eat correctly around the workout zone. Feed your body a good pre workout meal 1.5 to 3 hours before your workout containing low gi complex carbs, a protein and fat source. This gives your body fuel and will allow you to maximise your performance in the gym thus burning more calories! Did you know that losing fat involves increasing your metabolism? Muscle plays a huge role in increasing your metabolism. A pound of muscle burns around 10-20 calories a day whereas a pound of fat burns only 5 calories! Train hard, lift heavy and eat often throughout the day! Post workout meals should contain a protein and high GI simple carbohydrate. This aids recovery replenishing the depleted muscle glycogen and preventing muscle breakdown. Often people think they have gained muscle mass and look more toned when dieting and training, the truth is all they have done is shed the fat surrounding their muscles, making their natural lean muscle tone become more visible giving a false impression that they have gained. Phase 3: During Phase 2 and 3 is when you want to make the most impact in your diet, before the stress increases as you approach your big day. Ideally you want to achieve your goal by the end of phase 3, this way all the hard work is done, which means the next 3 months is just about maintaining what you have achieved taking the pressure off you. Your dress should be arriving at the end of phase 3 which can also help reduce costs when it comes to dress alterations! At this point in time I plan to switch over to Y3T for 12 weeks, this is a 3-week cycle you repeat 4 times taking you to 12 weeks. On week 1 you do heavy compound movements with low reps and a tempo of 3 to 5 seconds in the lowering phase. In week 2 your lifting moderate weight, in the 14 to 18 rep range a combination of compound and isolation exercises. In week 3 you’re going to failure in each exercises, its built up from supersets, drop sets, giant sets and really pushes you to the limit. Once all 3 weeks are completed you go back to week 1 but you have to lift more weight or do more reps than you did the last time round. I love this system! Phase 4: Your wedding ready 3 months before your big day! It’s time to reverse out of your deficit slightly and have some more calories – you will need the energy! Your already looking fantastic for your henny / stagger, your lifestyle and health has improved and your oozing with confidence. All those good habits you have built up over the past 9 months are now embedded. It’s highly unlikely you will return to your old ways now and you will now be able to make much more informed decisions when it comes to food choices long term, thus maintaining what you have achieved on plan. At this point I plan to switch back to resistance HIIT circuits and increase my yoga and cardio. This will offset the slight increase in my calories. I am going to use Yoga as a stress reliever helping me feel calmer and more relaxed as the wedding day approaches. Of course Yoga will also benefit me physically due to its strengthening and toning qualities.
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AuthorsSharon & Lainey are Online PT & Nutrition Advisors with a combined 18 years experience in the Health & Fitness Industry. Archives
August 2018
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