Shaping Up For Swimwear Season

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Q: I’m going to Hawaii in less than two months. I’m a healthy weight but I’d like to lose five to 10 pounds and get toned before hitting the beach. I’m not asking for a miracle cure — I’m willing to work hard. What’s the best way to get a bikini-suitable body quick? Is there still time to get in shape for summer? A: Yes, there’s still time. But you better get up and moving — and I mean pronto. “It’s possible to see noticeable improvements in six to eight weeks,” says Cedric , chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise, based in San Diego. “With focused strength-training and cardiovascular work, she will be able to develop the muscles and lose some body fat to display the toned look she wants to achieve.” SEEKING RAPID RESULTS When you’re looking for rapid results, you need to be extra disciplined in your diet and really crank up the intensity and frequency of your workouts, he says. recommends a routine of strength-training plus at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise three times a week, say on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then on two alternate days — Tuesday and Thursday — do cardio workouts of longer duration, at least 45 minutes.

For cardio, he recommends low-impact machines like a stair stepper or elliptical trainer, or group exercise classes like spinning. Women are generally most concerned about revealing their bellies, bottoms and thighs in their swimsuit debut so recommends a simple routine focusing on those trouble spots: squats and lunges for general leg- and rear-toning, leg extensions for quadriceps, leg curls for hamstrings and ab curls on a stability ball for tummy-toning. He also encourages balancing the workout with biceps curls, triceps extensions, chest presses for the shoulder-triceps area and ‘lat’ pulldowns — in which you pull a suspended bar down to your chest — for the biceps and upper back muscles (latissimus dorsi). For each of these exercises, he recommends one to three sets of eight to 12 repetitions. “For weight-training, you may want to get a personal trainer for one or two introductory sessions to learn proper forms,” he adds.

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The other key element, of course, is diet. “But don’t be overly restrictive, eat a well-balanced diet where you are consuming moderate amounts of food,” he says. It’s safe and reasonable to lose one to two pounds per week, says. To lose a pound a week, you must burn or reduce your calorie intake by 3,500 calories — that requires eating 250 fewer calories and burning 250 extra calories per day. But the rate and ease at which the pounds will come off vary from person to person. “A lot has to do with genetics — some people can see big results with small changes, others have to work much harder to see results,” says Mindy Mylrea, a personal trainer in Santa Cruz, Calif.