How YOU can get the perfect summer body

Summer is here and with it comes the inevitable onslaught of crop-tops, short shorts and poolside pictures plaguing your timeline.

Everyone knows showing off your body is a massive no-no unless it’s perfectly tanned, toned and tiny.

Don’t blame society, blame yourself for not fitting in to the perfectly achievable body stereotype. They’re not plastering these pictures across every available public surface for themselves; they’re doing it for you.

They’re giving you a kind heads-up, explaining this is how you should look to be deemed acceptable for the beach. Really, there’s no excuse for you to look any other way than perfect before you go on holiday.

Here’s a selection of tried and tested ideas to get you shedding those pounds so you can become the person you’ve always secretly wanted to be.

You better get cracking.

Eat healthily

Obviously fast foods, fizzy drinks and chocolate aren’t going to get you looking like a Victoria Secret model. Foods high in “roughage” are the best options as they fill you up and promote digestion, allowing you to achieve the ultimate dieting goal of churning out more than you take in.

Paleo dieting is extremely popular at the moment, as by eating food the cavemen ate you’re not only cutting out hidden trans fats but also creating a totally on trend Insta account.

Paleo food is pretty pricey as it costs a lot to transport it from BCE times but there’s plenty available in your natural environment.

Think bushels, nettles and all the other rural stuff you’d find in an Enid Blyton adventure and you’ve got yourself a Paleo dinner. Don’t bother checking if your finds are edible – it probably, maybe, won’t kill you and food poisoning will bring you one step closer to that dream bod.

Eat less more often

Recent dietary research has discovered eating five small meals a day is a better way to boost metabolism and burn off calories than the traditional three.

But don’t think this is an excuse to add on two extra rounds of PB&J sandwiches to your daily routine, you fat greedy shit.

More meals means reduced portion sizes. If you need a guideline for this, the reduction is size is roughly equivalent to the reduction in joy you will experience from this technique. Significant.

Any meal you can’t fit comfortably in one hand is definitely too large, and you should really be sticking to portions you could swallow in one if you really want to experience those gains.

Keep a food journal

This is a safe place where you can take valuable time out of your day to write out all tasteless food you’ve eaten, which you can then look back on at a later date to remind you of the happy times.

Even better, if you do stray from the path of righteousness and treat yourself to a delicious cheesy burger you’ll have the added benefit of being plagued by your guilt in written form. Every day.

Exercise

Diet is important, but exercise is also key to make sure you’re not just left with a pile of skin and bones. Remember, it’s no longer about being slim, it’s about being fit (which just happens to look very similar to being slim).

Gym membership around Durham is extortionate, but fortunately there are many free and easy ways that you can get your blood pumping.

We’re live in a very hilly city, so make the most of this by stacking your Tesco shopping on your forearms and using it as weights for the power walk home.

If you’re not dripping sweat into your everyday value hummus, you’re doing something wrong.

Use smaller cutlery

This is a trick used by well-known fitness fanatic Alan Sugar – and you can see it’s paid off.

Using tiny cutlery while eating will not only trick your brain into thinking you’re eating more, but will also mean that it takes you longer to eat so you eat less.

This technique is not suitable for everyone. Don’t use it if you’re tripping, as the massive size of your hands compared to the fork may freak you out and cause you to try stuffing them into children’s gloves to make you feel normal again.

It may also not work if you don’t forget you’ve actually gone and bought stupidly tiny cutlery. Then the attempt at tricking your fully aware brain becomes redundant.

Wait 10 minutes

It takes 10 minutes for your body to realise it’s full, so a lot of the time you’re eating more than you need to satisfy your hunger.

To avoid this weight-gaining trap, take three bites of your meal and then take a break for 10 minutes. If you’re still hungry after this period of time, take another three bites.

Keep doing this until you’re full, your food’s gone cold, or the people you were dining with have got so fed up you’re left alone at the table and are too depressed to eat any more.

Smoke

This weight loss technique is pioneered by no other than yummy earth-mummy Gwyneth “the” Paltrow.

She revealed to the Daily Mail she allows herself to smoke a single cigarette on a Saturday, saying “I love these moments because they are just the right amount of naughty.”

While not all of us can live life quite as fully as Gwyneth, the occasional cigarette, or pack, or brick, is sure to smother your hunger pangs under a mound of low-fat tar.

Believe in yourself xo

The most important thing to remember is this is your journey. Yours and no-one else’s.

There’s no point starting a diet plan if you’re not completely committed, and to do this you have to believe in the one person who can actually make a change: you.

It takes a strong person to find the perfect balance between enough self-hate to want to completely change how you look and enough self-love to think you’re worth it.

Is that person you?