Pre-wedding diet and fitness tips

It's definitely not a requirement to have a pre-wedding diet or fitness regime, but if you're taking the opportunity to get a little more healthy ahead of your big day, then we have some handy tips for you to stick to...

Fitness tips

• Consider hiring a personal trainer if the budget stretches to it. They can help you work on specific areas, put together a fitness plan to match your goals and time frame, and keep you motivated throughout the process. If you don't have the spare cash for a personal trainer, then try looking for online fitness programmes that can be personalised for you.
• Work out with a friend! You're much more likely to stick to your fitness regime if you have someone to run in the park or visit the gym with. Whether it's your groom, your maid of honour or just a close friend, it'll help keep you accountable. 
• If you're focused on toning up and building muscle, then you'll need to incorporate strength training into your routine to get the best results. 
• If you're focused on weight loss, then you'll need to have a healthy eating plan in place as well - there's no point hitting the gym every day if you're just going to eat away all your hard work!
• Start slow. If you're working from a low base level of fitness and you try to take on too much all at once, then you'll burn out quicker and be more likely to give up. For the first month, focus on doing three sessions of at least 30 minutes of cardio a week. You can then start incorporating more body weight exercises such as crunches, squats, and push-ups, as well as strength training using weights. As the weeks go by, increase the number of reps or the amount of weight you're using to see improved results. 
• Upper arms are the most popular area for brides to focus on toning - if you'd like to work on this area, then we recommend exercises such as lateral raises, tricep dips, and bicep curls.

Diet tips

• Start early. Crash dieting is bad for your health, will leave you grumpy and irritable, and is much more likely to fail. The earlier you set your goals and start working on healthy eating, the more time you give yourself to lose the weight gradually. 
• Be realistic. On top of starting early, you want to be realistic about how much weight you can actually lose in your set time frame. A loss of 1 or 2 pounds a week is a good starting point to work from, and accept that with any diet, there are likely to be plateaus where your weight loss slows down or even stops for a time. 
• Calorie counting is a tried and true method to drop the pounds, but if you've not had much success with this in the past, you may want to research other diets that may work better for your lifestyle, such as 5:2, Paleo, or groups like Slimming World or Weight Watchers. The more comfortable you are with your diet plan, the more successful you'll be at it. 
• Resist the urge to cut entire food groups. Instead, focus on cutting down on culprit areas such as sugar, saturated fats, and processed carbohydrates, and incorporating more fruits, veggies and healthy proteins into your daily diet. If you're struggling to give up all unhealthy snacks, why not give up just your favourite three? You'll cut down without depriving yourself entirely.
• Eat little and often. Have a healthy snack every three to four hours, and definitely avoid skipping meals, or you'll just end up giving into temptation and binge eating. 
• Research recipes online, and prep your foods in advance. There are plenty of great weight-loss meal plans that can help take the stress out of weight loss, and if you know exactly what you're having for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you'll be less likely to opt for takeaway or an unhealthy supermarket lunch. 
• Work with your bridal consultant when it comes to the wedding dress. Don't order several sizes smaller than you need to in the hopes that you'll slim into it, as it'll just put extra pressure on you. Similarly, stop dieting once you approach your final few fittings, otherwise you'll end up either having to have an emergency last-minute fitting, or having a loose dress!

Need a little help? Find wedding weight loss and fitness professionals here!