How to Get a Hot Body

Do you want a nice, toned body for the summer? Are you getting ready to strut your stuff at a pool or at the beach? With a little work, exercise, and discipline, a hot body can be all yours

Part 1 of 2: Diet and Sleep
Eat plenty of healthy foods. Avoid junk food like chips, cakes, pizzas, and ice cream. Your body will thank you. Eat foods high in protein and fiber, and remember to opt for smaller portions. Shoot for 3-4 small meals per day.

• Fruits and, more importantly, vegetables will keep you from gaining the same gut you are losing in those crunches. Go for vegetables that have lots of color in them: beets, carrots, kale, tomatoes, and broccoli. Combine them in a salad or eat them with hummus if you don't have a taste for them.
• Don't starve yourself. Starving yourself will actually hurt your chances of losing weight, because your metabolism slows when it doesn't get food. (It's preparing to save more energy.) So eat regular, small portions if you want to lose that extra weight.

Drink water instead of juice or soda, even if it's diet. Although diet soda offers a "zero" calorie alternative to regular soda, it still interferes with weight loss. If you're serious about getting that body looking in tip-top shape, don't drink anything but water. Substituting water for every other drink will drastically lower your caloric intake.

• The recommended daily intake for women is actually about 2.2 liters (0.6 US gal), or nine cups.^[1] We know that's a lot, and we know how hard it is to lay off those soy lattes in the morning or those juices in the day. But start off slow, and work your way up. Rome wasn't conquered in a day.
• Cut alcohol out of your diet. This can be a tough one, especially if you're used to drinking that glass of red wine after you come home from work. (We have nothing against red wine, we swear!) Alcohol has lots of calories in it, especially those cosmos. So, even though a glass of wine is healthy for you for other reasons, it's not the greatest way to slim down.

Get more sleep. Sleep is the third part of the puzzle for many looking to lose weight. Many women (and men) go obsessively to the gym, eat like vegetarian monks, and still don't see a reduction in their waist size. Getting a good night's sleep is an important part of shedding those extra pounds.

• Sleep deprivation hurts your ability to lose weight.^[2] This because your body produces the glucose and insulin levels of some diabetics when you don't sleep! So depriving yourself of sleep is a no-no for healthy weight loss.
• Less sleep kills your motivation to work out and eat well. We've all been there: It's the end of a stressful day at work, we're tired, and we have no energy to do the things we told ourselves we'd do at the beginning of the day. Getting a good night's rest helps keep you energized and motivated, so that when it comes time to hop on the treadmill, you're perky as can be!

Part 2 of 2: Exercise

Do your cardio. Cardio is great way to burn calories and get your body in shape. The goal is to get your heart rate going at a healthy clip so that it burns extra energy.

• Start off running for half an hour a day for two weeks, or ride your bicycle at an intensive level. If you think you can handle it, jump into an hour day for better and faster results.
• If you run out of breath, it is ok to stop and rest for about a minute, but don't stop long enough for your heart rate to slow down.
• When you are ready to stop, take a cool-down walk. Walk at a fast pace first then slow down gradually. Don't forget to stretch before and after your workouts.

Start walking. If you don't do anything else, get yourself to walk at least 15 minutes a day. Walking is a great way to exercise, and studies show that even 15 minutes can increase your lifespan by three years.^[3] So you'll live longer and look better to boot!

• Take the stairs instead of the elevator when possible. Walking up stairs is a great way to work your leg and glute muscles.
• Get a pedometer. A pedometer measures how many steps you take over the course of the day. People who wear pedometers tend to walk more than people who don't.
• Find excuses to be outside! The more you're outside, the harder it is not to walk. Especially when it's nice out, eat lunch outside, take a walk after dinner, or walk your dog regularly in the morning.

Make a workout routine. Working your body — with weights or without — targets extra flab where you don't want it: your lower arms, your thighs, your rump, your belly. A workout routine is an important part of getting that body ready for its debut!

• Stretch before you work. Pick out your own stretches, but always use a hurdle stretch and a saddle stretch to increase flexibility. Try using stretches that simulate what you would be doing when you do exercise. This will get your muscles ready for the real work.
• Begin with 50 crunches. You must do a proper crunch to get results. Always keep your hands across your chest. Lift up using your abs, not your back. Come down only until your shoulder blades touch the ground. Don't use the ground to bounce back into your next crunch.
• Do as many push ups as you can do; push your limits as much as possible. Arms straight, bend all the way down, your bottom must stay in line with your body, not pushed up in the air.
• Do leg lifts. Start by laying on either side and lifting your leg up in the air, bring it almost all the way down, but do not let it touch your other leg. Then switch. Do 20 reps on each side for starters, you can increase as you progress with your workout. For added resistance, you may get a weight and hold it on top of your thigh or one of those weights that attach to your ankle.
• Do the "Superman." Lie flat on the ground with you arms outstretched in front of you. Lift up your legs and arms and chest off the ground as high as you can. Hold this for 10 seconds. Then return to starting position and rest for 5 seconds. Then repeat. Do a total of 10 reps.
• Do as many arm curls as you can on each side. This is a basic starting work out. Once you feel no burn until you pass 12 reps, increase the weight you lift slightly. The optimal amount of weight to lift is an amount you can lift at least 8 times, but begin to feel a burn before 12 reps.

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Midou Osbourne