Winter’s nearly over, and you’re certainly far from alone if you’ve daydreamed yourself onto a pristine sandy beach, draped on a sunbed with a cocktail in tow, to escape the winter blues. It might seem a while until you’ll be waltzing out of an airplane on your way to such a beach, but it’s never too early to start those preparatory stages that’ll have you feeling confident when your toes sink into the sand. From tanning to beachwear, fitness to accessories, you’ll find below a comprehensive list of all the elements that’ll come together over the next few months to perfect your beach body.
Exercise
The dreaded word! Best started early, and therefore always left until it’s too late, this is the crux that’ll have you strutting your stuff with confidence come vacation time. Whether you’re looking for more shapely arms, a pert posterior, or a dynamite set of legs (or why not all three?) you’re going to have to invest some effort to get there. However, that’s okay – you’ve got time!
It’s not a walk in the park; nor should you be hitting the gym daily until the summer months. Instead, find some toning tips, build a routine, and slowly hone in on the body shape of your desires. Remember: enviable muscle tone comes down to repetitive exercise, not the sort of body-building bench presses you’ll see guys tackling at the gym. Patience and perseverance are the two key tools with which you’ll achieve your body goals.
Eating
There’s enough material these days to point you in a direction away from traditional diets to alternative means of being kind to your body through what you put into it. Far less strenuous than exercising, and far easier than sticking to a regimented dieting plan, knowing the best foods for toning will change is what you decide to toss into your shopping basket.
Criminally overlooked when it comes to food is the effect of what you eat on your skin. Before you come to consider a tan, bear in mind that rich, glowing and healthy skin relies on a variety of foodstuffs that you might otherwise ruthlessly cut from your regular diet. Dark chocolate, pomegranates, yogurt, and nuts all serve to beautify skin and should be added to your shopping basket in the months leading up to your vacation.
Posture
Something of a best-kept secret for all the Instagram bikini-totting stars out there is their work on their posture. Not so much an exercise routine as a conscious attempt to improve the structural layout of your body, establishing a better posture tends to erase those creases you once thought were there to stay while giving you the stunning gait of a runway model for your arrival on the beach.
Simple tips, like sitting straight at a desk and avoiding slouching, will take you part of the way. However, it is probably most effective to read up on posture fixes and put them into action as soon before your vacation as possible, so that it becomes an unconscious gift that keeps on giving come summer time.
Tanning
You’re going to want to build a base tan before hitting the sunbeds for a week or two, ensuring that the bronzer is all you’ll need to avoid red blemishes as you sizzle under deep blue skies. Many people go for a week-prior-to-departure blitz, which does the job but leaves you feeling uncomfortable and can damage your skin.
Use this extra time to intermittently visit tanning salons, perhaps once a week, gradually building up your skin’s exposure to tan-delivering UV light for a regular, natural-looking and deeper tan that’ll stand you in the best stead for when you plan to grace the beach. However, it is important to remember that sunbeds should be used rarely to achieve your tan goals and with caution.
Beachwear
Now we’re getting down to the particulars. You’ve eaten and exercised well, and you’re rocking a steady tan that’s growing and fortifying every week. You’ve curated the body of a Greek nymph; it’s time to turn your attention to what you’ll sporting on the beach. Deciding where to start and where to search is your biggest hurdle and something you should overcome early in your holiday preparations.
There’s a lot of choices out there, but to stand out, yours is going to be the classiest. Shirk mainstream providers to avoid someone sporting the same bikini, and instead head to smaller, more stylish and less-frequented brands. The Orchid boutique monokinis for instance ooze the sort of allure you’ve been working on for months, so show off your body and deck it out in something befitting of the marvel you’ve created.
Accessories
Your style-creation isn’t over since you’ve got the time, why not get a head start in perusing all those optional extras that will complete your to-die-for look: sunglasses and sun hats, beach towels and shawls, light shirts, bangles, string bags – even a hammock! Have a good old-fashioned internet-binging research session, and you’ll be able to tab and revisit items at your leisure without a looming deadline persuading you to make impulse purchases you live to regret.
That covers the ‘classic’ accessories, but how about pushing the boat out on some features you wouldn’t have time to consider come the end of spring. Tattoos and piercings can take a notoriously long time to heal, but if done in time, could provide the perfect cherry on the icing on the cake that is your fabulous beach look.
There we have it: six strategies that you should put into action as soon as you can in order to reap multiple and satisfying benefits when it’s time to jet off to your chosen beach. Much is said about attaining the perfect ‘beach-ready’ body, but remember that perfect is a matter of taste, and your beach body is ultimately achieved for your own confidence – your own sense of swaggering glory – rather than living up to someone else’s standards. Be kind to yourself, and watch your body develop into something you’re truly proud of.