With Spring Break coming up and full-on swim season not far behind, you might be stressing about how to get your body ready for its close-up. If you slacked off on workouts and healthy eating all winter, then now's the time to get into summer shape. Reduce calories to 1,500-1,800 per day by increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables in your diet and decreasing fatty protein sources. If you've gotten too comfortable with eating all that cold-weather comfort food, then make some sensible substitutions, like broth-based beef stew, heavy on the veggies and light on the beef. Soups do a great job of filling you up, not out, when you bypass the creamy ones. Use fruit to satisfy sugary cravings instead of the ubiquitous Girl Scout cookies on sale everywhere right now.
Start slow if you haven't done too many workouts this winter - you don't want to quash all your good intentions with an injury that prevents you from being active. A brisk walk is perfect this time of year. If you're still not seeing sunny weather, then there are plenty of indoor workouts you can do. Start scaling the steps for five minutes at a time to tone up legs and glutes. Invest in some lightweight hand weights and use commercial breaks on TV to squeeze in bicep curls, flys and tricep kickbacks. Do the same with crunches or "air bike" for the duration of the commercial break to firm up abs. Whatever you do, keep a food and exercise journal to keep tabs on your progress. Crash dieting isn't effective and won't last into summer -- remember, slow and steady wins the diet race.
