Note: Before you partake in any diet, please ensure you have spoken to a dietitian or Doctor. This article is not a form of advice and is purely for information purposes.

Unfortunately, with the rise of social media, there’s a lot more images, videos, GIF’s and meme’s grabbing our attention.

In addition, there are several thousands of targeted messages trying to sell us products and the perfect lifestyle.

With the weather starting to improve. You now see posts and ads on weight loss, health shakes and how to get that perfect “beach body.”

What Exactly Is A Beach Body?

The term is more of an American term but is becoming more and more popular here in the UK. A beach body basically means a woman or man has a well toned, well defined and even described as a “sexy body”.

But What Does It Really Mean?

You may think that there are several ways of changing the body’s composition. However, there are only really two ways.

One of them is increased body fat and decreasing it. The other is increasing or decreasing skeletal muscle mass (this is the amount of muscle a body has).

When we train in a gym, the only thing we can increase in the size of our muscles. The muscle only becomes more apparent more visible when the your body fat is lower.

This is where terms such as “chiseled”, “defined” and “toned” come from. This is based on the relationship between having a high skeletal muscle mass and having a much lower body fat mass.

So What Can Be Done In a Few Weeks?

If you stick to a strict calorie controlled diet you could lose anywhere between 0.5 to 1 kg of body fat.

With the right resistance training, low and high protein consumption should increase your muscle mass.

If a person has a high amount of body fat, they ironically find that the process of the diet and the training starts to show results a lot faster than those with less body fat.

How will this affect your appearance?

There are a lot of people that are very close to what is considered a “normal” range for skeletal muscle mass and body fat.

Losing eight kg of body fat and increasing two kg of muscle mass should make a considerable difference to their body composition.

On the flip side, for someone who is at the opposite end of the scale and is above normal ranges of body fat.

Reducing the same amount of fat body fat is similar, however, having the same amount of muscle ‘definition’ and toning. So, to summarise, with all things being equal except the starting weight, not everyone has the ability to get a “beach body” in just a few weeks.

Don’t misinterpret this to NOT being able to lose more weight, because the two are not the same. In fact, a lot of people struggle to see the difference.

The main difference is, you can lose a lot of weight but not see a massive difference in definition and tone. However, if you start of nearer your desirable look, you can see results a lot faster even though you haven’t lost as much weight.

What can be done in two weeks?

There are a lot of people that think that going on a crash diet and losing a lot of kg of weight is a good way to get that “beach body.” However, in most cases, the only thing you are losing is water and not body fat.

The only problem with extreme dramatic weight loss is the fact that it is not sustainable. It’s also not that healthy to do and could cause problems for you later on down the road.

People that do this often times yo-yo with their weight and go on several different diets.

For most, this path ultimately leads them to be out of sync with their work, social life and more importantly at home. I think you would agree?

This isn’t the best course of action to take. Not only is it bad for your health, but it also means you probably aren’t receiving the correct number of nutrients your body needs and energy balance.

What often happens is you revert back to the old ways of diet and exercise and quickly put the weight back on.

How to achieve long-term weight loss

There are thousands upon thousands of different diets, supplements and healthy food available. However, there is still only one proven way to lose body fat. It is by being in a caloric deficit (or negative energy balance).

The fact of the matter is, we still live in our caveman and cavewomen bodies. Our bodies aren’t designed to eat so much food nor are they designed to eat the vast amount of processed foods that we eat today.

We need to eat healthy food and drink and reduce our daily calorie intake. If you do this with a healthy dose of exercise and you will achieve long term weight loss.

One of the things that often confuses people is the sort of food they can consume to lose weight.

As long as you keep the number of calories you consume at the right level, you can pretty much eat what you like. However, it won’t be a healthy option, even though you will still lose weight.

You don’t need to drink green tea, diet shakes or lemon water. The key is to maintain a healthy and nutritious diet.

There are many different resources out there with regards to maintaining a healthy diet, and weight loss.

Our advice is to read and consume as much information as possible before you embark on this journey.

The beach body is not a myth. However, the way you go about achieving it needs to be thought through, measured and backed up by reading lots of information.