How to Get Your Body Ready for Summer

This doesn’t happen overnight, ladies. You don’t just wake up one morning with a “beach-ready body.”  It takes time, mental determination and physical toughness to prepare for the onslaught of summer’s demands.

You and your significant other begin by having conversations over multiple years. 

Then you try and you try and you try and you try.  To no avail. 

Recognizing your failure, you reach out to the professionals. Folks who have been trained to help in this particular circumstance, who have many years of experience under their belt, so to speak. You make multiple appointments, trying to manuever the pressure you feel while attempting to remain focused on the end goal.

You contort your body into positions you never thought possible, eat super green smoothies amped up with all sorts of far-out additives and vegetables you would never normally subject yourself to, and supplement with mega-gargantuan vitamins and over-the-counter health aids you heard might help.

It’s amazing how many women can offer advice, tips and tricks.  And it’s doubly amazing how open-minded you become to them after a while. Someone on the internet told you that she hunted mushrooms by the light of a full moon in a certain wooded area surrounded by marsh, and she saw the results she wanted after only 6 weeks? Seems reasonable. On it.

Months and months go by and you’re no closer to the body you wanted. Until one day. One day – you get the sense that things have changed. And suddenly, you’re pregnant. 

And by June you are 8 months along.

Your stomach has popped out into a beach ball-esque shape. Your ankles seem a bit bigger, perhaps slightly looser than they were before. You feel perhaps less sturdy on your feet and tend to lose track of time, assignments, things to do, and most responsibilities.  Every week you order new clothes and wonder how much weight you’ll actually gain before this nugget shows up.

But you know what? You made it. After collapsing in an emotional heap in one night, unable to push yourself forward, you’ve done it. You’ve rallied. You’ve worked through the mental breakdowns and the physical exhaustion. Your body is glowing, flushed with extra blood and fluids. You’ve reached your goal. And to celebrate, you buy yourself a new bikini. 

At 8 months round, you want to show off every inch of that beach-ready body.

Featured Photo: Shutterstock

Tracey Hope-Ross

Pregnant mama who tells stories & believes in magic. Infatuated with Bergman & Bacall. Secret crush: Gregory Peck. I dance often to Billie Holiday, follow my heart, love yoga, & digging in the dirt.