Q&A: Prewedding Fitness Tips

Jayson Lincoln from Head for Health is personal trainer who has worked with celebs like Kate Ritchie and her husband Stuart Webb. We asked him for his best tips for getting in shape for your wedding day.

Q: What are some of the biggest mistakes brides make when trying to get in shape before their wedding?

Not giving themselves enough time to reach their goal weight and setting themselves unrealistic goals. Planning a wedding can be a stressful time so you don’t want to add any more undue pressure to the situation by leaving it too late. If you try taking on too many things at once it’s likely you’ll feel overwhelmed and put it into the ‘too hard basket’ and give up. My advice is as soon as you know the date, start making plans so you reach your goal weight a few weeks in advance. This will also help with dress fittings if you are at your ideal weight.

Also, stay away from machines. The average person who walks into a gym sees all these fancy machinery and thinks ‘this is what I need’.  But truthfully most machines will not get you any closer to your goal and may even be causing you harm. Most of them require you to sit down, so it means less muscles are being used, meaning less calories being burnt. The best exercises to do are those that use as many muscles as possible. Ones that involve balance, co-ordination and work in multiple directions. All these will turn you into a calorie-burning machine.

Q: What diet and nutrition tips do you recommend for brides?

The diet I recommend is the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet or sometimes known as “protein-plus low fat diet”. I recommend this to my clients not because the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world. I like it because it’s based around real food and lifestyle changes. I don’t like diet plans that are focused around pills, potions, meal replacements shakes or frozen meals. This program teachers you to cook the right foods and how to make the changes into a long term dietary plan. In no way is it a no carbohydrate diet but it does limit excess carbohydrates.

Q: Ideally when should a bride start her prewedding weight loss/toning exercise routine?

This really depends on how much weight the bride wants to lose. I like to work on a minimum weight loss of 0.5 to 1kg per week. If we lose more it’s a bonus, but that’s a healthy way to do it, so you can maintain it. If you want to lose 10kg, you’re looking at around 10 weeks (that is if you are being very consistent and strict with your routine and eating). I would probably say a couple of extra weeks is great to allow for any unforeseen hiccups in your lead up.

Q: What area of the body tends to be the biggest concern for brides?

Not much changes from the average women’s concerns: It really depends on the wedding dress itself. If it is a tight fitting gown, it’s normally the backside and if it’s strapless it’s normally the arms and back.

Q: What types of exercise do you recommend to brides?

It’s not really the exercise you do, rather the intensity and the effort you put into the exercise. All these exercises are great if the intensity is high but if you are just plodding away for hours on end and not challenging yourself they can be very ineffective. Most people choose a form of cardio they enjoy and just go through the motions thinking Long Slow Distance (LSD) is the best form of cardio to burn body fat.

The fact is interval training is far more effective for fat burning. Interval training is simply alternating periods of hard exercise followed by periods of easier exercise. An example would be a slow walk for 30 seconds; followed by a fast walk for 90 seconds; jogging for 90 seconds; sprinting for 90 seconds; sprinting up an incline; then repeating this sequence several times. Interval training is also very common in spin classes where you increase the cycling intensity (RPM) for 30 seconds and then slow down for a minute or longer.

The best thing about interval training is that it cuts the workout time in half.

Q: What’s the best exercise for brides according to their gown type:

a) A strapless wedding gown
With this dress you will have your arms and back showing. Good exercises for these areas are any rowing exercises like dumbbell rows, bent over rows, and reverse push-ups. All these exercises work your arms and back muscles at the same time.

b) A one-shouldered wedding gown
Using dumbbells, I would recommend, lateral raises and shoulder presses. These exercises will give your upper shoulders tone and shape.

c) A ball gown
This gown style also exposes the upper body. Arm and back exercises (listed above) plus tricep dips will do the trick.

d) A backless wedding gown
Try similar exercises to those listed for a strapless gown.

e) A mermaid silhouette
As this dress shape is very fitted, your waist, hips and arms are usually on show. You really need to focus on your core exercises to keep your waistline slim. For your leg and hips, try squats and walking lunges.

Reducing your body fat would also help reveal your waistline better.

Q: The two weeks before the wedding can get pretty hectic, with little time to exercise. Any tips for maintaining your weight during this time?

Hopefully you’re at your ideal weight by this stage and in a maintenance phase with just a little fine tuning to go. It’s at this stage that your diet is particularly important as you may not be able to burn the calories but you can stop them from going into your mouth. I have a secret recipe for the last few weeks. Everything I recommend to my clients are all natural products. This recipe works because it helps flush out excess water weight you are carrying around in your body and you could lose more than 2-3kg in 7 days depending on how much excess water weight you’re retaining.

Drink this every day for seven days:

• Add a tablespoon of sugar free cranberry juice and…
• Get 60 ounces of distilled or pure water and…
• Add 1 dandelion root tea bag and
• Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice

To chat to Jayson Lincoln about getting into shape, please email him: info@headforhealth.com.au

www.headforhealth.com.au