The main summer diet information on this site contains virtually everything you need to know to effectively lose weight for a beach-ready body but there are a few handy diet tips for the summer that don’t neatly fit in anywhere else on this site - so I’ve lumped them all together here to make life a little easier for you - a collection of useful diet tips I’ve learned the hard way over the years.

Effective Summer Diet Tip #1 - Aim For Progress Not Perfection

Very few people in this world are entirely satisfied with their body. In interviews even many models and Hollywood celebrities complain about some part of their appearance.

It’s a fact that we tend to be a modest lot when it comes to our physiques so realize that while you’re saying “I wish I had a stomach like hers” she’s quite likely thinking “I wish I had legs like those”!

With that in mind, appreciate you’re unlikely to ever wake up, peer into the mirror and think “Wow! I look perfect!”.

On the other hand it’s entirely possible you will look in the mirror sooner or later and realize that your tummy is looking smaller or your bum is feeling more pert.

Aim for improvement, not perfection.

Effective Summer Diet Tip #2 - Keep Records

When I started my most recent fitness push I decided to keep accurate, genuine records.

I kept a journal of my weight, chest, stomach and waist sizes among other things together with taking photographs of myself.

And here’s the magic.

From time to time I’d start to feel a little unmotivated.

I eat carefully. I exercise regularly but sometimes you can look in the mirror and think you look exactly the same as you did a few weeks ago - and that can be pretty disheartening.

However this is probably not true - you just think it is.

Go by the figures - look at your records and you’ll notice the changes far more rapidly.

And as you’re aiming for progress not perfection it’s far easier to keep motivated when you see these small changes.

Doing this I lost 23lb in less than 16 weeks only doing moderate amounts of exercise and still having the odd evening at a bar or the odd takeaway.

So keep accurate records and make the most of them.

Effetive Summer Diet Tip #3 - Commit A Sin From Time To Time

Remember I lost 23lb in 16 weeks and still ate out sometimes?

The fact of the matter is that a 100% strict diet is hard to stick to. It takes huge amounts of self discipline and even then what are you going to do at Christmas or Thanksgiving, or your best friends birthday dinner, or when a colleague offers to buy you a drink after work?

The answer is to indulge yourself from time to time. No more than once a week I suggest mind you - but from time to time break the rules and don’t worry about it.

When you can fit a diet around your social life it becomes far easier to stick to - and enjoy.

So long as it’s just a couple of glasses of wine or a small meal out don’t fret.

Get straight back on the diet the next day and you’ll be fine.

Effective Summer Diet Tip #4 - Find Your Own Motivation

In addition to watching the figures in your journal as your body changes I would strongly suggest that you use two other sources of inspiration that have kept me and a huge host of other fitness fanatics motivated toward achieving our end goals.

The first of these is to buy some fitness magazines, lifestyle and/or fashion magazines and spend an evening going through them cutting out pictures of people you’d like to look like. Thin, lean, toned, muscular, healthy, tanned - whatever you’d love to look like in the end.

And I don’t just mean the sort of picture that makes you say “Oh she looks OK” but the ones that make you scream “Oh my God! Look at her stomach! I’m so jealous!”. People with the sort of body you’d die for.

Then make up a scrapbook of those pictures or put them on your fridge door or stick them up by your bed. Wherever you’re going to see them lots to help motivate yourself.

The second source is to look through the hundreds of “before and after” pictures on the Internet of those who have been through amazing bodily transformations thanks to diet and exercise and look for the people whose bodies are most similar to yours right now.

Print out their pictures because you just agreed their “before” photos look just like you now so there’s nothing to say you can’t look like their “after” photo with a little effort on your part.

I can’t overestimate how powerful this is - to see what you yourself can become.

I like to save these pictures to the hard drive of my computer then use one as the wallpaper on my PC. When I start to get bored I just swap it for another one. I myself change the pictures every 2-3 weeks to keep me motivated (I spend a lot of time at my computer!) and have found this technique works very, very well for me and many others.