The summer diet is clearly so-called because the hot, sunny weather is approaching rapidly. As the weather improves your baggy old jumpers and coats come off, hopefully not to return until fall.

In their place shorts, t-shirts and swimming gear start to appear and its often at this time of year you realize how much weight you’ve put on over winter.

Either that or you already knew but were glad of your thick winter clothes that hid your paunch.

Now summer is arriving and you have only two choices - go on a diet to lose that excess weight - or do your best to hide your figure over summer - trying to avoid the humiliation of the beach, swimming pool and similar places.

But a summer diet shouldn’t just allow you to shed that paunch fast (and painless and safely) but also to enjoy as many of the delights of summer foods as possible.

And yes, you can do both.

For best results, on a summer diet you’ll need the following ingredients:

1) Healthy diet
2) Exercise
3) Will power
4) Time

Now let’s look at each of these in a little more detail…

1) Healthy Diet

A healthy summer diet is easily 80% of the battle to lose weight and there is plenty of advice on this site on suitable foods and meals you can consume that will keep you feeling satisfied and happy (no starvation required or suggested because this can lead to bingeing) and still help you lose weight rapidly.

2) Exercise

Yes, I know to many people it’s a dirty word but some vigorous exercise several times a week will speed up the fat burning process considerably leading to far greater results in less time - and after all isn’t that what a summer diet is all about?!

3) Will Power

Possibly the hardest of all the ingredients to foster - you can’t plan for or buy will power. You need to create, generate and develop it.

It is this will power that will motivate and drive you toward your goal whilst allowing you to effortlessly avoid temptations.

Starting a diet generally isn’t hard. Staying on one is. So this ingredient is vital.

4) Time

By time I mean in two ways -

a) Time to eat healthily and exercise and
b) Time to lose weight

Generally as your new diet becomes second nature it’ll take you less time to shop and cook healthily and exercise as you’ll know what you’re doing so the process will take less mental energy. It can happen automatically - and consequently much faster.

The second is the greater problem. It is only really safe to lose 2-3lbs a week so the sooner you take action the better the results will be when you get to the beach.

So in an ideal world don’t wait till it’s 25′C and two days before your annual vacation to investigate summer diets.

Start instead several months before you’ll be uncovering and you’ll be amazed how quickly your body will start to transform.

So there you have it - the principles of the summer diet plan. Follow these simple rules and you’ll have a beach-ready body before you know it.