With exactly one month to go until the official beginning of the summer season in the UK, perhaps now is the perfect time to start thinking about achieving that body fit for the beach you have always dreamed about, but not quite done much about! During winter and even early springtime, it is easier to cover up those extra pounds with a bulky sweater and jeans, but when the temperatures start to soar and it simply becomes too hot to bear, shorts and t-shirt are more appropriate to survive without pouring with sweat. Unfortunately, this means there is just nowhere for the fat to hide. The thousands of patients Medical Specialists™ Pharmacy help each and every year will already be aware of the fact we have a fantastic range of weight loss treatments such as Alli, XLS-Medical and Xenical, which for suitable patients can work with a healthy diet plan to really shed the pounds and give you your confidence back. However, there are also a number of alterations to your lifestyle that you can implement today – a month before summer begins – to help you lose weight and achieve a body to be envied on the beach! So when you hear the dreaded words ‘beach season’, you need not book the earliest flight to Siberia, where nobody dares to venture outside unless covered head to toe in thick clothing. Here Medical Specialists™ run through some useful tips to lose weight and tone up: . Plan your meals If you speak to any weight loss expert, they will undoubtedly tell you planning what you are going to eat and when, has been proved to help dieters stick to their goals. By mapping out your meals it will enable you to manage your time more efficiently and make preparing the meals easier. It can be the difference between a stressful week and one which is stress-free. The process of preparing your weekly meals is so important that fitness experts and those involved in fitness competitions, consider it an absolute necessity. . Don’t skip breakfast Make sure to fill yourself up at the start of the day with a well-balanced breakfast that consists mainly of carbohydrates and protein. This will help to keep hunger pangs at bay so you don’t gorge on junk food come dinner time. Your metabolic rate is slowed down as a result of you obviously not taking in any food during sleep and by eating breakfast, you will wake up your metabolism and get it revved for the rest of the day. . Snack smartly It was previously thought that snacking in-between meals was an absolute no-no, however health experts now state it is far better to satisfy hunger between meals with a healthy snack such as fruit, instead of ignoring the hunger and risking a junk food binge later on. Fruit also contains plenty of water and good carbohydrates, meaning you will feel full for much longer. . Watch your alcohol intake Those few beers after work may help you to unwind after a stressful day at the office, but have you considered hitting the gym instead to help distress and release endorphins; aka ‘happy hormones’. There are hundreds of empty calories in alcohol that do no good for your waistline. Did you know that drinking just 5 pints of lager each week equates to around 44,200kcal over the course of a year – roughly the equivalent of eating 221 doughnuts. Alcohol can also induce massive hunger cravings for fatty junk food, which only adds potentially thousands more calories – Have you ever wondered why all those takeaways are packed out after your night out on the town? . Consider high intensity exercise Want to get fit and quick? It might be worth engaging in some high intensity interval training (or HIIT for short) exercises. HIIT exercises result in a big calorie burn within a short time period. Don’t be fooled though, HIIT workouts are far from easy and require you to give three or four times more effort in the 20 to 30 second bursts that such exercises are comprised of. The hard work here means your body is unable to bring in sufficient oxygen and a ‘debt’ is built up that must be accommodated for after exercising has finished so normality is resumed. This means your metabolism is boosted for hours after you leave the gym!