Q
Dear Auntie Pearl, I am so stressed.
Summer is around the corner and I do not have my beach body.
I know it is still cold and rainy in Cape Town, even though we are already in September, but I think one of these days we are going to blink and then it’s going to be hot, hot, hot!
En dan wil ek beach toe gaan, and then I will be all skaam with my winter vetjies.
I don’t know how it happened... the winter was cold and wet, en dan smaak ‘n girl mos maar ‘n lekker slaptjip or lots of soup and bread and all those things.
And Auntie, you know mos that getting up early in the cold and dark is almost impossible. Then day by day, week by week, one gets more and more lazy and the next thing you know you are a fatty.
How can I shed the winter fat very quickly?
From Dik Debby.
A
Listen here Debby, all bodies are beach bodies and beautiful, no matter your shape or size.
So here’s how a beach body works: you take your body, and you go to the beach. En daar het jy dit.
Have you not seen the movement sweeping across the world – big is beatiful, meisie!
Don’t be skaam of what you got, flaunt it.
There is, however, a moerse difference between rond en gesond, and unhealthy expanding.
From your email it sounds to Auntie like you actually have what the ice sucker sellers on Camps Bay would call a “meisie met die lekker lyfie”.
It’s just that the winter comfort food vrietery and lack of exercise has made you pack on some vetjies.
So now it’s time to ditch the junk food and get back to the right eating habits.
But no need to go bos and just live off lemon water and crackers.
What you need is a healthy balanced diet.
You can still have slaptjips, but maybe just once a week.
En eet daai broodjie, but don’t have 10 slices a day, cut it down to one or two slices of low GI bread and rather fill up on gesonde kos like fruit and vegetables.
Also cut down on the crisps, biscuits, cake and cooldrink. You can spoil yourself once a week with one of these things.
Rather snack on a handful of nuts or dried fruit if you’re feeling hungry, and of course, drink plenty of water, at least two litres a day.
Throw in half an hour of exercise a day (a brisk walk is fine) and you’re good to go.
The most important thing is that you have a healthy lifestyle, then you should be confident of the body you have, no matter if you have put on a little or a lot of weight.
Get going girl, and enjoy the beach.