Your Best Bahamas Wedding and Honeymoon Fitness Tips

By Lisa Dorfman, MS, RD, CSSD, CCMS, LMHC, FAND
Chic Bahamas Culinary Nutritionist, Chef & Wellness Coach

Today, we share with you brides getting ready for your Bahamas wedding and honeymoon invaluable fitness strategies.

If finding the time to exercise and eat well in the weeks and months before your wedding may not be your priority, you’re not alone. The stress of juggling last minute details from a distance, tending to work and family
responsibilities before jet setting off for the Bahamas wedding and honeymoon often consume your extra time allotted for the gym.

Good news! Your exercise program doesn’t have to be strenuous. According to the HHS Physical Activity Guidelines, everybody should aim for 150 minutes per week of moderately intense aerobic activity. Brisk walking is a top pick. And, it’s not so hard to meet that recommendation. Three 10-minute walks, five days a week will get you there!

Get in Better Shape for Your Bahamas Wedding

To get in even better shape and further reduce your risk of chronic disease, the guidelines suggest doubling that goal to 300 minutes of weekly aerobic activity (one hour, five days/week), if you can. While at it, the guidelines also recommend mixing it up by fitting in two+ days per week of strength training. This includes lifting weights at the gym, using resistance bands, or lifting rocks in the garden.

Besides shaping and contouring your body for your wedding debut, weight-bearing exercise increases muscle mass and bone density to help prevent bone-weakening osteoporosis and helps prevent age-related symptoms such as muscle stiffness and soreness. By having more muscle on board, you’ll get a metabolism boost that’s important especially as you get older.

Regular exercise is also an essential component of your life. It can help you lose weight because it helps control your appetite and expend more daily calories, to tip the balance of “calories in versus calories out” in your favor. It also builds muscle mass, which stokes your metabolism. Thus you’ll burn more calories throughout the day, even if you’re sitting at your computer, answering e-mail.

And let’s not forget that exercise boosts your mood and your self-image and reduces your risk for heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, and painful joints. According to a major study by the American Institute for Cancer Research, it also most likely reduces the risk of colon, endometrial, lung, pancreas, and breast cancer. That’s because keeping active strengthens the immune system, helps lower body fat and regulates hormone levels, which may otherwise play a role in the cancer process.

Bahamas Wedding & Honeymoon Fitness: Strategies for Getting Fit

You’ll increase your chances of sticking with exercise if you find activities you like to do. The best practice is the one you’ll repeatedly do. Let’s face it: You’re not going to do it if you hate it.

It also helps if you develop an exercise pattern that fits with your schedule and your lifestyle. Your favorite aerobic activities may be cycling, swimming, step classes at the gym after work, or even just walking or cycling to and from your office every day.

Popular Exercise: Walking & Jogging

Walking and jogging are the most popular and least expensive forms of exercise because you can just put on your running shoes and go. But there are hundreds of classes, sports, and activities to choose from. If you can’t jog or walk due to knee or back pain, find another form of cardiovascular exercises such as swimming or cycling.

For a well-rounded fit wedding day—and beyond—program, add to that some flexibility and balance exercises like yoga. Get in some Bahamas wedding and honeymoon fitness on a quiet, beautiful beach.

If you’re new to exercise, start with five to 10 minutes a couple of days a week, to get the ball rolling. Then, work up from there. If you don’t ease into it, you can be so sore or exhausted from doing too much—say, lifting weights or running on the treadmill for an hour—that you’ll miss out on the motivating feeling of wellbeing that can make exercise additive. If you don’t want to jump into a structured exercise program, commit to moving your body more, and increase the time you do it as get conditioned.

Lisa’s Nuptial Nuggets

Your Tool Kit for Overcoming Obstacles to Exercise for Your Wedding Day*
Obstacle 1: No time
Strategy: Exercise wherever, whenever!

Do the press! In the car, chest presses, both hands on steering wheel, 3 and 9 o’clock positions press your steering wheel with both arms as you drive to build beautiful pectoral muscles.
Do sitting pushups or leg extensions as you are watching TV.
Pace while talking on the phone.
Obstacle 2: Don’t like it:
Strategy: Do something you like
Go with a friend
Find an exercise you can do anywhere in the world—walking, running, dancing to the radio
Obstacle 3: Have work and family responsibilities
Strategy: Move more doing everyday tasks
Take the steps when possible.
Get up to talk to family members or colleagues rather than calling or sending an email.
Do squats or lunges while you vacuum, do gardening or dishes.
Obstacle 4: Too tired:
Strategy: Get started early!
Have a cup of green tea or coffee to wake you up before working out.
Rub peppermint oil or spray mint or eucalyptus scented spray to wake up your senses.
Finally, imagine how you want to look, how hot you used to look or would to look like as a fit bride and let that inspire you.
Post your favorite fit personal photo on your refrigerator, laptop or cell phone saver.
Visualizing your personal best is the first step towards meeting your goal, like planning for your beautiful wedding day with Chic Bahamas Weddings and Events.

About Lisa Dorfman

Lisa Dorfman, MS, RD, CSSD, CCMS, LMHC, FAND is an award-winning nutrition expert based in Miami, Florida. Lisa has built a global integrative culinary sports nutrition & performance private practice & corporate consulting business. She works with Olympian athletes, Fortune 500 corporate executives, movie actors & actresses, politicians, and prestigious luxury resorts such as Ritz Carlton, Sandals & Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Lisa designs, writes and presents delicious dishes, menus, and diets for more than three decades. She travels worldwide, sharing the “gospel” of good food, fresh tastes, and plant-based cuisine. Her passion for food, fitness, emotional balance and life is contagious. She shares that passion with her Chic Bahamas Wedding couples and guests.

Lisa is a wife and mom to three children and her dog Cookie. An avid athlete, she is devoted to running, swimming, and all activities which nourish her body, mind, and soul.

Strategies adapted from Lisa’s fifth book, The Reunion Diet (Sunrise River Press)