Crank up your fat loss and feel super confident on your wedding day. Use these powerful tips to boost your workouts and transform your body — results will follow. Get Lean Before Your Wedding!

Your wedding day is one of the biggest days of your life. And as you stand there with the love of your life — in front of friends and family from all over the world — you’ll definitely want to look and feel your best.

The truth is that no guy wants to be embarrassed in their wedding photos or second-guess themselves that they could’ve done more to lose those last few pounds. Instead, they want to feel super confident and relaxed in their tuxedo (and in the honeymoon suite too).

At GroomBuilder, we help guys transform their body before the big day so they feel like the badass they are when it matters most. In this article, we’ll share the nine simple and authoritative rules for you to build lean muscle, burn off stubborn body fat, and keep it off for good.

(Oh, and if you’re not getting married, these rules will still make a huge difference for you — just watch.)

#1 Drink Plenty Of Water

Staying hydrated will keep your metabolism at its very highest and give you the best results possible from your exercise and diet. But it doesn’t take a walk through the Sahara to hurt your body: even a 1% amount of dehydration will slow your metabolism and make it hard to shed body fat. (Certain studies also estimate as many as 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.)

Don’t shortchange your results. Instead, drink plenty of water throughout the day until your urine is light yellow or clear. Buy a convenient, refillable bottle to make this habit easier and drink a tall glass of water first thing in the morning.

#2 Use Heavy Compound Exercises

To make a huge change in your body, small exercises like bicep curls, crunches, and calf raises won’t cut it.

Instead, use heavy total-body lifts that stimulate a lot of muscle growth, unleash a massive hormonal response, and build strength. Incorporate major exercises like heavy squats, deadlifts, lunges, barbell presses (flat bench or overhead), heavy rows, pullups, and weighted carries.

Also, focus on “progressive overload,” which means increasing your weights and intensity every time you go to the gym. Start by adding 2.5 – 5lbs to each lift every time you train: this will jumpstart how much muscle you gain because you’ll constantly force your muscles to adapt to the heavier stimulus.

#3 Eat More Protein

While “steak or fish” might be the debate on the wedding day, getting the correct amount of protein in your diet can make a DRASTIC difference in your results. First, it takes more energy to digest protein than carbs or fat, which helps you stay lean while eating more. Second, it cranks up your muscle growth and strength gains. Third, it keeps you feeling full so you don’t have those cravings for junk food that derails your progress.

A simple rule of thumb to follow is get at least one gram of protein per pound of lean bodyweight. If counting grams drives you crazy, however, concentrate on getting at least two palm-sized portions of protein per meal.

Finally, choose healthy sources of protein like lean meats (fish, turkey, chicken, beef, etc.), quality protein powders, nuts, and beans.

#4 Take The Right Supplements

Some supplements can truly move the needle on your health and physique while others are just money pits. If you want to look amazing for the biggest day of your life, consider adding these two supplements into your diet to speed up your transformation.

1. Fish oil. Not only does fish improve things like heart health, cancer therapy, and even arthritis, but it also helps you lose more fat with the same amount of exercise.
2. Protein powder. This will help you get all the protein you need (as mentioned earlier) and help your body recover after a tough workout.

#5 Reduce Your Stress Levels

Weddings are stressful. (We totally understand.) But all that worrying, anxiety, and planning can hurt your fitness results and lead to unwanted fat gains.

How?

Chronic stress activates your sympathetic nervous system (“fight-or-flight” response), which reduces your ability to recover after workouts. Too much stress also interferes with testosterone and growth hormone production, limiting muscle growth and increasing fat, especially around your belly.

Keep stress at bay by investing just a few minutes in the middle of your day to meditate so you can completely relax and recharge. Also, on your rest days, use activities like yoga, stretching, breathing exercises, or a relaxing walk to help your body and mind recover faster.

#6 Do More Cardio

If you want to burn fat quickly, there are two kinds of cardio you can choose from: aerobic and anaerobic.

In recent years, people have chosen anaerobic conditioning as the ultimate way to burn fat — it’s faster, it’s more intense, and it gets great results. But both forms are extremely important to your fitness and, chances are, you need actually more aerobic conditioning than you do anaerobic conditioning.

The reality is that aerobic conditioning is the foundation for everything else — even when you do intervals training, for example, your aerobic foundation supports your effort.

That’s why we recommend adding at least one aerobic workout per week in addition to your weight training: 30 – 45 minutes at a heart rate between 120 – 140bpm.

Then, once you build a base of aerobic fitness, we layer on the anaerobic stuff. For that, pick an exercise like an air dyne bike, a hill sprint, a kettlebell swing, prowler push, rowing machine, etc. and do max effort intervals, 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off.

#7 Earn Your Carbs

Contrary to what some may believe, carbs are NOT evil. They are actually converted into glucose by your body to fuel your training as well as to promote healthy thyroid function, testosterone production, and brain function.

Instead of skipping this macronutrient all together, think about earning your carbs. For example, a light walk isn’t enough to necessitate a large carb intake, but a hard, 90-minute workout in the gym will. A good training session demands a lot of carbs to fuel your body — your body will also use the energy from carbohydrates specifically for recovery and muscle growth rather than fat gain.

Finally, be sure to eat clean sources of carbohydrates like whole grains, potatoes, rice, and fruits to get the fiber and vitamins that contribute to your overall health and well-being.

#8 Sleep Eight Hours Each Night

This is simple but effective. Sleep helps your muscle gains because it promotes recovery and growth hormone production, which reaches its highest levels during your deep sleep cycle. Research shows that less sleep is associated with larger waistlines and more fat mass. (That doesn’t look good in a tux, by the way.)

If you have trouble sleeping, make sure to stop drinking caffeine after mid-day, reduce your nighttime alcohol intake (which hurts sleep quality), and stop using all electronics an hour before sleep (which interferes with your biorhythms).

#9 Stay Consistent

Ultimately, the best workout and diet program is the one that feels good to you and that you can stick to. When starting a new program, truthfully ask yourself what you can commit to. If you work 55 hours per week, for example, going to the gym 5x/week might not be feasible. Instead, commit to only two workouts per week, but keep your commitment. (Two is better than none.)

You’ll build momentum, gain inner confidence, and start laying the foundation for better health and a better body in no time.

Conclusion

If you want to get lean for your big day — or any day, for that matter — these rules will help generate the results you desire. They seem extremely simple, but if you’ve been struggling to lose those last 10lbs (so you can feel super confident on your wedding), there’s probably something on this list that you can improve upon.

Ultimately, it’s about (1) improving your overall well-being and (2) giving your body exactly what it needs to make a massive fitness transformation. There’s no need for crash diets, starving yourself, or doing two-a-days in the gym; instead, focus on these powerful steps and reap the benefits from your diet and workouts.

If you want more tips to look like a badass on your wedding day, sign up for our 5-day e-course at GroomBuilder.

By Anthony J. Yeung, CSCS