Every year you can tell when carnival is approaching, the gym that was once a barren wasteland becomes a hive of activity. Hundreds of people take up various forms of exercise to improve their bodies. Most individuals want to look their best in their carnival costumes. Others just want to be fit enough to endure the excessive partying and to play mas on carnival day. Everyone is searching for ways on how to get fit for carnival.

We realise that most people head to the gym mere weeks before carnival. However, staying in shape should be a year round endeavour. This endeavour should include proper diet and exercise. I am not a personal trainer but I believe this article will give some valuable insight.

In this article, we will give you essential tips on how to get fit this carnival. These tips will help you to prepare your body before, during and on the road for carnival.

Many people want to lose weight and get their carnival body. If you want, additional advice on losing weight read our other article here ‘Weight Loss Tips – Strategies for Success’.

Eat Healthy

Diet is 75% of all fitness. Having a good workout routine means nothing if you eat Burger King and sweets throughout the day. I must admit my eating habits are not the best at times we all have our vices. However, if you would like to know how to get fit, a proper diet is mandatory. Say no to fast food and foods that contain high amounts of sugar. We are not saying you cannot have cheat days but eat junk food in moderation.

Eating a well-balanced breakfast is essential if you would like to know how to get fit for carnival. However, this is not just for carnival but also for overall health. Breakfast provides the body with essential nutrients after an overnight fast. You would be surprised the amount of people who do not eat breakfast.

It is important that you take vitamins and supplements to build your body and stamina. Drink a lot of water as it will flush the toxins from your system and keep you hydrated. Stay away from sodas and artificially sweetened drinks. They do not have any substantial nutritional value; I do not care what the label says.

Eat complex carbohydrates such as the ones found in oats, sweet potatoes, whole grains and nuts. In addition, remember to eat lean protein such as chicken and fish to boost muscle growth. You should aim to eat five to six times a day to keep your metabolism elevated. This would mean you would eat every three to four hours.

Below is an example of how you should be eating on a typical day.

Breakfast

1 cup of oats

2 scrambled eggs

Plantain

Snack

Greek Yogurt

Lunch

8 oz. of Chicken

1 cup of Brown Rice

1 cup of broccoli

Afternoon Snack

Fruit Salad

Dinner

8 oz. of steak fish

8 oz. of sweet potato

1 cup of green beans

This is just an example of how your diet should be. We will post and article with a meal plan to cover the entire week so stay tuned.

Remember a good diet alone is not enough you must combine this with exercise, which brings us to our next tip.

Exercise

When many people ask how to get fit for carnival, one of my first responses is exercise. If your schedule is anything like mine, finding time to exercise may seem like a task. However, if you want to be fit for the road you need workout.

I stated earlier that getting in shape should be a year round practice; however if this is not possible start at least six months before carnival to for best results. Aim to exercise for at least 30 minutes 3-4 times a week. You can do cardio but try to incorporate weight training as well.

We all have different goals, some of us may want to lose weight and others may want to build muscle. However, combining the two is a good idea as you will burn fat and tone at the same time. For the women lifting weights will help you tone to get the firm thighs and butt you deserve. When training you should focus more on strength training as this will help build your stamina and endurance.

Do strength training

Strength training will help you build stamina. Stamina or muscular endurance is the ability to do something repeatedly for an extended period without getting tired. In the gym, this might look like doing 30 squats or 30 burpees in a row. In your day-to-day life, this is more like being able to climb the long flight of stairs at work without getting tired.

Therefore, if you want to be able to party, wine and enjoy yourself the full route on the road this is exactly what you need. To build stamina you can either lift weights or perform certain basic exercises. Squats, push-ups, calf raises and planks are good exercises. These build your upper body, core and legs.

When in the gym try to focus on lifting a little less weight and doing more repetitions. This will build muscular endurance.

How to Get Fit at Home

A common misconception is that you need gym equipment to get in shape. You can do many exercises from the comfort of your home. Depending on your budget, you might not want to spend the fees that come along with gym membership at this time. In addition, you may not have the time to head out to the gym on a weekly basis.

The beauty of doing home workouts is that you can do them at your convenience. For home workouts, we recommend doing strength exercises coupled with HIIT cardio.

Upon researching ways on how to get fit on the internet, you may constantly come across HIIT cardio. Research shows that HIIT cardio is effective for fat loss. According to the Huffington post HIIT, which stands for High Intensity Interval Training, boost your metabolic rate and increases performance.

The question here then is what exactly HIIT cardio is. HIIT involves doing an intense exercise followed by less intense exercise. For example, running for 60 seconds and walking for 30 seconds. Below are some exercises you can perform at home to lose fat and build your endurance.

Perform each exercise for one minute and rest 15-30 seconds between exercises. Do these exercises at least three days a week. When completed depending on your fitness level, you can do two to three rounds.

Exercises:

Burpees

Squats

Jumping jacks

Push-ups

Calf raises

Crunches

Skipping

These exercises will build strength, stamina and burn fat. As stated earlier depending on your fitness level you can go more than one round. You must also work at your own pace and remember you do not have to complete these exercises in one go. When you train often, your body will adjust and you will be able to up the intensity.

Sleep

You may find it strange that sleep would be included in an article about how to get fit for carnival. However, sleep is essential to overall fitness and well-being. The carnival season is full of parties and events; you will find parties going on day and night.

However, it is important to find a balance between partying and rest.  You need to plan your schedule properly so you have time to get rest between events. Sleep will also aid helping your body recover from workouts.

There is nothing worse than paying your money to go in a fete and then being too tired to enjoy it. To put it simply, the better rested you are, the better your mind and body function.

These next two tips are for when you are on the road carnival day.

Stay hydrated

One thing every seasoned reveller knows is to stay hydrated. For the newbies to carnival, the sun is blazing hot on the road; this is the Caribbean after all. I myself made the mistake one year, did not drink enough fluids and almost passed out from the heat. I recommend drinking as much fluids as possible on the road.

It is ideal to make sure you hydrate before going on the road. Most of the bigger bands have runners who bring water and drinks through the crowd. However, if it is a smaller band you may have to travel back to the drinks truck, which can take up a lot of time.

Not to mention that when you are partying you do not want to be taking trips back to the truck or looking for a runner and miss action. So travel with your water bottle if necessary.

Staying hydrated will also reduce the probability of you getting completely drunk. Usually we want to have a good balance of feeling ‘sweet’ off the liquor but not too drunk we cannot enjoy ourselves. This brings us to our next tip.

Drink Alcohol in Moderation

Listen we get it you are probably on your vacation and this is your time to live your best life. You are going to party drink and have a blast, which you should. However, ease up on the excessive drinking.

Too often people drink too much and end up passed out drunk in various places, which can include; the music truck, the side of the road and in bushes. Some people make it but are too drunk to remember anything that happened much less enjoy themselves. You do not want to spend your hard-earned money on a costume and not enjoy the festival.

Carnival day, the drinks trucks serve alcohol in large amounts. It is very easy to enjoy the festivities and drink in excess. We advise against this practice. Excess alcohol can cause dehydration as alcohol slows down the body’s ability to absorb water. Furthermore, drinking large amounts of alcohol can cause vomiting which further depletes the body of much needed liquids.

Finally, alcohol can cause weight gain because it has in many calories. Empty calories in that they hold no nutritional value. In addition, there are calories and sugar in the mixers included in many alcoholic drinks. Therefore, if you want that six pack lay off the alcohol. Drink but in moderation, stay hydrated and drink some water in between shots of alcohol.

Make being fit a Lifestyle

My final piece of advice is to make being fit a lifestyle and not a fad. In the beginning of this article, I stated that many people head to the gym mere weeks before carnival. Fitness models or individuals you may admire on Instagram do not get their bodies overnight.

These people achieve their look through years of dedication and hard work. You will not get a lean and sexy body by working out a couple weeks before carnival.

Therefore, if you want to look your best you need to make fitness a lifestyle. Individuals will achieve more by exercising and eating healthy all year round than in a couple weeks out the year. I am tired of seeing articles on the internet stating how you can lose 50 pounds in two weeks.

The kinds of diet plans most of these articles recommend can put a serious strain on the body are not healthy. Once you are dedicated and follow, our tips on how to get fit for carnival you will look and feel fantastic.

Thanks for reading our article on how to get fit for carnival. Feel free to comment below with your suggestions on how to get fit for carnival. You can also drop us a comment on your carnival experiences. Otherwise, check out our carnival page and see which carnival band you can party with this year.

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