Bridal Fitness Part 1: Exercise Tips

This is part one of a four part series concerning bridal fitness. So many brides want to lose a few pounds in order to look and feel beautiful on their wedding day, but many of them don't know where to start. I have collaborated with a great personal trainer, Caroline Davidson of Millennial Fitness, to talk about total bridal body fitness: both exercise and diet. Today, we are going to be talking about exercise! Get that toned bridal body you have been dreaming about!

Bridal Exercise Tips from Caroline

1. As hard as it may be, strive to be at the gym or at least exercise/be active 5 days a week.

2. If you’re going to give yourself a treat (1 dessert, a burger and fries, etc) do it on an exercise day.

3. LIFT weights - they not only build muscle but building muscle will lead to burning more fat — take the chance and try a new weight lifting class at your gym, get out of your comfort zone or have one of your bridesmaids go with you!

Exercise together to make it fun and provide accountability! Photos by Derek Couts Photography

4. Create a challenge for the entire bridal party — motivate each other on a Facebook page and share exercise tips, recipes, fitness goals and accomplishments/struggles. It’s important to have the challenge of your girlfriends.

5. Create an incentive! Have everyone put in $10 and get a gift card to a great restaurant or tickets to a concert and whoever meets their fitness goal by the wedding date wins! We all perform better when there’s an incentive, right?

6. Interval Training — if you’re doing a cardio day, don’t stay on the same intensity and incline the whole time…mix it up with 3 minutes of high intensity, 1 minute of low intensity. If you’re more likely to be outside and meet a girlfriend for a hike, make sure every 8-10 minutes you stop and do 10 lunges on each leg, 25 jumping jacks, 1:00 min of high knees, and 1:00 min of kick crunches.

If you are interested in more fitness tips from Caroline, follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook! 

All photos were taken by the ever-so-talented Derek Couts!! You can find him on his website, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook! 

Have any exercise tips that you swear by? Want to know more? Leave a comment down below! 

With love,

Whitney