87: This Is What’s Really Stopping You From Your Bikini Body
This Is What's Really Stopping You From Your "Bikini Body" (Hint: It's Not What You Think)
Tired of the summer body hustle? Learn why the bikini body myth keeps you stuck in a cycle of dieting and restriction, and discover how to build sustainable strength and confidence instead.
For years, the pattern was the same: push yourself harder, diet stricter, and sweat more, all in the name of fitting into some idealized "summer body" standard. And every time, it felt like falling short. Work your ass off, see temporary results, then watch everything slip away once the motivation fades or the vacation ends.
Sound familiar?
Here's the truth nobody wants to say out loud: the whole "bikini body" mentality is an exhausting loop that leaves you feeling drained, frustrated, and disconnected from what actually matters for your health. And if you're stuck in it, you're not alone, because diet culture has conditioned us to believe that we need to shrink ourselves for the sake of appearance, especially when summer rolls around.
In this episode, Tara gets real about breaking free from the bikini body myth and the constant pressure to look a certain way for an event or season. She shares her own experience of being trapped in the weight-loss obsession and how she learned to focus on what really creates lasting change: sustainable strength, energy, and confidence that doesn't disappear when summer ends.
The Summer Body Trap: Why This Cycle Keeps You Stuck
Let's start with the uncomfortable reality: the concept of a "bikini body" or "summer body" is manufactured bullshit designed to keep you buying things and feeling inadequate.
Every spring, like clockwork, the messaging starts. "Get ready for summer!" "Lose 10 pounds in 30 days!" "Beach body bootcamp!" It's relentless, and it preys on the insecurity that maybe, just maybe, you're not good enough as you are right now.
So what do you do? You jump into another restrictive diet. You start doing extra cardio. You cut out entire food groups. You push yourself harder in the gym, even when you're exhausted. And for a while, you might see some changes. You might lose a few pounds. You might feel like you're "on track."
But here's what happens next: the diet becomes unsustainable. The extra workouts leave you burned out. You start feeling deprived and miserable. Eventually, you can't maintain it anymore, and everything snaps back, often leaving you worse off than when you started.
This is the trap. And it's designed to keep you coming back for more. Because if you actually solved the problem—if you built sustainable habits and felt confident in your body year-round, you wouldn't need the next quick fix, would you?
Tara breaks down her own experience with this cycle. Years of pushing herself to meet unrealistic standards, only to feel exhausted and disconnected from her actual health goals. The turning point? Realizing that the goal was never about looking a certain way for summer. It was about building a body that felt strong, capable, and healthy, no matter what month it was.
Sustainable Fitness: Real Results Without the Quick Fixes
So if crash diets and summer body challenges don't work, what does?
The answer is less sexy and more straightforward than the fitness industry wants you to believe: sustainable habits, progressive training, and a long-term mindset.
Here's what sustainable fitness actually looks like:
Consistency over intensity. You don't need to train six days a week or do two-a-days to see results. You need to show up regularly with a well-structured program that progressively challenges you over time. Three to four strength training sessions per week, done consistently, will get you further than any 30-day shred challenge ever will.
Adequate nutrition, not restriction. Your body needs fuel to build muscle, recover from training, and maintain energy throughout the day. Cutting calories to unsustainably low levels might create short-term weight loss, but it also tanks your metabolism, kills your energy, and makes it nearly impossible to maintain any muscle mass.
Patience with the process. Real body composition changes take months, not weeks. Building muscle is slow. Losing fat while maintaining strength is slow. But when you do it right, when you prioritize sustainability over speed, the results actually stick.
Training for performance, not punishment. When your workouts become something you do to your body rather than for your body, you've lost the plot. Exercise should make you feel stronger, more capable, and energized, not beaten down and exhausted.
The conversation emphasizes that when you shift your focus from "looking good by X date" to "building a strong, healthy body that lasts," everything changes. You stop seeing your body as a project that needs fixing and start seeing it as something that deserves respect and care.
Want Strong Abs? Stop Crunching and Start Lifting
Let's talk about one of the most persistent fitness myths: the idea that endless crunches, planks, and ab-specific exercises are the key to visible abs.
Here's the reality: abs are built in the gym through compound strength training, and revealed through body composition changes (aka losing body fat). And you know what's not an effective way to change your body composition? Doing a thousand crunches.
Why compound lifts are better for abs than crunches:
They build overall muscle mass. Squats, deadlifts, presses, and rows all require significant core engagement to stabilize your body under load. When you're lifting heavy (relative to your strength), your abs are working hard to keep your spine stable and transfer force efficiently.
They burn more calories. A set of heavy deadlifts is metabolically demanding in a way that crunches will never be. More muscle recruitment means more energy expenditure, both during the workout and in recovery.
They create functional strength. Strong abs aren't just about aesthetics, they're about having a stable, powerful core that supports every movement you do. Compound lifts train your core the way it's actually designed to function: as a stabilizer and force transmitter.
They're more time-efficient. Why spend 20 minutes doing endless ab work when you could be doing squats, deadlifts, and presses that work your entire body, including your abs?
Tara's message is clear: if you want visible abs, focus on building muscle through progressive strength training and managing your body composition through smart nutrition and lifestyle habits. Stop wasting time on endless crunches and start lifting heavy things.
Stop the Dieting Cycle: Build Lasting Health Instead
One of the most powerful parts of this episode is the discussion about breaking free from the endless dieting cycle. You know the pattern: start a diet, stick with it for a few weeks or months, see some results, fall off the wagon, regain the weight (often plus some extra), feel like a failure, and then start the whole cycle over again with a new diet.
This is not a personal failing. This is what happens when you approach your body and your health from a place of restriction and punishment rather than sustainability and care.
The shift from dieting to building health:
Stop thinking in terms of start and end dates. There is no "on" or "off" the wagon. There's just your life, and the habits you build within it. When you stop thinking of eating well and exercising as temporary measures to achieve a goal, and start thinking of them as permanent parts of how you take care of yourself, everything changes.
Focus on adding, not subtracting. Instead of constantly taking things away (no carbs, no sugar, no fun), focus on adding positive behaviors. Add more protein. Add vegetables. Add strength training. Add walks. When you focus on abundance rather than deprivation, the mindset shift is massive.
Measure progress beyond the scale. How's your energy? Your sleep? Your strength in the gym? Your mood and mental clarity? These are all indicators of health that have nothing to do with what you weigh. And often, when you focus on these metrics, body composition changes follow naturally.
Be willing to go slower. A half-pound to one pound of fat loss per week is sustainable. Anything faster usually means you're also losing muscle, tanking your metabolism, and setting yourself up for rebound weight gain. Slow progress is still progress, and it's the kind that actually lasts.
The goal isn't to never eat dessert or skip social events because they don't fit your meal plan. The goal is to build a lifestyle where you're nourishing your body most of the time, enjoying life without guilt, and making choices that support your long-term health rather than just your short-term appearance goals.
Empowerment Over Aesthetics: The Real Way to Train
Here's the fundamental mindset shift that changes everything: train for what your body can do, not just how it looks.
When you shift your focus from aesthetics to performance and capability, fitness becomes empowering instead of punishing. You're no longer showing up to the gym to burn calories or shrink yourself. You're showing up to get stronger, lift heavier, move better, and build a body that's resilient and capable.
What this looks like in practice:
Set performance-based goals. Instead of "lose 10 pounds," try "deadlift my bodyweight" or "do 5 unassisted pull-ups." These goals give you something concrete to work toward that has nothing to do with appearance.
Celebrate strength gains. When you add weight to the bar or hit a new PR, that's worth celebrating. Those are tangible markers of progress that reflect your hard work and dedication.
Appreciate what your body can do. Can you carry all the groceries in one trip? Pick up your kid without your back hurting? Go on a hike without being winded? These are the real-life benefits of being strong and fit, and they matter way more than fitting into a smaller size.
When you train for empowerment rather than aesthetics, the aesthetic changes often happen anyway but as a byproduct of building a strong, capable body rather than the sole focus. And that makes all the difference in your relationship with fitness and your body.
The Bottom Line
The bikini body myth keeps you stuck in a cycle of restriction, frustration, and short-term thinking. And the only way out is to reject the premise entirely. You don't need a special body for summer. You need a strong, healthy body that serves you year-round.
Stop chasing quick fixes. Stop treating your body like a project that needs to be fixed before you're allowed to feel confident. Start building sustainable habits, lifting heavy, and training for strength and capability rather than just appearance.
Because here's the truth: when you're strong, energized, and confident in what your body can do, that's when you'll feel your best, bikini or not.
What fitness myth are you ready to let go of? Share your thoughts with us on Instagram @broads.podcast, we're here to support you in building a healthier relationship with fitness and your body.
