With spring break and beach season coming up soon, we all have one thing on our mind: looking good in a bathing suit. There are four weeks left until spring break, so that’s all the time we have to make a transformation. It may not seem like a lot of time, but it’s more than enough to make a noticeable change in your physique. There are three factors vital to this change: diet, cardiovascular activity and weight training. If any of those factors are neglected, you’re not maximizing your potential.

Your diet has the greatest bearing on your appearance. As the old saying goes, “you are what you eat.” If you want to make this spring break your sexiest, you’ll have to decrease the amount of calories you intake. Personally, I hate following a strict diet. It takes the fun out of training for me, and makes it feel more like work. However, I have a simple way to make a change.

Keep a record of what you eat for a week, starting now. Write down all the calories, the fats, the proteins and the carbs. If you want to lose weight, subtract 500 calories from your daily intake. If your goal is to gain some muscle, you would want to add 500 calories to your daily intake.

Mathematically, this comes up to a gain/loss of one pound each week. I could go on and on for pages about how to change your protein/fat/carbs ratio to maximize your gains/losses, but I will instead simply challenge you to increase your protein intake regardless of whether you want to gain or lose weight. Protein will preserve muscle in times when you’re not eating enough, and will help to build it when you’ve eaten in moderate excess. Note that you’ll find high sources of protein in meats, eggs, dairy and soy products.

I hate cardio. I hate it with a strong, fiery passion. But even I’m doing it when beach season is coming up. Cardiovascular activity includes anything that significantly increases your heart rate for an extended period of time. This means that there are a lot of choices for how you can do cardio. You can let out the kid in you and just go play outside. Or run somewhere, be it at the gym or out on St. Charles Avenue.

My challenge to you is to go and physically exert yourself every day for at least half an hour. I promise, you’ll feel better and you’ll look better. Like I said, it doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym or run a few miles. Go play football in quad. Play tag. Play ultimate Frisbee, even. Just go do something.

Next time, I’ll give a basic weight training routine to help maximize your results. For right now, focus on your diet and on increasing your activity levels. There’s going to be some hard work, but it’ll be worth it.