December 3, 2025, 5:44 am | Read time: 4 minutes
Training in winter for a summer body? Yes, recommends trainer and FITBOOK expert Alina Bock. She believes it’s a mistake that many people only start training or losing weight in the spring months. The short period until summer or the summer vacation, when the body should already look good, often leads to extreme diets and overtraining. Much better: Start now and get your body fit in the long term—not just, but also to enjoy a toned body during the warm months.
Radical diets and a sudden high volume of exercise can negatively affect the body. However, those who start training and adjusting their diet in the fall and winter months gain time to build muscle or lose weight healthily.
Consequences of Short Preparation
Those who want to lose weight or build muscle in the shortest time must subject their body to some strain. These can achieve the desired success in the short term but carry some risks and can have health consequences.
Risk of Injuries
If you train little throughout the year and only start to sculpt your body for summer in the late spring months, you risk injuries. The closer summer gets and the shorter the preparation time, the more training you must do in a short time to reach your goal. If the exercise volume is increased from little to none to a high number per week, the trainee risks injuries due to insufficient recovery and unfamiliar movements.
Risks of Radical Diets
Often, radical diets accompany intense training. These also bring more risks than benefits. If the body suddenly receives significantly fewer calories than it consumes, the metabolism slows down. Additionally, a low protein intake, which often accompanies radical diets, causes muscle to be burned. The body burns muscle instead of fat to reduce its calorie consumption as a protective measure. The lower muscle tone further reduces calorie consumption and metabolism, so the body’s total expenditure is significantly lower at the end of the diet than at the beginning of the weight loss. If more calories are then consumed again, similar to before the diet, the so-called yo-yo effect occurs. The body burns less than originally, leading to weight gain that ultimately results in more weight than before the diet.
But radical diets not only negatively affect weight. In addition to changes in body composition, i.e., an increase in body fat and a decrease in muscle, bone mass is also lost. Frequently conducted radical diets have a bone-depleting effect and lead to physical limitations over a lifetime and, especially in women, to osteoporosis. A decrease in bone mass and muscle can significantly increase the risk of injury from falls in old age.
The Summer Body Requires Long-Term Effort
To ensure healthy weight loss or muscle building, enough time must be planned. Ideally, one should start adjusting their diet and training regularly in the fall and winter.
Those who want to lose weight can reduce their calorie intake by a small amount (200 to 300 calories). If protein intake is increased at the same time, fat can be reduced, and muscle maintained. The risk of muscle loss and a permanent reduction in total expenditure is minimized. This also protects the bones, reducing the risk of developing osteoporosis. Additionally, the body can slowly adapt to the training, reducing the risk of overexertion and injuries. If desired, the exercise volume can be gradually increased. Nevertheless, sufficient recovery should be planned between training days.
And one last argument for long-term training with a balanced diet: Those who torture their body into a summer body in too short a time risk a permanently elevated stress level. This increases cortisol production and can make weight loss more difficult. Simply put, cortisol causes the body to store fat. If you take more time and mindfully get your body in shape, stress, high cortisol levels, and belly fat are avoided.