8 Weight Loss Tips for Women

Introduction

Achieving weight loss goals can be life-changing. And if you’re a woman trying to lose weight then these 8 Weight Loss Tips could help you achieve your goals.

 Why You Should Stop and Take a Deep Breath

The pressure on women today is immense. TV, film, magazines, celebrity blogs fashion – the list of sources of perfect women is endless. And it’s ok to feel a bit overwhelmed if you long to have the ‘perfect’ body. But, don’t let it get to you. And, don’t be too hard on yourself either.

Depending on your lifestyle you may not have the resources of the rich and famous; personal trainers, home help, personal dieticians and flexible lifestyles, meaning you can put endless hours into your health and fitness regime. But, there is some good news. There are some simple things you can do to move the needle on those scales and start to look and feel better.

In this article we share 8 simple weight loss tips for women that you can easily fit into your life starting today.

How to Lose Weight Fast and Keep it Off For Good

Women wanting to lose weight should read this article and take at least 3 or 4 of the tips on board. Don’t try and o too much to lose weight if this is your first attempt. And don’t be too hard on yourself either. The best time to start to lose weight was yesterday. The second best time is today.

The biggest challenge to overcome when women try to lose weight is where to start, what to do and how to keep going. The 8 weight loss tips in this article should help!

It really helps to have a solid reason why. Why do you want to lose weight? What does it mean to you? How will you feel when you get there?

The more reasons you can find to lose weight then the stronger will be the pull-factor to get started and the more likely you will continue.

Many women underpin their weight loss journey with picture boards. These can be any picture that represents the benefits you’ll get when you achieve your weight loss targets. Are there certain clothes that you long to wear? Are there events that you shy away from than you will decide to go to when slimmer? What about the holidays you might take when you drop that weight? Whatever it means to you, get some pictures together onto a piece of card or diary and use it as an anchor.

Another powerful tool is visualisation. Picture the scene in your minds eye of achieving you goal. When is it? Where are you? Who are you with? Imagine the compliments you will receive and how that will make you feel. All of these are important (and free) things you can do that will massively increase the chances of you keeping going beyond temptation and frustration, and achieving your weight loss ambitions.

What is a Calorie? And what effect do they have on my weight loss goals?

Weight loss is ultimately about achieving a calorie-deficit which will require your body to draw energy from your stored reserves (of fat, yes sorry I had to use that word!). In addition to following the 8 weight loss tips we’re sharing it can be helpful to get a bit of additional knowledge.

Many “diets” simply reduce the amount of calories you eat. Simple, right? But, as many who have been on this type of diet will know, this can cause you to feel hungry – a lot. And this hunger leas to cravings which can lead to ‘cheating’ which then leads to guilt and giving up. Not very pleasant.

However, not all foods are equal. Even if they’re equal in calories. For example, 500 calories of bread and 500 calories of salmon will have a very different reaction in the body and have a very different impact on your weight loss goals.

Bread is a starchy carbohydrate. Our bodies can metabolise carbohydrates very quickly. They get turned into glucose in our blood. Our bodies then act quickly to reduce the glucose levels using insulin to push the glucose into either our muscles or our liver where is can get turned into….fat, and stored in our fat cells. And, to make things worse, this happens quickly and once the carbohydrate has been processed it can leave us feeling hungry again. And so the cycle continues with ongoing cravings.

However, salmon is a protein. Protein is digested much slower in the body and will leave us feeling fuller for longer (compared to the bread example). Protein has a much weaker blood sugar reaction (compared to carbohydrates) and so doesn’t spike insulin as much and therefore doesn’t trigger the fat building process (as much).

So even though we’ve eaten the same amount of calories in both bread and salmon, the salmon has a lesser effect on fat building and leaves us less likely to feel as hungry as the bread would. Not feeling hungry can lead to less calorie intake and therefore support weight loss.

Understanding food groups and their effect on weight loss can probably help you make better food choices. Combined with the 8 weight loss tips you should be able to get some excellent results.

So, let’s get on to the 8 Weight Loss Tips….

1. Drink More Water for weight loss

It’s one thing many forget. Water is an easy and effective way to help with weight loss with minimal effort.

Studies have shown that increasing the amount of water you drink can increase the number of calories. Drinking 500ml of water can temporarily increase the calories burned by a whopping 30%!

Also, if you drink a glass of water before you eat it will increase the feeling of being full sooner and therefore likley to reduce the chances of over-eating. Some studies show this can have a 13% reduction in calorific intake.

2. Eat More Protein for weight loss

Foods such as poultry, meat, seafood, eggs, dairy, and legumes and pulses fall within the macronutrient, protein. They are an important part of a healthy diet, especially when it comes to achieving weight loss.

There are many benefits to increasing your consumption of protein in addition to achieving weight loss. Several studies have found that those who have high protein content in their diet have fewer cravings, feel fuller for longer and have an increased metabolism.

In a 12 week study, it was noted that increasing protein by just 15% helped achieve a reduction of the daily calorie intake of over 400 calories per day which lead to an amazing 11 pounds weight loss during the 12 weeks.

3. Regular sleep will improve weight loss

Sleep is really important part of overall health, including weight loss.

By developing a regular sleep pattern you will assist your body in helping achieve a healthy body mass. And, in addition to losing weight a good sleep pattern will improve your mental health and increase energy levels.

Try and get a solid 7-9 hours per night.

To help you get to sleep and stay asleep ensure to limit caffeine intake at least 4 hours before bedtime and try and limit the blue light from phones/ tablets if possible.

4. Try and add resistance training to your weight loss regime

Resistance training has many benefits to overall health. Although you do not need to become a world-class body builder to lose weight, increasing the amount of muscle in your body has a number of benefits.

Firstly, increased muscle mass will increase your resting metabolism. This is the amount of energy (calories) burnt when not doing anything. More muscle = faster weight loss. Secondly, adding muscle tells your body to increase Growth Hormone which has many metabolic benefits. Thirdly, the act of exercise and adding muscle will produce physical changes to your body, adding definition and profile, which will spur you on your journey. Finally, exercise increases mental and physical health overall and should give you the mental willpower to carry on.

5. Record what you eat in a food diary

There is a lot of food types that will either help or hinder your weight loss journey. Also, each body type is unique and can respond to different foods in different ways.

By recording your food intake in a simple diary you should be able to track both how much and what type of food you’re consuming. Monitoring food intake against weight loss results can help spot patterns and issues. You could also use it to log your exercise activity as described here, too.

6. Set realistic, timely attainable goals

Whatever your ultimate weight loss goal is, it’s likely going to take some time to get there. One way to prevent giving up is to break that goal down to smaller goals.

So, if your ultimate goal is to drop 30 pounds then breaking that into six series of 5 pound sub-goals makes each sub-goal less daunting and easier to hit. And, the more frequent you hit those goals the more encouraged you’re likely to be.

Adding a target date for each goal allow you to focus and drive towards the date. As you see weight falling off and your goal nearing it should help you stay on track and push harder.

It is a great idea to write your goals down and track progress and record your results.

7. See if Intermittent Fasting can help with your weight loss

Many people get great results with intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting (or I.F.) is sometimes referred to timed window eating. Essentially, its a change to WHEN you eat rather than WHAT/HOW MUCH you eat. The aim is to consume your food in a ever reducing window of time. Or more specifically, creating an ever increasing window of time when you don’t eat anything. Or fast.

If you normally eat breakfast at say, 8am and your evening meal at 7pm, with lunch in the middle somewhere, then you have from 7pm to 8am (13 hours) when you are not eating already.

On IF you might delay breakfast to, say 10am (if you can) and have you evening meal at, say 5.30pm (if you can) which mean you have an eating window of 5.5hours and a fasting window of 18.5 hours.

Why would you want to do this? Well, by fasting it allows the body time to lower blood glucose levels and get the body into a fat-burning state, known as ketosis. During ketosis, the body burns stored fat as a source of energy and thus helps to achieve your weight loss goals.

Many people then go on to reduce their eating window further to, say 20 hours fasted and 4 hours of eating.

Following this, it is possible to reduce the eating window to a single meal, known as One Meal A Day or OMAD.

For more information read our article on 10 intermittent fasting benefits

8. Cut our processed foods and refined carbohydrates to get the weight loss results

Highly processed foods can contain a lot of hidden products which will stall your weight loss goals. Wherever possible, you should aim to eat whole foods whenever you can.

If a product has more than 4 ingredients on the packet, put it back.

Try and create all your food from natural ingredients. Learning to cook from fresh produce will massively help your health and weight loss.

Carbohydrates eaten in excess will probably prevent you from losing any weight at all due to the effects on blood glucose and insulin (which is known as the fat storage hormone).

Why not download our absolutely free 21 Keto Recipe Cook book below

 

Eat a diet which is rich in protein and fat ( yes, you read that right, eat fat to lose weight) and you’re sure to improve your overall health and wasteline. However, try to avoid seed oils whenever you can. Examples of these are; vegetable oil, cannola oil, rapeseed oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, soy oil, cottonseed oil and safflower oil.

These oils are made from pressing millions of seeds to extract the tiny amount of oil per seed. The oil is then treated through industrial processes to get rid of acrid smells and get a clear colour so they are aesthetically suitable for sale.

Seed oils have been linked to obesity and cardiovascular heart disease and should be avoided at all costs.

Instead, switch out to natural saturated fats such as butter, ghee, coconut oil, beef tallow, pork lard, and avocado oil. These oils are stable and have a high cooking temperature and are much better for your body.

Summary

There are many benefits to losing weight. Traditional ‘eat less move more’ advice doesn’t work and leads to poor results and feelings of guilt and giving up.

This article has provided 8 weight loss tips to hopefully give you some help in getting to where you want to go.

 

Good luck!