Natural Weight Loss For Women

Some women don’t have to worry about their weight. You just never meet many of them. Weight loss for women is one of the topics that is uppermost in the minds of most females, from an early age and throughout their lives.

Unfortunately, there are very few comprehensive sources which explain all of the best ways for weight loss diets, workouts and supplements to work effectively. That’s what we hope to do in this guide, “How To Lose Weight – For Women.”

We won’t be dealing with unnatural causes for weight loss like illness or stress that often lead to unhealthy, rapid weight loss in women, which of course isn’t desirable. We’re going to focus on the methods which actually will result in long-term success, including the best weight loss diet for women, the best slimming shakes, what exercise to lose weight you should consider, and the top weight loss supplements for women.

Here we go, with our editorials on how to achieve the best weight loss in 2015 and beyond.

Groom+Style has also written an article which you might find interesting entitled How to Lose 10 pounds in One Week – 10 tips.

Natural Weight Loss – Where To Start

Before doing anything else, it’s important to realistically determine your situation and your goals.

• Take a look at your lifestyle: weight loss tips for women at home may not work if you work 60 hours a week.
• Consider your age: weight loss tips for women under 30 may not apply if you’re much older, since your body structure, stamina and hormones are completely different; you’ll be better served by guidelines for the best weight loss for women over 50.
• Think about dietary restrictions and allergies: the best supplements for weight loss for women will do you no good if they make you sick.
  Realistically assess your physical capabilities: a detailed guide to weight training, for weight loss for women, won’t be much help if you’re partially disabled.
• Figure out how much you have to lose: weight loss for obese women requires a very different approach than weight loss for your wedding, when you just need to shed five pounds to get into your dress.

Assessing your personal situation is something only you can do. But you can find help figuring out how much you have to lose. Professionals usually calculate your BMI (body mass index) by using your weight and height in order to determine healthy targets; you can find a detailed explanation at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website and a calculator to check your numbers here .

Once you have a better feel for what you’re trying to achieve, it’s easier to get there. But here are a few important warnings before you set out on an Internet search for “the best weight loss for women,” “tips to weight loss fast” or “the best weight loss products for women.”

• There are hundreds of thousands of unreliable companies and scam artists who make money by ranking highly on Google for terms like “rapid weight loss for women.” Most of them are either selling snake oil, or pushing high-priced products which don’t work, just so they get commissions for the sale. Be suspicious of anything that sounds too good to be true – you know the rest of that saying.
• Most scammers promising 100 easy weight loss tips are really just trying to sell you information you can find for free on this site or others. You already knew that “vegetables are better than cake” or “exercising every day is a good idea.” There isn’t a list of top 10 tips for weight loss which will make you skinny; knowledge and commitment are the keys for best weight loss in women.
• Be careful with programs pushing extreme weight loss for women or the secret of how to lose weight fast. And be even more afraid of fasting; there’s no safe answer for those trying to learn how to fast for weight loss. Women who go on crash diets in order to drop major amounts of weight usually only end up crashing in one place: the hospital.

The best ways to lose weight for women are to be sensible and realistic in what they want to accomplish, to determine the right approach for their situation, and to stick to a plan once they’ve started. The “best weight loss plans for women” aren’t one-stop shops. They’re what work best for you.

Three last thoughts before we get to the nuts and bolts of the “how to” for weight loss. First, if you’re grossly obese or have very little willpower, you might want to consider one of the reputable weight loss retreats for women. They’re expensive, but they can set you up with a sensible and achievable plan while getting you away from the temptations of the refrigerator and the couch. Second, be sure to take pictures before and after weight loss. Women who’ve done it treasure those photos forever, because they memorialize a wonderful achievement. And third, before you start any weight loss program you might want to pick up a very popular book called “Women and the Weight Loss Tamasha,” (link to book on Amazon) which sensibly explains how you can be happy with and at peace with your body, even while you’re trying to improve it.

OK, enough preliminaries. Let’s get to the meat of this guide: healthy tips for weight loss.

Best Weight Loss Diet Plans

It doesn’t matter whether you Google “weight loss” or “weight-loss,” you’ll see a huge number of diets. That certainly makes common sense, because most people’s idea of the best weight loss plan for women is simply: “Stop eating all that ice cream and cookies.” But it also makes scientific sense, because problematic body fat is produced when the body takes in too many calories, can’t burn all of the energy that’s produced from those calories, and has to store the excess as fat.

Exercise can attack stored body fat, and burn calories before they are stored as fat. We’ll get to that later. Right now we want to take a closer look at how you can determine the best diet for weight loss, for women.

You’d be unlikely to find anyone who disagrees with the best diet tips for weight loss provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which can be summed up as the equation healthy foods = weight loss . They advise that you eat more whole grains, fruits and vegetables; cut down on sweets, greasy fried foods and fatty meats like hot dogs and hamburgers; and substitute water for soda and other sugary drinks.

Two Tips:

If you like the crunch of deep fried food you could utilize an air fryer instead of a deep fryer.  Check out Groom+Style’s review of the Top 5 Best Air Fryers.

Those healthy diet tips for weight loss are great advice. But by far, the best way to regulate what you eat is to use an actual diet for weight loss. Women are often told, usually by quacks, that they’ve developed a diet that will work for anyone. That’s simply not possible. A diet has to be based on your weight, body type and activity level, which in turn determine how many calories your body needs per day. There’s no single, one-size-fits-all diet for weight loss in women. Active young women may require 2400 calories per day, while sedentary older women may only need 1600. A good way to figure out your own caloric needs is with the guidelines provided by WebMD. You can then combine weight loss tips and a calorie counter to track your daily intake.

OK, what comes next? You could go with “easy” weight loss diet plans, which are the commercial programs offered by reliable companies like Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem and others. Some supply the food and others simply give you the diets to follow, but they all rely on strict eating plans and positive reinforcement throughout the diet program. Those who have difficulty enforcing limits on themselves, or those who are time-constrained, often find their best alternative is a commercial meal plan for weight loss in women that has been prepared for them in advance. That’s why these programs are so popular.

The plans, however, are also expensive. It’s much cheaper to do it yourself if you have the time and the desire. In order to do that, you also need to know about foods that help you lose weight. In general, proteins, fiber and fats which come from plants are foods that help in weight loss. They’re filling and slow down digestion, and that combination means you don’t get hungry as often. Many are tempted to avoid protein for weight loss. Women in particular, though, need a sufficient amount of protein like eggs, fish or lean beef – the best protein for weight loss in women – each day as part of their diet; a fruit diet to lose weight fast could seem smart, but it will hurt you in the long run. As for the trend toward linking protein shakes and weight loss, we’ll get to that shortly.

Other than that, what foods help with weight loss? Some of them make perfect sense, like apples, pears and raspberries, greek yogurt, lentils and flax seeds. Other foods for diet weight loss might surprise you, like dark chocolate and almonds, and potatoes and popcorn (which will fill up your stomach). There aren’t any special weight loss foods for women that experts recommend, but research done with female patients consistently shows that eating lots of food with high water content (like fruits and vegetables) can be a solid beginning to any weight loss eating plan for women.

Just remember, anyone trying to sell you quick weight loss diets for women, whether they’re based on solid dietary advice or fads, is just after your money. Extremely rapid, healthy weight loss doesn’t exist – but healthy weight loss does. So don’t be disappointed if you’re counting on simply eating healthy foods to lose weight fast. This is a slow and steady approach to taking off weight for good. Fast weight loss diet plans that work? They don’t really exist.

One more tip: you need to stay excited about your diet. Keep a daily diet chart for weight loss to keep track of what you’ve eaten, so you can analyze it to find out what worked best for you. Be sure to include your daily or weekly weight loss alongside the list of foods, because motivation is the key to any diet; one of the best motivators can be a diet chart for weight loss, for women. You might also wanted to get more excited about cooking for yourself and making the healthy meals you want to eat. Another way to get excited about weight loss is to use a women’s weight loss simulator, which shows what you’ll look like before and after your diet. They’re available online and in app stores.

Easy Exercise to Lose Weight

Is there really such a thing? Not at first, especially if you’re very heavy or obese. Exercising will feel like work, and certainly won’t be easy. However, the more you exercise, the easier it will become. And medical experts unanimously agree that diet alone isn’t enough to shed more than a small amount of weight; exercise must be part of the equation. Cutting down the number of calories you’re taking in will initially let you drop some pounds, but exercise speeds the process and is the only way to keep weight off permanently.

So what’s the best exercise for weight loss, for women? You might be shocked to learn that for most females the long-term answer is the same as it is for men; weight loss with weight training is the optimal approach.

Here’s the explanation. Cardio workouts provide faster weight loss. That’s because exercises for women which stress activities like running, sessions on the treadmill or bike, or interval or circuit training burn more calories per minute than lifting. But much of the resulting weight loss comes from your muscle, not your stored fat. There are two benefits of weight training for weight loss that you don’t get from cardio: women doing weight training build extra muscle while losing only their stored fat, and research shows that for every three pounds of muscle you add, you’ll burn 120 extra calories per day. It’s ideal to mix the two types of exercise, but if you have to choose, weight lifting for women is weight loss “magic.”

Are there fast weight loss exercises for women? Sorry, but the story is the same as it is for diet. Slow and steady wins the weight loss race. Some exercises will help you shed pounds faster than others, though; the best training for weight loss is a regime like the one recommended by Health.com , featuring exercises like the squat to overhead presses, single-leg dumbbell rows and step-ups with bicep curls. It won’t be quick, but it’ll be rewarding.

You can find plenty of ebooks and hard-copy books with weight loss workout plans for women to help you figure out the best exercises to try, but be careful what you buy. Many of these books are just get-rich-quick schemes, recycling and selling the same information you can find for free online from reputable sources. Caveat emptor.

One other approach gaining in popularity is weight loss yoga for women. That’s because yoga can increase your body’s insulin sensitivity – and that signals the body to burn food for energy instead of storing it as fat. Yoga for weight loss, for women who are getting a little too creaky for strenuous exercise, is an outstanding option. In fact, it’s one of the best weight loss programs for women over 50. You can get more details from Prevention.com.

Women’s Weight Loss Shakes and Slimming Shakes

You read and hear all sorts of glowing reports about protein shakes for weight loss, for women and for men. There’s even a widely-quoted report from Dr. Oz’s site stating that protein shakes, for weight loss in women, are an “effective and easy way to drop pounds.”

One big problem with those claims is that many women are expecting store-bought protein shakes (or ones they’ve made themselves by purchasing protein powder for weight loss for women) to be a magic bullet. Sure, if you replace your usual breakfast of two donuts with one of these shakes, you’ll be consuming fewer calories – so protein shakes and weight loss in women can indeed be related for a short time. Eventually, though, when you go back to eating “real” food, that weight will probably come right back. And in the meantime, you’re not getting any of the benefits of eating healthy food.

An even bigger problem comes when people simply choose one of the products advertised as among the “top weight loss shakes” or the “best protein powder for weight loss in women” and make that the entire focus of their diet regime. Since they’re probably also eating normal meals, they end up consuming, even more, calories and more protein than they need, and end up gaining weight instead of losing it. That’s the reason you’ll see many bodybuilders relying on protein shakes – to bulk up, not to shed pounds.

However, women’s protein shakes can have some value when used intelligently in connection with a diet and exercise program. They’re more filling than carbs or fats, and when judiciously replacing other proteins in a diet, they can do the job with fewer calories. The best weight loss protein for women? Whey. A study published in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism explains why it’s best: whey protein for women’s weight loss can spare lean muscle at the same time it is increasing fat loss. Other studies have confirmed those same basic findings, that whey protein powder for women’s weight loss can be beneficial if the shake is only replacing an occasional meal or snack and not serving as a diet staple. In the long run, the best weight loss protein for women is the fish, lean meat or eggs in their diet.

There’s a better type of healthy shakes for weight loss: smoothies. Combining ingredients like mango, blueberries or strawberries, avocado, skim milk or greek yogurt (for protein) and ice cubes is a perfect way to keep calories low and taste high, while enjoying healthy fruit shakes for weight loss. To learn how to make weight loss shakes like these, check out suggestions at Prevention.com [link: http://www.prevention.com/food/smoothie-recipes-weight-loss]. They’re the best weight loss shakes for 2015 and beyond.

Are There Weight Loss Supplements for Women That Work?

In this discussion, we’re using supplements as a general term encompassing weight loss pills, hormone pills, and other “magic pills” which supposedly can melt fat away. It’s easy to understand the attraction of these pills for women: weight loss supplements claim to do all of the heavy lifting for you. Some even claim you can eat anything you want and don’t have to exercise: “You can lose dozens of pounds by taking our fast weight loss pills for women!” And they usually have “research studies” to “prove” their claims.

There are three important facts to understand about all of that.

• No one closely watches over the people who market these supplements. Unless supplements for weight loss for women are proven to be unsafe and ordered off the market, they can be sold and claims about their effectiveness will go unchallenged.
• Most of the research that’s done on supplements involves subjects who are also exercising and dieting. The “test results” are often not due simply to taking weight loss pills.
• Some supplements, like raspberry ketone, may indeed be good weight loss pills for women – but only if the women have low expectations. Just one study has been published on raspberry ketone, and it showed that the average weight loss was around four pounds over eight weeks. That’s doesn’t really make them the “extreme weight loss pills for women” that many might expect from advertising. But for those who think that losing half-a-pound a week is the benchmark for effective weight loss pills for women, some of these supplements may be worth taking.

Another supplement often touted is “testosterone for women” weight loss pills. That one does have some validity, but isn’t as simple as it sounds. Women with low testosterone are indeed prone to weight gain, because low testosterone levels can cause a decrease in muscle mass. However, estrogen levels must also be lowered at the same time in order to reap the benefits of the testosterone. That’s a tricky thing to do and not something that amateurs should attempt, particularly when hormone levels affect so many other bodily functions. A much better idea is to see an endocrinologist.

The same warnings we’ve already mentioned about Internet searches for “top 10 weight loss pills for women,” “what is the best weight loss supplement for women” or “best weight loss pills for women over the counter” apply here as well. Most of the sites you’ll find when doing searches like that are either marketing pages created by vendors, or “best weight loss pills for women” reviews sites where the owners earn a commission for everything they sell. Neither type of site will be honest and straightforward. You’ll do yourself a favor if you stick to authority sites created by medical clinics or independent journalists. You’ll find on all of those sites that there are, unfortunately, no weight loss pills for women that work fast.

Other Weight Loss Challenges for Women

There are some groups of women who face special challenges when trying to lose weight. African-Americans top that list; extensive research has found that weight loss for black women is a particular problem. There are many theories why African-American women are statistically more likely to be overweight or obese, ranging from socioeconomic factors and traditional diets, to genetics and discrimination. Whatever the reasons, black women weight loss programs are starting to focus as much on community support and understanding, as they do on exercise and diet. For more information, a discussion in Essence magazine can be helpful.

Weight loss for older women is another thorny problem, since menopause and age-related physical challenges can make weight loss tips for women in their 20s useless to someone in her 60s. Just checking a list of popular Internet searches sheds light on how much of a concern weight loss is for women as they age:

• “weight loss for women over 30”
• “best weight loss program for women over 40”
• “best weight loss program for women over 50”
• “weight loss for women over 60”

In reality, a woman’s ability to diet and exercise isn’t age-dependent. Some 65-year old females are healthier, more energetic and willing to start a weight loss program than others in their 20s. For that reason, there’s really no way to suggest a method for the best weight loss for women over 40, any more than there’s a best weight loss diet for women over 50. Use common sense and restraint, at least when starting any diet or exercise weight loss regime, and you’ll be able to discover the program or diet that’s right for you.

One final challenge, which we only discovered when doing research for the above section, is for women who follow special religious or ethnic diets or customs. We realized the extent of the issue for Indian women when we saw many online searches for the terms “weight loss tips for women in Tamil,” “weight loss tips for women in Hindi,” and “weight loss tips for women in Urdu.” It’s beyond the scope of this article to discuss the ways that Western diet plans can be adjusted for Indian foods, tastes and religious restrictions. However, we did want to highlight the fact that the Internet is full of informational articles and videos which cater specifically to Indian women trying to lose weight; they’d be worth checking for details if you are in this category.