Effective Weight Loss Tips & Techniques for Women

Every now and then, we all want to lose some weight. It would be easier to lose weight, if we understood our bodies better. Women and men’s bodies are physiologically different. So, we have different fat storage patterns, hormones, psychology and a lot more. All of these affect the way women gain weight and so understanding them, would help you lose weight too. Besides weight loss, it will also be helpful in improving your overall health & overall fitness.

Fat Storage Patterns among Women

To start with, let’s understand how women put on weight and their common fat storage patterns. There are 2 most common body shapes among women – apple and pear. Typically, most women range between apple and pear shapes based on how their body stores fat. Apple shape refers to those, who primarily store fat on torsos and bellies. Pear shape refers to those people women primarily store fat on their lower half.

Implication of your body shape: Research has shown that people who store weight around their bellies are at higher risk of heart disease. This puts ‘apple’ shaped women at a higher risk of lifestyle diseases.

Myth of body shape: But there is a myth that people with certain body shapes should follow a particular lifestyle pattern of diet and exercise to lose weight.

Your body shape is your body’s pattern of storing fat. If your body stores fat around hips and thighs, then those are what you could call your ‘problem areas’. And this is primarily dependent on the physiology of your body. Regardless of where the fat is being stored, the point is that, to lose the fat around your problem area, you need to burn it.

Doing a particular exercise or eating a certain kind of diet will not change your body’s physiology. But if you lose weight and burn fat, your body will naturally reduce the fat stored in your body, and thus in your problem area.

Diet

Healthy diet remains an area of concern for many women, as they may not focus on what they are eating and at what time. Irregular meal times, unhealthy snacking, lack of fruits in diet, focus on quantity not on nutrition quality are some of the common weight gain triggers among women in India.

Below are the points that as women you should consider to have a balanced and healthy daily diet to lose weight.

1. Skip your daily tea/coffee and replace it with black tea. Avoid sugar completely and replace it with honey, add a dash of lemon to it for taste.
2. Instead of oily snacks and biscuits enjoy your cup of tea with seasonal fruits for your daily dose of vitamins and minerals.
3. Include more protein in your diet. Lean meats, soy, low fat dairy, eggs and nuts are some of the common sources of protein. Protein rich diet is more filling, thus reducing hunger and makes you consume fewer calories.
4. Avoid white bread as it is made using refined flour. Eating white bread makes your blood sugar spike (higher risk of diabetes) and store fat, it does not satisfy your hunger and makes you eat more at each meal.
5. Control the portion of rice in your daily meals. Ideally, it should only occupy 25-30 per cent of your plate. The rest should be for vegetables, proteins and other foods, for a balanced meal.
6. Adopt healthy cooking habits in your daily life. Avoid frying, instead try baking, steaming, broiling your dishes. Healthy cooking methods can help preserve nutrients in the food apart from making it delectable.
7. With their busy morning schedules, some women tend to forget the most important meal of the day, breakfast. No matter how busy you are, make sure you have your breakfast. Starting your day with a healthy breakfast helps in controlling cravings at odd hours. Eggs, whole wheat bread, poha, fruit and yogurt smoothies, etc. are some of the healthy options that can be made in jiffy for breakfast.
8. Apart from this, having a balanced lunch and dinner is equally important to lose weight. Make sure you limit the intake of food that are rich in simple carbohydrate.
9. If you cannot do without your mid meal snacks, then go for fruits, almonds, green tea instead of chips and cookies to keep your weight in check.

Weight Loss & Fitness Exercises for Women

We all lead busy lives, some with more physical activity than others. Many women hardly get any time to exercise, in their bid to juggle between household chores and professional life, which often leads to weight gain.

But if you can spare just fifteen minutes everyday to add a punch of physical activity in your routine, you can keep annoying fat storage in your body at bay. For healthy and toned body, women should focus on doing the below provided exercises. These exercises especially focus on the common weight gain problem areas for women.

Thigh Exercise: Having toned thighs is a dream of many women, which they find difficult to achieve. Try this simple exercise to get your thighs shape up for good.

• Lunges and Squats are the best exercises for working out both inner and outer thigh. Lunges improve your everyday movements’ performance besides sculpting your legs. Add variation like side lunges, lunges with rotation or even dumbbell lunges to hail additional benefits. Dumbbell lunges works especially on ‘core’ muscles (i.e. abs, oblique’s, lower back) to help core strengthening as well.

Butt Exercise: When women are asked to train their glutes, they get confused among the kinds of exercises available for shapely butts. Here we provide you a simple exercise to train your glutes.

• Glute Kickback is one of the best exercises for glutes. When doing glute kick back, make sure to get a full range of motion by bringing your leg as far forward and then extending leg back as far as possible. This exercise targets your butts and hamstrings. Performing glute kickbacks regularly strengthens and tones your butts & hamstrings.

Belly Exercise: Belly and love handles remain a common area of concern among women. Try these simple belly exercises at home to get perfectly toned abs.

• Plank is an exercise for abdominal muscles. It is also called front hold or abdominal bridge. It is one of the best exercises because it tightens the deepest core muscles. You should hold this position for at least 30-40 seconds and perform 3 repetitions.

• Mountain climber strengthens multiple groups of muscles in addition to the cardiovascular system. It improves heart rate and increases intensity of your cardio workouts. 3-4 sets of 15-20 repetitions should be done to get good results.

• Seal Jumps are an excellent cardiovascular exercise. It increases your heart rate, and includes full body movement. Your legs, arms and core are all working during this movement. You can perform 3-5 sets of 10-15 repetitions each.

Additionally, women should include some cardio training in their workout. Including cardio in the form of aerobic or running in your daily workout makes your heart work more. It helps pump blood to the heart, which keeps your heart stronger and healthier. 30 minutes of running or aerobics can burn approximately 300 calories. Proper cardio training can help you not only burn effective calories but also to prevent injury.

Daily exercise can do a lot more than keeping your weight in check. It burns excess fat & calories, strengthens muscles, protects bones, improves bone density, improves nutrient absorption, balances hormone levels and most importantly keeps you active throughout the day.

Fitho founder & fitness expert, Prachi says, “Being a mom and a working professional, I have a packed day. I start my day with 10-15 minutes of exercise. Being healthy is not just for me. If I’m healthy, I will have more energy & be able to manage my life better. When it comes to food, I eat regular food along with the occasional indulgence, but just make sure to control my portions.”

So, regardless of the shape of your body and how it stores fat, for you to lose weight, what is most important is that you burn the fat. Just get on a proper weight-loss plan consisting of diet and exercise. It’s that simple.