how to lose weight

1. We Love Chocolate – and It Makes Us Pay The Price

Yeah, we’ll just go ahead and throw this one out here first because it’s the one unfortunate reason why we gain weight we’re not going to care to change, right? There is a never-ending love story between woman and chocolate that is too romantic to ever break up. Face it, ladies, we need chocolate! It’s a fact of life. Ok, don’t indulge to the point of making yourself sick on it, but nibbling here and there is 100% acceptable!

2.  Bad Enough as It Is, Menopause Also Makes Us Gain Weight

Menopouse is another unfortunate reason why women gain weight faster than men do.  We’re all going to go through it at some point in our lives. It’s a fact of life. However, you don’t have to let the weight gain take over. As you near menopause, simply start keeping track of your diet and make the needed changes to eat more healthy meals. Also, a healthy, regular exercise plan, such as daily walking would be a great benefit as well.

3. Slower Metabolism Makes Us Gain Weight Faster Than Men

For some reason, God created woman with a much slower metabolism rate than a man. Maybe it’s because a woman needs more to nourish a growing baby inside her, or maybe it’s just because he intended for women to be more soft and cuddly than man. LOL! I don’t know why, but it’s a fact. One thing that will help speed up your metabolism is to take vitamins and minerals that aid in metabolism. One such vitamin is niacin, which you can find at your local supermarket or health food store. Just take it with every meal!

4. Skipping Breakfast Makes Us Pile Up Those Pounds

From what I’ve personally seen, skipping breakfast is an unfortunate reason why many women start gaining weight fast.  We, women are more apt to skip breakfast, due to our never-ending duties of getting the kids ready for school, getting everything we need to do lined up for the day, doing this for Jr. and this for Susie… next thing you know, it’s lunch time! Studies show that by simply adding a healthy breakfast meal to your day, you can lose some weight!  Why is this? Because the earlier we start out metabolism working, the more calories we’ll burn.

5. “Less Muscle – More Fat” is Another Reason of Putting on Weight

The average woman tends to be much less physically active than the average man (though, yes, there are some exceptions.) Less muscle mass means more fat content. To change the stats, simply build more muscle with a good exercise routine. As you build muscle, you will burn calories, which will in turn, cut your fat. Plus, you’ll get the added benefit of trimming and firming up your figure!  Now, this reason why women gain weight fast seems fixable, but it’ll take a lot of hard work and consistency to get through.

6. Kitchen Work Can Make you Gain Weight Too

If you’re like most women, one of the reasons why you are gaining weight can be the fact that you’re in the kitchen much more frequently than a man. We tend to be the ones responsible for putting lunches together and cooking (and taste-testing) the supper meal. In order to cut down the amount of kitchen time to lower your temptations, try working out something with your spouse to share the kitchen workload. After all, men can be great cooks as well! Why not your husband? Who says he’s any different than your famous (male) chef you enjoy watching on TV? You’ll never know until you put him to work!  So, eliminate this nasty reason that makes you gain weight fast by talking to your other half.

7. Women Gain Weight Fast because of … Cravings

The only time I’ve ever heard a man talk about cravings would be those rare occasions where the man is actually the one craving things when his wife is pregnant. For the most part, it’s a woman who tends to have cravings, and when you think about it, the cravings are never for healthy things. Ice cream, chocolate (which is one great thing to crave!) this sweet, that carb, etc. While I personally believe you should give into your cravings to avoid giving in later and totally ruining your diet, you should take care to eat just enough to satisfy and not over-indulge your body’s struggle with the good foods in life. Being pregnant, one of my recent cravings was salt and vinegar chips, and I ended up eating the entire can of pringles in one 2-hour period! That is definitely not something I want to keep up, that’s for sure!  But what a woman’s got to do?  Cravings are just one of those unfortunate reasons why we women gain weight fast.  And you really need to have a super-woman self-control to eliminate this weight gain reason!

We women have it much more tough than men do, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t beat theseunfortunate reasons why women gain weight fast and keep ourselves trim and fit. Just pay attention to the 7 Reasons Why Women Can Gain Weight Fast and try to avoid these situations as much as possible. If you have any hints or tips to help your fellow women out, please feel free to leave us a comment! We love to hear from our readers – any tricks to stop gaining weight you personally loved!

Realistic ways to lose weight may take willpower and determination, but your efforts will be rewarded in a slimmer figure for the long run.

Reduce Calories

Weight control is about calories in versus calories out. Eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight. There is no magic formula to get around the need to reduce calories to prompt weight loss. Harvard researchers conducted a study comparing four different diets that called for various ratios of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Their findings, published in a February 2009 issue of the “New England Journal of Medicine,” confirmed that any diet helped people lose weight as long the participants restricted their calories. If having a specific diet to follow helps you adhere to your plan, choose one that appeals to you in terms of eating patterns and food choices. Be sure to select a diet that still provides a minimum of 1,200 calories if you are a woman or 1,500 if you are a man — the lowest amount of daily calories recommended by the National Institutes of Health.

Increase Physical Activity

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asserts that achieving a health weight requires physical activity and a healthy eating plan. Physical activity helps contribute to your daily calorie burn, making it easier to create a gap between calories burned and calories consumed. You do not have to belong to a gym to exercise — take a walk or outfit your own mini-home gym with hand weights, a jump rope and an exercise ball. If you do not realistically think you can fit exercise into a busy schedule, try splitting it up into mini-bouts. Go for two 15-minute walks during the day, jump rope in the evening during television commercials or meet your friends for a hike rather than dinner.

Eat Breakfast

Skipping meals can cause you to eat too much at your next meal because of extreme hunger. Simply adding breakfast every day will help you jump-start your metabolism and establish good eating habits for the day. Over 70 percent of the 5,000 members of the National Weight Control Registry — people who have lost and maintained an average of66 lb. — report eating breakfast every day as part of their weight control regimen. You can realistically add breakfast to your day — even if you do not have time to cook. Eat a bowl of whole grain cereal, a banana and low-fat milk. Have a peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread or grab a string cheese, an apple and a handful of almonds. Choosing a breakfast that includes protein and whole grains can help you stay full longer than a breakfast of refined flours and excessive sugar.

Choose Whole Foods

Focus on eating whole foods that are close to nature. Choose lean proteins, low-fat dairy, plant-based fats and produce for most of your meals. Foods that have undergone a lot of processing — such as energy bars, frozen dinners and snack foods like chips or crackers — tend to have excess sodium, refined flours, saturated fat and added sugars. Cooking more at home will help you stick to healthy ingredients and control your calorie intake. If time pressures prevent you from preparing healthy meals every night, try cooking extras when you do have time and saving them for later in the week.

Here are nine ways to lose weight.  We hope this list helps you with your weight loss

1) Cut back on soda, fancy coffee drinks and possibly even juice

According to Seventeen magazine, cutting back on just one soda or sugary drink a day “can make a 10-pound difference in a year.”

Don’t think that fruit juice is always a healthy option!  Check out how much sugar is in a cup of apple juice – sometimes it has more than soda.

And drinks at Starbucks or other stores can be very, very heavy on the calories.  Specialty drinks like Frappuccinos and Mochas can be tempting but can also have a lot of calories.

2) Record what you eat and the calorie values.  This can help you focus on what can be improved.  The risk to this approach is that it might make you too focused on reducing calories.

3) Be patient!

If you try to lose weight too fast by abruptly cutting back on food, you can signal your body’s alarm mechanism that is activated in situations of very little food.  This makes it hold onto weight even harder than usual and can even cause weight gain.

4) Exercise!

In general, exercising is a great way to lose weight and just look and feel better.  Some people recommend several hours of exercise a week, but that may be too much to try for at first.  Start small.  Just 10-15 minutes of moderate exercise a day can have really big benefits.

Consider hiring a personal trainer if you can afford it.  They can make exercising that much more enjoyable while making sure you get the best workout.

5) Don’t try to do too much!

Telling yourself that you are going to give something you love to eat up entirely makes you feel great – until you break your pledge and have some.  A better idea is to say you’ll cut back to half as much, or something similar.

Don’t make your goals too ambitious.  Set goals you can meet.

6) Partner with a friend.

Doing things with friends makes it more fun!  Set reasonable goals together and support each other.  For instance, you could agree to go to a hip-hop dance class together.  Not only will you have fun, you’ll get exercise and spend time with a friend.

7) Set goals for your weight loss that are reasonable yet still enough of a challenge to motivate yourself.  You don’t want to say you’ll lose more than you can achieve, but you don’t want to set a goal that is too easy either.

8)Consider putting a picture of yourself looking a way you like in a place where you’ll see it often.

9) Get enough sleep.  Getting enough sleep promotes overall health and can have surprising impact on your weight.

The healthiest way to lose weight is neither crash diets nor bursts of exercise. The body likes slow changes in terms of food and exercise. For example, someone who hasn’t exercised for years shouldn’t rush into running miles a day or pounding the treadmill. Not only will the struggle to do so leave you feeling disheartened and demotivated, you’re also far more likely to injure yourself and set your fitness levels back further. The same goes for people who suddenly start starving themselves. Diets that severely restrict calories or the types of food ‘allowed’ can lead you to be deficient in the nutrients and vitamins that your body needs.

So, if you need to lose weight, what should you do? Energy needs and weight loss Your body uses food for energy. It stores any excess energy as fat. This means if you eat more food than your body needs for daily activities and cell maintenance, you’ll gain weight. To lose weight, you need to get your body to use up these stores of fat. The most effective way to do this is to: * reduce the amount of calories you eat * increase your levels of activity. This is why experts talk about weight loss in terms of diet and exercise. Introduce changes gradually Small changes can make a big difference. One extra biscuit a week can lead you to gain 5lb a year – cut that biscuit out of your diet and you’ll lose the same amount. You’re also more likely to stick to, say, swapping full-fat milk for semi-skimmed or making time for breakfast each morning than a diet that sets rules for all foods.

You should think of weight loss in terms of permanently changing your eating habits. While weight-loss goals are usually set in term of weeks, the end game is to sustain these changes over months and years, ie lifestyle change for life. Increase your activity levels Someone who increases the amount they exercise, but maintains the same diet and calorie intake, will almost certainly lose weight. No matter if you hate gyms – even light exercise, such as a short 20 minute walk, will be beneficial if done most days of the week. Every single time you exercise more than usual, you burn calories and fat. There are lots of ways to increase the amount of activity you do. Team sports, racket sports, aerobics classes, running, walking, swimming and cycling will all improve your fitness levels. Find something you enjoy that’s easy for you to do in terms of location and cost.

You’re then more likely to build it into your routine and continue to exercise, despite inevitably missing the odd session through holidays, family commitments, etc. * Get out and about at the weekend. Leave your car on the drive and walk to the shops. Try to incorporate longer walks into outings to the park, coast or countryside and take a picnic, so you’re in control of what you are going to eat that day. * Every extra step you take helps. Always use the stairs instead of the lift, or get off the bus a stop before the usual one and walk the rest of the way. * Use commercial breaks between TV-programmes to stand up and do exercise, or consider using an exercise bicycle in the living room while watching your favourite programme