How to Lose Weight Fast for Women

A lot of us have done this one time or another particularly at the workplace; you order one big salad containing only greens for lunch day after day, and get lauded by your co-workers for eating this way in an endeavor to lose weight.

However, what these co-workers don't know is that an hour or so after lunch hunger pangs hit and you start scouring the office kitchen cupboards for any snacks you can find, including cookies, chocolates, etc.

This means that you make one step forward and two steps back in your weight loss endeavor.

Salads are healthy and great for lunch but aren't very filling. This said, you should include some good clean protein into your salads. Some great proteins you can consider adding include eggs and chicken breasts. You can also add good fats like avocados or guacamole into your salads.

Always keep in mind that each meal ought to have a protein component. These proteins and fats not only serve to make you feel fuller after the meal, but also maintain your blood sugar levels for longer, hence you won't be tempted to go scavenging for those unhealthy sweets and snacks around the cupboards just an hour after lunch.

It is widely believed that snacking doesn't help any fat loss efforts. This is a misconception.

Consuming healthy snacks in between meals is a great way to keep your blood glucose levels balanced and your metabolism high. Generally, most of us snack on what is conveniently available around us.

This is why keeping only healthy around the house or office is so important. Some great snacks you can consider keeping handy include nuts, fruits, dark chocolate, trail mixes, and beef jerky.

Exercise is a vital element of every fat loss program. I know exercising is not a cup of tea for most of us but guess what? You don't need to do actual exercise such as running or swimming. You can simply start with a walk 15-20 minutes long daily.

This is easy enough even if you have never exercised before in your life. You can then work up the vigor from there.

Remember, the main goal is to stay active while turning up your metabolism at the same time. Doing this regularly will get you fitter and will help you intensify your exercise routine and challenge your body to achieve greater fitness heights.

A lot of us tend to completely remove all types of carbs from our diet to avoid weight gain.

However, contrary to belief, not all carbs are unhealthy for you. In fact, lack of carbs has an adverse effect on the working order of your. This is because carbs are the chief source of energy for our bodies, without which, we risk various functions of the body and brain failing.

This can be detrimental to the overall health and wellness of our bodies. So instead of shunning carbs like the plague, ensure that you eat each food type at the right time.

Typically, you should only eat low glycemic carbs such as oatmeal, multi-grain bread, brown rice, dark leafy vegetables, etc.

If you want to consume high glycemic foods such as white rice, potatoes, bananas, juices, and other processed foods, you can.. But only right after an intense exercise.

So you have been jogging for some time without any noticeable weight loss results? Don't lose heart.

Try moving on to more demanding exercises. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with jogging.

In fact, jogging is a great exercise to build your cardiovascular endurance. However, it is not the best if you are looking to lose fat.

To burn fat effectively, you will need to take part in a workout that elevates your heart rate to at least 80% of your maximum heart rate and burns as many calories as possible in the shortest time period.

Engage in full body exercises such as squats, rows, deadlifts, shoulder presses, etc which give you the most progress from your exercise time.

Try doing each exercise for 30 seconds with a 30 second break after each exercise for 3 sets and then moving onto the next exercise.

You only need to dedicate a maximum of 15 minutes a day to these exercises and you will witness amazing results equal to what you have had from jogging and jogging for weeks or even months.

We often tend to ignore the liquids we take in daily which illusively contain a lot of calories and are a huge cause of weight gain.

A grande mocha Frappuccino contains at least 400 calories and just one can of soda packs almost 150 calories. This means that if you consume a soda and a Frappuccino daily, you are likely to gain a pound a week, at the very least.

We often gulp down beverages easily as we go do our daily chores without thinking twice about it, making liquid calories more harmful. And if you think that you are safe because you only drink fruit juices, you are mistaken.

This is because all contain the naturally occurring fruit sugar, fructose, if consumed in excess will have the same result as all other sugars - weight gain.

This is why you should always go for water whenever you need a drink. Water is a natural source of hydration for our bodies and contains no calories at all. Simply switch all your other sugary beverages with water for quicker weight results.

Fat loss involves reducing the fat mass and increasing fat-free mass also known as muscles, which ultimately changes the body composition.

This is why exercising and muscle-building is absolutely essential for fat loss. The increment of fat-free mass inevitably promotes the lowering of fat mass.

For every pound of your body muscle, you burn an additional 35–50 calories per day. On the other hand, fat burns only 2 calories for every pound.

This means that if you have a lot of muscle, then your metabolic rate will automatically be higher. And what's more, opposite to conventional wisdom, a curvaceous body with more muscles is more attractive.

Given the busy lives we all lead, setting time aside to make 3 meals a day not forgetting the recommended 3 snacks in between can be difficult to do.

Luckily, there is some leeway so you can wing it! How? By investing in a great whey protein or meal replacement supplement.

This is so convenient as all you have to do is simply add some milk or even water to make a serving of excellent protein.

If we're being completely truthful with ourselves, our current way of life has a lot, if not everything to do with the overweight state we currently find ourselves in.

Bearing this in mind, it is even clearer that we cannot hope to lose any fat without making major behavioral and lifestyle changes. The most important thing to do is to take a different path.

Now, behavioral change is one of the hardest things anyone can do. But there is a way to effectively achieve this; by making small changes that are more bearable to our bodies, bit by bit, every day.

For instance, if you currently consume 2 bottles of beer per day, reduce this to one bottle a day. Then to one bottle every two days, and so on and so forth.

Follow this routine (or any other weight loss routine) that you decide to get started on for 3 weeks (21 days). Why 3 weeks?

Because statistics show that we need 21 days to accept any behavioral change and around 60 days to make a habit out of it. So no matter how difficult any diet or exercise program you start may seem, just keep at it for 3 weeks and it will come as second nature.

Losing excess weight is no walk in the park and it takes time to see the results we are looking for.

A lot of people tend to throw in the towel after only a couple of weeks of training or following a fat loss program because they don't get their desired and expected results within their set time-frame.

Be realistic and remember that just as you didn’t get fat from one day to the next, you should not expect to magically shed weight in a day. Managing your expectations by setting realistic and measurable goals is important so you don't lose morale halfway through your weight loss program.

If you aren't sure what kind of realistic goals you should set, here's an idea: 1–2kg (2–4 lbs) weight loss in two weeks or quarter an inch on your waist after a week are perfect examples of achievable and realistic goals.

You also have to devoutely follow your exercise routine and be 100% honest with yourself when you are evaluating said goals. Should you cheat on your diet, like most of us often do, be prepared to wait longer to achieve your weight loss goals.

For some of us, social assistance is very crucial for us to achieve certain life-goals.

We need constant encouragement and motivation. If you feel like you need the support of loved ones to help you out, then you need to be cognizant of this mainly when you are embarking on your fat loss routine.

This is more so especially in the first 21 days when you need to stay motivated and devoted to your set weight-loss goals.

Remember that just like with every meaningful thing in life, your weight-loss journey is likely to be faced by various hurdles and struggles, sometimes you may feel sore or lethargic after doing some full body workouts or you may even have good news to share like when you succeed in fitting into your favorite pair of jeans that you had had to stop wearing because your waist was an inch thicker.

It is even better if you can find a few friends to do the fat loss program with you. Talk with them about how you feel about the program and share your milestones with them.

You can also share experiences and gain knowledge from fitness professionals and online communities such as Facebook. This will help you to not only focus on the fat loss part, but to comprehend the entire health and fitness experience.

There is no limit to what you can do to remain motivated; go out and purchase some fitness magazines, visit fitness websites, set the physiques you aspire to attain as the wallpaper on your computer or print them out and put them up on your bedroom wall.

A lot of us especially when starting off tend to neglect leg exercises.

We think that if we can just focus on our upper bodies, then we’ll be good. And when we do any leg exercise, we focus on jogging alone.

This is a misconception.

Jogging is great but there are so many other types of exercises you can do using your legs such as lunges, heavy squats, deadlifts, and more.

Some of these exercises, especially squats can be very demanding. They leave you completely out of breath but they also happen to be very essential for burning calories and building overall strength.

These compound exercises help your body to burn more calories, faster. And you don't have to do weighted squats, body weight squats alone is equally challenging and effective.

Consistently doing squats will strengthen your body while keeping your body fat levels low. If you have never trained your legs before, you are missing out, big time. Start your workouts with squats and you will be bewildered by the results you see.

The best way to keep track of how many calories you consume daily is by keeping a meal journal.

You might think that by skipping lunch every now and then, you are eating less. But do you ever take those cookies and sweets you casually eat at the office or those coffees you take when you have to stay awake to meet a deadline?

I bet you don't.

Note down everything that you eat into a meal journal; I know, it sounds like a painstaking ordeal, but just try doing it for a day. You will be shocked by the number of calories you are consuming daily.

Completely abstaining from all forms of alcohol can be difficult to do. But keep in mind that alcohol is harmful, not to mention it has no nutritional value to your body at all.

Each gram of alcohol contains 7 calories meaning a couple of glasses of cocktails containing sugary mixers a night can easily stack at least 1000 or more calories.

What's more, alcohol is an appetite stimulant so the more alcohol you consume, the more food you are likely to eat, leading to more, unnecessary intake of calories.

And that's not all; if you are looking to build muscle, too much alcohol lowers your testosterone and increases cortisol levels (stress hormone) hence minimizing the ability of your body to build muscle successfully.

This said, you ought to seriously consider quitting alcohol if your goal is to lose that excess weight.