As every woman knows, it's tougher to lose body fat than it is to gain it. For some women it can be a real struggle, because a woman's body naturally accumulates more fat than a man's, and weight gain accelerates after menopause. This natural tendency exposes women to the many health risks of being overweight. Concern for your looks may prompt you to lose weight, but the biggest benefits will be how weight loss improves your health.
Step 1
Start an exercise routine. It doesn't need to be intense or extreme -- simply aim for consistent, moderate exercise that elevates your heart rate and breathing. This type of exercise will prompt your body to tap its fat reserves to generate energy. Aim to exercise for at least 20 to 30 minutes initially, but as you get in better shape, you can increase the duration and intensity of your exercise, resulting in more calories burned.
Step 2
Reduce your consumption of calories, unhealthy fats and carbohydrates. All of these conspire to increase your body's fat content. Aim to reduce your daily caloric intake, so that you are burning more calories each day than you bring in through your diet. To achieve this goal, increase your consumption of low-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables. Avoid saturated fats when possible, and eat whole grains in place of refined carbs -- these provide your body with more fiber.
Step 3
Drink plenty of water. Avoiding water won't help you lose weight and can hurt your progress. Water contains no calories and can help you feel full throughout the day, so you are likely to eat less. Water also helps the body's metabolism and breakdown of fats and is used to flush waste materials out of the body through urine.
Step 4
Eat consistently throughout the day; avoid starving yourself. Undesirable things occur when you skip meals or starve yourself: You may gorge yourself when you approach a meal and are very hungry. Your body also tends to hold on to fats after a low-calorie period, since it wrongly assumes that the stored fats will be useful during the next drought of calories. Eating consistently avoids these dangers. A consistent diet will help the body flush out fats instead of converting them for storage.
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