Guest Post by Chris

Women are different than men in many ways. When it comes to weight loss it is said that women find it harder to lose weight because of their body structure and physique. They usually have less muscle than men, their body is constantly affected by hormonal changes (period, menopause) and they get upset easily which makes them turn to food for comfort. While this holds true there is still an easy way out. Women can still lose weight with the same success as men provided that they do it right. There is no room for disappointment or failure so without further ado the top 5 fast weight loss tips that can help you go through a successful process is:

1. Be optimistic but realistic

Setting realistic goals is the first step of weight loss. You need to set your targets realistically but with optimism and positive thinking. Calculate your BMI or consult your doctor to find out your normal weight. Examine how far you are from this number and set your monthly, quarterly and yearly goals. Do not be impatient, weight loss takes time and you need to aim for the big picture and not for short temporary results.

2. Weight loss is not only about diet and exercise

Do not put all your efforts in dieting or exercise. Yes you do have to watch what you eat and exercise regularly but permanent weight loss is about changing your lifestyle. This means changing the way you work, the way you rest and the way you approach your life. Get rid of the sedentary lifestyle and try to live a physically active life that includes time for leisure, sleep and play.

3. Do not exclude foods from your diet but watch your servings

Dieting in an effort to lose weight is not only about skipping meat or other food types from your meals. Our body to function properly needs nutrients from all food groups and everything that we eat is essential. What you should do instead is moderate your serving sizes. Eating less quantity from all foods is much better and more efficient than eating larger quantities of only protein or fiber foods. You can be selective on what you eat and keep the intake of full fat foods to the minimum but this is as much as you should go. Starvation or very strict diets are only good for short-term results, if your aim to lose weight once and for good prefer following a balanced diet.

4. Sports, exercise and physical activity

The only way to burn calories and gradually achieve a calorie deficit that can lead to losing pounds, is by doing sports, exercises and generally be physically active. There are so many things you can do to keep your body busy; you can join a gym or aerobics class, you can play sports with friends, you can work on your garden etc. Anything you do besides sitting, watching TV, eating snacks, surfing the Net, talking to the phone is beneficial for your weight loss efforts.

5. Patience is a virtue

When you start a weight loss process do not expect to reach your goals in a couple of weeks or months. Depending on how much weight you want to lose it may take months or even years. What is of most importance is to continuously work towards your targets and not get disappointed. There will be weeks that you will not lose any weight, this is normal and expected. What you should concentrate your efforts on is how to best implement your weight loss plan and the results will eventually come.

Author Bio
Chris maintains a healthy weight loss tips blog where you can find out how to lose weight naturally and safe.

Most of the overweight people have fat, deposited on their abdominal area. It makes people look unattractive and belly fat is also associated with cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, people should focus on losing weight from abdominal area. If you want to know that whether or not you have more fat deposited on your abdominal area then you should measure the circumference of your abdominal area with an inch tape. Men who measure more than 40 inches and women who measure more than 35 inches from belly area need to reduce their belly fat.
Here are a few tips to help you lose fat from the abdominal area:

• Exercise daily: You should concentrate on aerobic exercises in order to reduce fat from your abdominal area. Most of the exercises affect the fat accumulated at the abs first. Instead of doing crunches, you should do aerobic exercises. Crunches are good for those people who already have lost weight from their abs.
• Dietary changes: It is a fact known by most of the people that until and unless they change their unhealthy food habits, they are not going to lose excess weight. Restricting your calorie intake is very important for reducing fat from your abs. Instead of refined grains, you should start eating whole grains. Our body finds it easy to burn fat when it is provided with whole grain food items.
• Start eating foods with higher level of monounsaturated fats: Food items like soybeans, nuts, chocolates and avocados help in avoiding the accumulation of both types of fat on the abdominal area. Apart from this, it is also important to avoid eating those foods which have Trans fats. Trans fats are offered in abundance by cookies and margarines.
• Engage in more physical activities: Many overweight people live such comfortable and inactive lives that they do not move their bodies much. Instated of getting your work done by others, you should do it yourself. It is good to do a few works at home or office by yourself. You should also develop habits like taking stairs in place of elevators. These changes may seem small but they affect the lifestyle of a person. You should understand that whether you do less or more physical activities you would keep on eating same or more amount of food. Therefore, it is always good to live an active life.

If you search the internet or open up some health magazine then you will find a large number of diet plans for reducing extra weight from the body. If you have put up some weight in the last few months or you are overweight for the past few years, then you may be interested to know about the diet plan which is best for you. You might have tried a few diet plans for getting freedom from extra weight present in your body. Many people become very sad when they do not get desired results from their diet plans.

You should know that the best diet plan is the one with which you feel most comfortable. Just as you cannot wear clothes of all sizes which you see in the market, similarly you cannot pick up any diet plan for getting slim. There are some diet plans which are restrictive in extreme. Such diet plans stop people from eating almost all those things which they love to eat. In the starting, you will surely follow such diet plans but after some time you will begin to feel that it has taken the joys of eating good food away from you. Due to this reason, many people leave extremely restrictive diets in between.

Therefore, you need to go through the details of various diet plans before you select one for yourself. Once you make a list of all those diet plans which seem good to you, you should ask yourself that will you be able to follow it with discipline or not. You should understand that leaving a diet plan in between causes more harm than good. It also gives birth to negative kind of approach in the mind of those people who leaves their diet plan in between.

Many surveys indicate that a lot of people who choose a very strict diet plan end up in hospital. If you choose a wrong kind of diet plan for yourself then your body may not respond to it positively and you may end up feeling unhealthier. You should also take the advice of your doctor before taking up a specific diet plan. He will be able to guide you best. He will go through the diet plan and also check that whether your body is fit for taking it up or not. So, now you know that different diet plans are meant for different people.