The Unique Challenges Faced By Women Who Want To Lose Weight

Weight loss can be difficult no matter who you are, however, for women who want to lose weight it can especially challenging. If you’ve ever known a couple who diets together, or been part of such a couple, you know exactly how different it is. Why is it that men don’t seem to have to work nearly as hard or struggle as much to drop those annoying extra pounds?

So how can women lose weight more easily with all the specific female challenges that mother nature and society has provided? The first step is to identify the challenges that women face when trying to drop the pounds.

Understanding The Numbers

So let’s talk numbers and see if we can’t simplify things a little. The total calories you burn in a day is all about crunching the numbers. Your resting metabolic rate is the amount of calories you burn when at rest. On average about 70% of the calories that are burned during the day are burned just to keep your body functioning. This is what you will use even if all you do is sit on the sofa all day. So, to be one of those people who lose weight you have eat less than you burn. This results in a calorie deficiency that results in weight loss. Of course, when you add physical activity to the equation, you can eat more calories and still lose weight.

Figuring out how many calories you should eat each day based on your activity levels will help you to begin. There are many online calculators that will determine the right number based on your weight, age, and activity levels.

The Unique Challenges For Women Who Want To Lose Weight

Of course, this part is simple. Now, let’s talk about some of the real challenges faced by women who want to lose weight. All too often, these are challenges that your male counterparts usually don’t have to deal with.

Self-Judgment

Women are highly critical of themselves. Even if you could ignore all of the outside issues you face, you’re more likely to judge yourself harshly than you are to give yourself credit for the good things you do and all your great physical features.

Pressures Of Society

The magazine rack at the supermarket is a mirror of what society expects women to look like. Anorexic super models and size one actresses have become the model of a women’s ideal figure. This type of unrealistic view of what a “real woman” should look like puts excess pressure on real, everyday women who want to lose weight. Real women have curves! This is something that is forgotten in a society obsessed with hard bodies and size zero waifs on the covers of magazines.

Eating Out And Portions

Another challenging area for women who want to lose weight is portion sizes. Women are bombarded with portion sizes. Consider restaurants for instance. That indulgent dish at your favorite pasta place might add up to be more than double your daily caloric requirements. But for a man, it might just be dinner. Moreover, while you might think you’ll know when to push the plate away, it’s easy to keep eating, because it’s still on your plate and that’s what we’re trained to do.

Why Is Belly Fat So Difficult To Lose? (Free Report)
 

Fitness Marketing

Marketing goes further to market fitness differently to women than it does to men. Women are pushed to female style activities, ones that are deemed to be proper and model an almost 50s view of the world, where girls are told to do spin classes, and running and buy those brightly colored free weights.

Women should be aggressively strength training just like their male counterparts because lean muscle tone burns fat and increases metabolism. More lean muscle tone is one of the main reasons men naturally burn more calories and lose weight faster than women can.

Your Hormones Are Working Against You

Women also have to face an onslaught of hormones that fluctuate throughout the month and change significantly through the aging process. With this comes the fact that during your cycle you can retain water. This water retention can be a huge obstacle when you are getting on the scale. It can make it seem like even when you are working your hardest, you step on the scale and instead of dropping weight you’ve gained two pounds. This is not only disappointing it makes it hard to feel positive about all the work you’ve been doing. Hormones can also interfere with weight loss efforts. For example, estrogen that causes weight gain and fatty tissue cells to grow.

Emotional Eating

Women fall victim to this issue much more than men, and it is often difficult to overcome. Do you reach for cookies and ice cream when you are upset or depressed? How many movies show the cliché of the woman who just broke up with her boyfriend reaching for a tub of ice cream to heal her wounds? Emotional eating is using food to deal with feelings. This not only leads to weight gain, but also is a vicious cycle that propagates depressions, low self-esteem, and pain that leads to more overeating.

Learn healthy ways to deal with emotions. When you can identify real hunger versus emotional hunger it’s the best ways to begin the road to recovery from this unhealthy behavior.

Dealing With The Challenges

The first step in moving forward is to stop being so mean to yourself. You are your own worst critic. When you start to give yourself just a little kindness and acknowledge your accomplishments rather than notice only failures you will see improvement.

Stay off the scale. Keep your time on the scale limited to once or twice a month rather than constantly or obsessively weighing yourself. Since weight fluctuates, this will help keep you from feeling bad when you’re retaining water due to your hormones.

Don’t just stick with cardio exercise. Strength training is key to getting fit.  Join the men at the gym who are lifting and work right alongside. Avoid any workout program that excludes any kind of strength training.

Look to the right kind of idols. Don’t focus on those anorexic magazine models as your example of fitness; instead find real women who have overcome similar difficulties you face each day. This will help you make goals that are more realistic and accomplish them.

How Can Women Lose Weight?

Men and women don’t lose weight the same way. Female weight loss is different to a man because a woman’s hormones are not the same and this effects a woman’s appetite control, metabolism and weight loss. The women who lose weight successfully make lifestyle changes for the long term. But how easy is that? This ‘Women Only’ Weight Loss Video reveals a breakthrough discovery for women who want to lose weight by boosting their metabolism and burning fat faster and easier than you ever thought possible.