Several factors contribute to excessive weight in people. These factors must be addressed on the best way to lose body fat. While exercise and diet are major keys to weight loss in women, several other factors play important roles in weight loss. Some of those factors include stress level and sleep patterns and quality which can have significant effects on how you feel hungry, your metabolism rate, and your belly fat composition.
A large percentage of people are either overweight or obese. A lot of women have always wondered and asked themselves – “How do I lose body fat?”. Well, the truth is that there is no best way how to lose body fat fast! Weight loss is attained by controlling a combination of many factors that affect how we gain and lose body fat. Based on years of research, combining the following can help you in reducing your body weight:
Refined carbs significantly increase blood sugar levels. This increases hunger which correlates with increased body fat and weight (1). Refined carbs consist mainly of prepackaged foods such as pasta, bread, and cookies. Whole-grain food products like brown rice, buckwheat, barley, quinoa, and oats are better food options to help you to lose body fat as they have less tendency to cause a sugar spike in your blood.
Aerobic exercises are exercises that increase your heart rate and help you to burn a significant amount of calories. Aerobic exercises such as cycling, brisk walking, running, jogging, skipping, and swimming can help you to significantly lose body weight. It is advised that you do them for about 30 mins each day to get good results (2). If you have any heart or pulmonary condition, it is advisable to consult your doctor before adding aerobic exercises to your daily routine that will help you to lose body fat.
Most women feel resistance exercises like weight lifting, dumbbell exercises, lunges, etc are not as effective as aerobics when it comes to weight reduction. This is not exactly true, especially in the long run. Resistance exercises help to build your muscle mass and thereby increasing the number of calories you can burn per time to lose body fat.
In addition to this, resistance training helps to preserve bone minerals in women above 50 years (3). This is needed to guide against conditions like osteoporosis and osteomalacia which are more common among older women.
One study (4) showed that sleeping for a minimum of seven hours per night increases the chances of weight loss by up to 33%. Women are often caught up with occupational, societal, and family responsibilities that they mostly get inadequate sleep. Ensure you maintain a regular sleep pattern if you want to lose body fat weight.
You guessed right – eating too much of your favorite dish can land you in some body weight trouble. Portion control is very important. One of the ways to control your food portion is to serve yourself with a smaller plate. On the other hand, eating a little slower can help you prevent overeating as you tend to feel full more quickly.
Apart from helping to control your body weight, overeating can result in gastrointestinal issues like bloating and constipation. Of course, eating smaller portions is also more pocket friendly for you to lose body fat.
Intermittent fasting means having an alternating period of eating and fasting for a specific period each day. A period of fasting typically lasts for 24 to 24 hours each day. It is believed that intermittent fasting helps to reduce the number of calories consumed per day. It is also believed that the fasting period enhances metabolism and helps to burn calories (5). There are several intermittent fasting plans (6). You might want to experiment with them and see if any help you to lose your body fat.
This refers to a form of exercise where you have bursts of intensive exercises followed by a short recovery period. The recovery period allows you to rest from the initial short bursts but is still intense enough to keep your heart rate elevated.
Doing HIIT as a replacement for your aerobics a couple of times a week could have drastic effects on your weight loss program. They help to burn calories, and lose body fat around the belly, and increase weight loss (7).
Work towards your weight loss by clearly defining your goal and vision. Your goal should be SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Setting and defining a clear weight loss goal can serve as an inspiration to your commitment and dedication to the plan. It will also help you keep a track of how effective your set-out methods to lose body fat are.
Studies have shown that increased stress levels can significantly add to the risk of gaining excessive weight over time (8). Stress also distorts eating habits and causes overeating and binging.
Find simple ways in your daily routine to increase your physical activity level. You can walk to work instead of taking the bus, and you can use the stairs instead of taking the lift. Every little physical activity added to your daily life means extra calories burnt and extra body weight shed.
Having excess body fat poses danger to your health. Excess body weight has been linked to several diseases and illnesses such as diabetes, stroke, and cardiac arrests, among others. You must maintain a healthy body weight. This can only be done through the control of the series of factors that contribute to weight gain and weight loss in the body. These factors revolve around your stress level, the kind of food you consume, your level of physical activity (or inactivity), and the amount of rest and sleep you get.
There is no particular “best way to lose body fat”. The best way to lose body fat fast is to eat healthy foods, exercise properly and regularly, manage your stress level, and get enough sleep.
Always ensure you discuss your health challenges with your doctor and other medical experts as they are in the best position to provide individualized medical advice for you.
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