What Women Need to Know About Losing Body Fat

Well, it’s a fact that men tend to lose weight at a faster pace than women, and it’s a little more difficult for women to shed fat from around their hip, thigh and butt area compared to men. There’s a good degree of inequality when it comes to fat storage as women tend to store 11% extra body fat than men. Women also carry more weight from their waist down due to the combined affect of reproductive hormones, with more number of fat cells, and can get affected by water retention by a great degree (especially during PMS). Estrogen, the reproductive hormone in females, boosts weight gain and retention of water weight in women. Most importantly, women tend to have lesser muscle composition and thus burn fewer calories than men. That’s why for women, the pace of weight loss is slow as it may fluctuate at different times of the month, and doing hundreds of crunches done at a single stretch will not burn away all fat. There are a whole lot of other factors which can slow down and decelerate the weight loss process for women, but the good news is that, most of these can be overturned. Weight loss is a complex process but with dedication, the right kind of diet, and exercise, the journey can be quite smooth. Women should not compare their weight loss pace and journey with men and when experiencing hiccups and roadblocks, they need to know these below-mentioned facts to lose weight successfully and remain fit forever. That’s why in this post, we list out 14 things women need to know about losing body fat.

1. Following the Right Kind of Diet: A good diet would not ask you to swear completely off food and follow crash dieting. In fact, the wrong kind of diet can affect your hormones and menstrual cycle. The right kind of weight loss diet would not eat into your muscles, instead would target the stored body fat. Additionally, you may experience hair fall too, so it’s better to follow healthy weight loss diets such as on the Rati Beauty app because we believe in nourishing the body and treating it well to lose weight, not lowering the numbers of the weighing scale by food deprivation.
2. Calorie Deficit is the Key to Burn Fat: Calorie deficit happens when we consume lesser number of calories and burn more calories for energy. When there’s calorie deficit, the body starts to source energy to run its daily functions from stored fat. In women, it’s the right way to target fat stored around hips, belly, thighs, and arms. Additionally, read “18 Awesome Tips to Create Calorie Deficit to Lose Weight.”
3. You Cannot Burn Fat By Exercise Alone: If someone has told you that you can lose all weight by hitting the gym, they are lying! Because the changes that can happen through dieting, rarely takes place with exercise alone. Ideally, a combination of both exercise and dieting is considered ideal to lose weight with 80% importance on dieting and just 20% on exercise. So, straighten up your diet and then hit the gym.
4. Dieting Does not Mean Nutritional Deficiency: Women, you need to eat nutritionally-dense food even on a weight loss diet because deficiency of vitamin D, calcium, B12 all will make losing weight extremely difficult. Additionally, nutritional deficiencies can trigger hair loss and textural irregularities of skin, so that’s why it’s important to follow diets like that on Rati Beauty app that are rich in nutrition and would supply adequate vitamins, minerals, and protein to the body and nourish it adequately, leaving no chance at all for nutritional deficiencies.
5. Since women tend to have more fat and tend to retain more water than men, they have to diet for longer to see results.
6. Fat Loss is a Gradual Process: Just as the way you hadn’t gained weight overnight, you would not lose it in a day or even a week. The initial pounds coming off may just be water weight and you would have to consistently follow your diet and exercise regularly to burn fat.
8. Abs are Made in the Kitchen: If you are dreaming about a flat belly and washboard abs, start from the kitchen. Nutrition plays a larger role in developing up your abs than exercise and gymming. Unknown to many, the abs are already there, you need to shed away the fat and build muscle over it. So, make it a point to eat whole grains, protein, healthy fats, fruits, legumes, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fiber to lose excess body fat and bring about body transformation.
9. Your Aim Should Be to Lower Body Fat Percentage: Do not get obsessed with the weighing scale and the fluctuating numbers, because it gets affected by water retention and other factors when hormones go up and down at different times of the month. When trying to lose weight, our goal should to be target body fat while preserving muscle mass, otherwise instead of looking toned and lean, one may look loose and saggy. Also, a certain amount of fat is absolutely essential for survival – around 3 to 5% in men and 10 to 15%. A body fat percentage above 32% for women and above 25% for men puts you at a risk of obesity and instead of following numbers on the weighing scale, do these “10 Things to Lower Body Fat Percentage Fast.”
10. Stress Can Make you Overweight: The stress hormone “cortisol” is an appetite stimulant and increases cravings for high-calorie, unhealthy food, and also lowers metabolism, apart from encouraging fat storage around the waist area where it becomes extremely stubborn and difficult to melt away. So ladies, you need to find ways to lower stress and some of them have been mentioned here (10 Tips to Lower Stress in order to Lose Weight).
11. Lack of Sleep can Jeopardize your Progress: If you are struggling with weight loss, it’s time to check how many hours of sleep you manage to get each night. If it’s less than 7 hours, you would find it very difficult to lose weight with increased cravings for unhealthy food the next day, increase in hunger hormone “ghrelin” and stress hormone “cortisol.” More number of sleep is also required for the body to recover and for muscle formation as well. So, do get minimum 7 hours of sleep each night.
12. Metabolism is Important to Lose Weight: When someone’s metabolism is good and robust, they get to burn more calories. If someone can eat all they want and still avoid weight gain, then that means their metabolism is strong. It’s important to keep metabolism high, in order to lose weight successfully, and here are “21 Tricks to Boost your Metabolism.”
13. HIIT Burns a Lot More Calories: Okay, so you love doing cardio, but you need to do high intensity exercises as well. HIIT cardio raises heart rate and even with a short duration of HIIT, you will continue to burn calories even after the workout has been done. Exercise is absolutely necessary for weight loss and to lower fat percentage. Moderate intensity exercise combined with strength training, and HIIT (high intensity interval training) exercises are highly recommended. Here is a list of “7 Minute Fat Burning HIIT Exercises” That you can Do at Home.
14. Eating Fat Will Not Make you Fat: Healthy fats are part of a healthy diet and boost weight loss effort. Healthy fats found in nuts, olive oil, chia seeds, ghee, avocado, etc., help burn more fat. Fats also help balance out important hormones. Also, healthy fats are absolutely necessary for the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E which are necessary in the fat-burning process, and stimulate fat burning.

Summing up, if losing weight is your top priority right now, you would have to straighten up your diet by switching to weight loss programs on the Rati Beauty app, and getting physically active as well, to target stored body fat.