Weight loss diets for busy women can come in a variety of forms. I know when I started to look into all the ways to lose weight with a busy schedule I couldn’t believe how much crazy information there was out there.
Within about 10 minutes of trying to find information online I found at least 15 different fast and extreme weight loss diets for women. All of them giving conflicting and dangerous information.
I couldn’t help feeling angry because I know there are women out there who put their trust in some of these programs and “theories” and end up doing more harm than good.
Unfortunately, I also know that starting your weight loss journey gives you that paralyzing cleaning out the basement feeling. You know that feeling, where there is just so much to clean that you don’t even know where to start.
I want to break this down as simple and quickly as possible to the ladies reading this. And to put it pretty bluntly, whether its weight loss diets for women over 50 or weight loss diets for women in their 20’s, there should be little to no difference.
A weight loss diet plan for women NEEDS to be holistic. You will fail in your weight loss efforts over and over again if you treat losing weight as a separate thing rather than a part of your overall health and lifestyle.
Does that mean you have to become a marathon running-vegetarian-gym rat to lose weight and be healthy? NO!
I’ll show you 11 ways you can make super simple tweaks to your already busy day to lose weight easily:
Liquid Gold:
Coffee is fuel for me and I’m sure for most busy women reading this right now. My nutritionist friends out there will hate me, but I’m sorry.
Coffee has become my most trusted ally in life.
Luckily, coffee can help with weight loss. Coffee has virtually 0 calories, but if you use sugar and creamers you are sabotaging a good thing.
Just by eliminating sugar and creamers you can save yourself about 80 calories per day (if you drink 2 cups/day), which equals a weight loss of about 14-15 pounds for the year.
If you gotta have sugar, use a stevia natural sweetener.
Hot Breakfast
Breakfast is a NECESSITY so you should NEVER – EVER skip it. But, I know that when you are getting the husband and kids ready and have to get to work yourself, time is short and valuable and sometimes breakfast turns into an Egg McMuffin.
Don’t do it. No matter how busy you are you can always have a healthy breakfast that promotes weight loss. Why?
Because we now have the luxury of the greatest breakfast food of all time – Oatmeal.
If you have hot water, you have breakfast. There are wide varieties of instant oatmeal’s you can find at any grocery store.
Beware though. Some are better than others, You can find the better options in my book, The Real World Shopping Guide.
The Journal of the American College of Nutritional Study found that hot breakfasts, like oatmeal, reduce hunger better than cold breakfasts like cereal.
Take a Stroll
Taking a stroll on your lunch break is a great way to not only break up your day, but to be able to squeeze in a bit of physical movement too.
I know when I worked at my desk job the only movement I got was going to the bathroom and vending machine. The water cooler was off limits because too many creepy dudes hung out there.
What I did was go window shopping, put on my ipod and just walked around the neighborhoods or walked to the grocery store to make a salad.
Here’s a great tip: Bring my own beef/chicken strips from home and fill your salad bowl at the grocery store salad bar with nothing but leafy greens and veggies, then walk back to work and put it all together.
I did that exact same thing and you end up spending only about $20 or less for lunch for the week and you come away with a pretty big salad with protein. Just skip the dressings and bring your own.
You can find salad dressing recipes and more in my book, The Real World Weight Loss Cookbook
Stones Fruits
Stone fruits like plums, nectarine and peaches have been shown to reduce belly fat and insulin resistance.
Studies from Texas AgriLife Research found that stone fruits contain bioactive phenolic compounds that have anti-obesity, anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic properties.
So, chop some up and put them in your oatmeal. Have as a snack or dessert. Or do my favorite, chop up a whole bunch and add some fresh mint for a great fruit salad.
Soup it Up
Having a bowl of broth based soup before your meals is a great way to limit your dinner calorie intake by 20%. And that’s broth-based soups, not cream based soups.
So don’t think you can have that nice bread bowl of cheese and broccoli soup at Panera and reduce your calorie intake by 20%.
Studies conducted at Penn State showed that doing this 1 time per day can help you lose over 20 pounds for the year alone… Seriously, just doing that one thing.
Oolong
Oolong tea is packed with catechins. These are nutrients that boost your body’s ability to metabolize fat.
The Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine found that their participants who drank Oolong tea and didn’t change anything else in their diet still lost an average of 1 pound per week.
So, if you’re not a coffee person, maybe you should become an Oolong person.
DO NOT DIET!
Do not diet. It couldn’t be simpler. Losing weight means you have to get out of the “diet mentality”.
Here is a very common horrible weight loss formula/cycle most women have gone through at least once in their lives:
Diet = restriction, restriction = short term weight loss, Restriction + Short Term Weight Loss = Binging and Weight Gain.
Instead of dieting, just make really easy and simple alterations to your lifestyle that promote weight loss. It works because you’ll be able to stick to it without even realizing it.
Be a Cheater
Have 1-2 days per week where you never even think about your diet or weight loss. Just enjoy your life and your day and eat what you love to eat.
Seriously. Doing that will provide you with the ability to not feel deprived on the days you are being “good”. Which means you’ll stick to your routine better.
When I did that, I actually noticed that after a while I started to not look forward to those “cheat” days as much because I saw how much worse my body reacted to certain types of foods.
Plan it Out
You have to plan to succeed. Just as you don’t go on a journey to a place you don’t know without a GPS or map, you can’t go on your weight loss journey without preparing and planning.
You don’t need to have fancy apps or calendars or anything like that either. I did all my planning on a piece of paper and paper calendar.
You just need to know how to plan your weight loss goals and break them down per month, week and day. You also need to know how to prepare lists and plan meals and freeze foods for the week.
When you plan your whole life becomes easier. Your weight loss will be easier and faster too.
In all honesty, this is THE most important part of weight loss and it is the part I struggled with the most. Mainly because I’m not a very organized person.
In my book The Work Week Weight Loss, I provide step-by-step ways for you to overcome this hurdle.
Eliminate Stress and Anxiety:
Stress and anxiety are the worst weight loss triggers. They impact your hormones and actually prevent you from losing weight.
It’s called “stress fat”. For the most part, stress works as a double-edge sword.
When you stress, your body gets a surge of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline taps into stored energy and cortisol tells your body to replenish that energy.
When this happens, you get intense hunger. And your body keeps pumping out cortisol as long as the stress is active.
There are many different ways to overcome stress. In my Work Week Weight Loss book I teach how to completely eliminate work place and relationship stress.
Be Creative
Be creative with your food. Experiment with different flavors and spices.
Did you know that there are dozens of different ingredients you can incorporate into your meals that boost energy, balance hormones and turn your body into a fat burning machine?
Why not incorporate those ingredients into your meals?
For me, this has been my best weight loss maintenance secret. Make no mistake, I LOVE TO EAT and I LOVE FOOD.
I really do.
So, for me, dieting just won’t last too long. Plus, life is too short for that anyway.
What I did was find a way to take my favorite meals and just tweak them a bit so that I get lower calorie and healthier versions of the same meal.
The goal is just to satisfy a craving, so why not satisfy it with lower calories?