Best Weight Loss Diet For Women – 4 Things To Look For
Do you have a lot of questions about which diet to start?
Are you weighing your options and debating between two or three best options?
The truth is that if a diet worked really well for your friend or co-worker it might not work for you.
But the good news is that you can get lean and reduce body fat on many different diets. The key is figuring out what works best for you and your lifestyle that’s sustainable for your day-to-day to get the results you’re looking for.
Here I’m going to outline 4 things to look for in a diet that will help you lose weight and body fat no matter your food preferences, your body type, or how many times you’ve dieted in the past.
Use these as a guideline to help you reach your goal without sabotaging your metabolism and leaving you with more body fat than when you started.
1. Creates Awareness of Food Choices
A diet that encourages mindfulness during meal times will help you be aware of how you feel during different stages of fullness. Paying attention and being present during mealtime is the quickest way to help you lose weight and get leaner without resorting to extreme calorie cuts.
Instead of just educating you on food nutrition and foods to avoid, diets that teach you to how to slow down your eating and be present will help you to maintain your results in the future.
No matter what choices the diet is advocating whether it’s low-carb, organic foods, or vegetarianism, you want to develop an awareness of what you’re eating.
Successful weight loss doesn’t just come down to just your food choices but by simply caring and paying attention to what you’re eating. This is why people can lose weight successfully on many different diets.
2. Improves Food Quality
What most diets – Whole30, Paleo, Vegan etc – have in common is that they recommend reducing processed foods in your diet.
This tends to reduce the total amount of calories in a diet and improves overall nutrition. Processed foods are calorically dense because they are filled with sugar, fat, and carbs but lack any nutritional value.
Often times you may still be hungry after eating processed foods because your body is craving specific nutrients not necessarily more calories.
When you improve the quality of your diet you’ll reduce your daily calories. The plus side of this is you can eat more food with fewer calories.
Comparing calories of 100 g of unprocessed foods (top row) versus processed foods (bottom row).
3. Reduces Hunger and Helps Controls Your Appetite
People quit diets and never reach their weight loss goals because they’re always hungry. Anyone can start a diet and have enough willpower to resist junk foods and abide by the dieting guidelines until they’re experiencing constant hunger.
A good weight loss diet helps to address hunger by making sure you’re eating a sufficient amount of high-quality protein in every meal. Protein has multiple benefits including helping to build and maintain muscle mass but for weight loss, it’s the key macro to add to every meal to avoid getting hungry and stay satiated.
When you’re eating higher quality foods, you’re addressing nutrient deficiencies, you feel fuller and more satisfied, and end up naturally losing weight.
4. Prescribes Exercise as Part of the Solution
Once you start exercising you’ll automatically start eating better because now you’re aware of how your diet makes you feel.
Exercise helps your body use food more efficiently and turn it into functional tissue versus body fat.
Exercise and daily movement give you feedback on how you’re feeling and performing. If you’re always feeling sluggish, tired, and low on energy your diet will be the first thing that comes to mind.
Pairing a healthy diet with exercise creates an automatic feedback loop that tells you how you’re doing.
There is no one optimal diet for weight loss and fat loss for you.
Following someone else's blueprint for a diet without understanding why it works may not get you the same results they got. It also becomes a crutch and creates obsessive-compulsive behavior in situations when you're unable to follow the diet because you're at a restaurant or on vacation.
The best diet for you to follow has these 4 characteristics, is sustainable and enjoyable for you, and gets you the results you want to reach your weight loss and body fat goals.
Candace is the owner of Rhodes To Strength. She provides weight loss and mindset coaching services to women around the world so that they keep the pounds off for good. She believes in working with clients to create sustainable habits that work for their lifestyles.
You can find her rollerskating, hiking, and bird watching in her spare time.