Weight Loss Success Stories For Women
Let these weight loss success stories for women
help you along the path to a life without fat.
Weight loss success stories for women can offer many inspirational tidbits to help your own journey. We all like to hear what worked for others so that, perhaps, we can integrate parts of what they did to accelerate our own fat loss goals.
Hopefully, their weight loss success stories for women will shed some light on how you can get the body you want.
You will discover that much of their success is due to how they have evolved mentally. Self-affirmations and visualizations play a key role in getting results. Weight loss motivation takes on many faces. You cannot just gut it out on sheer will power, alone.
One thing they all agree on is: You must think long-term. If you look for amazing results in the first couple of weeks, you will be severely disappointed. Patience is a real key when it comes to getting rid of belly fat and thigh fat. Extreme weight loss...quick fat loss...are NOT part of the equation when it comes to a lifelong weight management plan.
Weight Loss Success Stories For Women - Aimee's Story
Aimee is 28 years old. She has two-year old baby girl. Aimee gained 30 lbs. in her pregnancy and was shocked when she did not revert back to her normal figure like all of her friends did once they had their babies. Although she played sports in her neighborhood growing up, she was not much of an athlete in high school. Instead, she was a member of the dance line. In college, Aimee, ate healthy as much as she could, but admits she could eat pizza five days in a row and still not put on any weight. She took her high-metabolism for granted. She has lost all of the 30 lbs. in the past year, but admits the final five were the toughest. Now, she concentrates on getting tight and toned.
Mental Conditioning: I was surprised at hard hard I had to continually refocus on both my diet and my workouts. I never had to do that before. It troubled me because I thought I was becoming one of those women who obsess about their body. In reality, I was just trying to establish new eating habits and exercise habits. It is difficult to do this when things had come so easily early in my life. There were lots of times I wanted to give up, but I established a solid group of positive support with my husband and two good friends. I also used the self-affirmation, "I am becoming more skinny and lean each day. I am thankful for my diet and my workouts."
Diet: I realized I was not "eating for two" any more. Even though I thought I ate healthy during my pregnancy, I 
started liking chocolate and ice cream so much that I felt I was entitled to it after I delivered. I would actually get cranky if my husband made a comment about the amount of chocolate syrup I poured on my full bowl of ice cream.
If that wasn't bad enough, I found myself stopping at fast food places when I was out shopping as well as when I was at work. I made a vow to not eat out for a week...then stretched it to two...then stretched it to a month. I brought my lunch to work, but included a pretty big peanut butter sandwich. After the third month, I purchased the Diet Solution Program online and this completely changed my personal meal planning.
I began eating a fruit, a vegetable, and a solid protein (wild fish, grilled chicken breasts, turkey) at each meal. I did not waver. I figured I would try it for two weeks, when I stretched it to month, I realized I had established a wonderful new natural diet. The pounds began coming off faster, I did not have any cravings, and I now had more energy.
I also started drinking more water, and this made a huge difference.
Exercise: This was tough one for me. Since I had not been an athlete, I did not know that being sweaty and out of breath was normal when you worked out. Plus, I did not have the luxury of time with a new baby. I improvised. I started each morning with a program known as The 2-20. When I wake up in the morning, I drink 2 glasses of cold water, then started walking for just 20 minutes. After a couple of months, I began to jog slowly for those 20 minutes. Now, I utilize interval training (segments of intense bursts followed by short rest periods) three of six days I do the 2-20. This really accelerated fat loss in those first few months.
At work, instead of just sitting and eating each day, I started to break it in half. I would eat for 20 minutes, then walk for 20 minutes. All the time I walked I gave thanks for the beautiful day, the scenery, building a healthy lifestyle, and seeing my body change over time.
After work, I carved out time when I could exercise. My husband was great about giving me 30 uninterrupted minutes. I started with a simple program called The 15 Minute Workouts, but have now graduated to a full 30 minutes with Fit Yummy Mummy (an exercise program geared to eliminate "baby fat.")
I am proud of the fact that I have found new ways to live healthy. The Diet Solution Program is the backbone of my nutritional blueprint. Without it, I could not have lost all of the weight.
Weight Loss Success Stories For Women - Sandra
Sandra is 37 years old and has two children. She is a high school art teacher, but played three years of varsity soccer in college. In her own words, "I got too comfortable in a nice life...and put on 20 lbs. in 10 years." Living in southern California, she enjoys picnics with her family at city parks almost almost every other weekend. Although her two daughters are athletes, she found herself sitting and enjoying watching them instead of joining in. She thought she was eating healthy, but now realizes she was consuming more grains and processed foods than she thought. Sandra also credits the Diet Solution Program with getting her back to eating more nutritious natural foods...and getting sugar foods completely OUT of her current diet.
Mental Conditioning: The toughest thing for me was to completely change my thinking from when I was a competitive athlete. When I was in college, we expended a tremendous amount of calories at soccer practice. It was start/stop...run all practice. I could literally eat whatever I wanted. When my kids were little and just starting organized sports, my husband and I would practice with them...and I still kept that same mindset. Now, I realize that just because you exercise, you simply CANNOT eat whatever you please. It doesn't work that way when you get older and hormonal response changes with your metabolism.
I had to literally tell myself, "These foods may be delicious, but all they do is hang more fat on me." I also used affirmations like, "I am thankful I can eat fresh vegetables and fruits that make me skinny and healthy."
Diet: I always took my lunch to school, but I would include things like a cupcake or packages dessert. Plus, there always baked goodies set out most days in the Faculty Lounge. Birthday cakes, cookies, and nice rich pies are standard fare in any school lounge. Sometimes, I'd eat one on my planning period and one before I left work. I was ingesting straight sugar and carbs. The calories piled up over the years even though I thought I was getting good physical activity by practicing sports skills with my children.
The biggest changes I made, because of the Diet Solution Program, was to get sugar foods (boxed cereals, pastries, bagels, soda, and commercial fruit juices) completely out of my diet. Next, I started working on grains and starchy processed foods. Once I realized they were pumped full of calories, carbs, and chemicals...it didn't take much thought. But I sure missed the taste of pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, cheeseburgers cooked at the park, potato salad, pasta salads, and spaghetti with creamy sauces.
I now eat a good breakfast, a quality, but smaller lunch, and a lighter dinner. I eat grilled chicken breasts with almost every meal (except breakfast) and include beef jerky in my snacks. I eat a lot of celery sticks, blue berries, Royal Gala apples, and leafy green salads. My snacks always include a fruit. Apples are the most filling.
I drink more water now. I discovered a lot of what I thought was hunger was actually being dehydrated. Drinking more water accelerated my fat loss.
Exercise: Just like with my diet, I made some mistakes with exercise, early on. Since I was a college athlete, I figured I could handle pretty much any kind of workout, however 16 years between my last practice siphoned off all my conditioning. I started my exercise program with the P90X Extreme Home Fitness course. This was a poor decision. I was in NO shape to start something that arduous.
I was gung-ho for the first week, but then I started developing some nagging muscle tears, but thought I could tough it out. Things didn't work that way. I developed tendonitis in one of my shoulders and got debilitating back spasms. It was horrible. I had to give up the program. I felt fat and depressed.
My husband bought me a gym membership for my birthday and set me up with a young female trainer who played lacrosse in college. We hit it off very well. She told me we were going to start gradual, but she would "train me like an athlete...not a Barbie." She said once I learned my way around, I really wouldn't need her because I could customize my own workouts. I decided I would go Tuesday and Thursday mornings before school (ugh!) and on Saturday mornings so I could take her "Modified P90X class." (We all ran outside as a class afterward. It was more interval work, but only for 15 minutes.)
ALL of our workouts were different...but they all contained strength training with weights/kettlebells, ab/core work, and interval training...either on one of the machines or running outside. I did squats on one day and deadlifts on another. I did push/pull supersets (such as bench presses followed by assisted pull-ups...or seated dumbbell military presses followed by machine rows.) My ab work consisted of different planks, Swiss Ball jackknifes, and some standard crunches.
I discovered there is NO best exercise to lose weight. It must be a constantly evolving system of strength training and intelligent cardio that is centered on interval training workouts.
The combination of eating more consciously, drinking more water to help metabolize body fat easier, lifting weights, and integrating gradual interval training into my lifestyle really melted off the fat. It took eight months to lose 25 lbs. but it was worth it. I am now much more lean, much more strong, and I now run on Wednesday, and on Sunday before church.
Weight Loss Success Stories For Women - Sharon
Sharon is a retired elementary school nurse. She is 57 years old. During high school, they did not have organized sports, but she did participate in GAA (Girls Athletic Association) at her school and played intramural sports for her sorority in college. She always tried to stay active, and eat right, but realized her perceived adherence...and reality were two different things. When she retired, she found she had gained almost 40 lbs. since her first year of as a school nurse.
"I was truly embarrassed because I was a health professional and I was not leading a healthy lifestyle. I told myself when I retired, I was going to read all of the books I couldn't, while I worked...and get into the best shape of my life."
Mental Conditioning: This was very tough for me in the beginning. I thought I could just follow a course, eat right, and I would miraculously lose all my fat. I never realized how much focus you have to put on changing entrenched habits. It is so easy to fall back into poor eating habits, making excuses NOT to exercise, making excuses for making poor food choices, and just plain feeling discouraged because I couldn't do what I thought were simple things to help myself.
Fortunately, my church had a morning program that centered on personal goals...and affirmations were a large part of that. Many of my affirmations were Faith-based, but I also repeatedly told myself, "Everyday I become more healthy and more skinny." "I can make perfect food choices by eating consciously." "Eating foods from Mother Nature keep me healthy and slender."
These helped me a great deal.
Diet: When I first started my goal to lose 40 lbs. I was thrilled to find so many sites on how to lose weight. What's more, many of them promised me "secret courses" that would help me lose fat quickly! I purchased several of these "diets" and found them all to be restrictive, controlling, and just not very sensible. Yes, I lost weight right up front, but that was because the calories were so restrictive. There is absolutely no way you can build a lifelong eating plan with programs like that. They all made me lethargic, cranky, full of cravings for high-carb/high-fat foods, and depressed.
Here is the real secret: Dieting does not work. It is okay for short-term losses, but if you are truly going to lose fat, and keep it of forever, you need somekind of proven guidebook for making lifelong changes in your eating plan. 
Like the younger ladies in this study, I purchased the Diet Solution Program. It is truly a blueprint for making the changes necessary to develop healthy eating habits.
One thing I have done for the past 18 months is eat an apple and drink a glass of ice water before each of my three main meals (Yes! Even breakfast.) The fiber in the apple and the water make me feel full, and I do not eat near as many calories. This has been a great tactic for me. Also, I eat solid protein at each meal and sip a small high-protein/low-carb drink about an hour before I go to bed. I mix it myself. It is only about 120 calories.
Eating with awareness and making good food choices are the backbone of any weight loss success story for women. You simply must know what you are putting in your mouth all the time, and you must know if it will contribute to increasing your energy and metabolism...or if it will quickly be stored as fat on your hips.
It has taken me 14 months to lose over 40 lbs. When you are older, your hormones just do not work as efficiently as they do when you are much younger. I have been helped by natural hormone replacement therapy after reading a book by Suzanne Sommers called, Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones.
Exercise: I purchased a gym membership immediately when I retired, but started making excuses not to go. I complained to my husband about little aches and pains, not being able to keep up in Zumba classes, and everything else under the sun. The truth was, though, that I just didn't like looking sweaty, feeling icky with that sweat, and being out of breath during the exercise. I thought I was supposed to look like the women demonstrating exercises in magazines...NOT an Olympic mile runner!
I really had to get over myself.
Now, I do strength training with weights...and I change my routine every three weeks. However, I always do somekind of squats, lunge, or leg press...I always do somekind of bench press or incline bench press...and I always do some sort of pulling on the various rowing machines. I do 10 minutes of ab work that includes planks and movements on the the big red exercise ball.
I do cardio six days a week. Three days are steady-state running OUTSIDE (where it is beautiful) on the days I workout with weights, two days I do 20 minutes of interval training on the stationary bike or eliptical machine, and on Saturday, I go on a nice hike up the hills near my home.
Guess what? ALL of these cardio workouts make me sweaty, make me breathe hard, and make me red in the face. I really did get over myself.
Weight Loss Success Stories For Women - Now it is your turn!
Reading is one thing, taking action is another. You can do it! Thousands of women have set doable fat loss goals and met them through sensible eating plans and regular workouts. Whether you want to lose 10 lbs. or lose 40 lbs. like Sharon, you can make it happen. I want you to go from "I can't lose weight" to "I lost weight. I did it!"
I hope these three weight loss success stories for women have been beneficial to you.
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The Diet Solution Program is the only nutritional plan I recommend to my readers. It was created by certified nutritionist, Isabel De Los Rios, and has become a best-seller. Its focus is on eating consciously, eating natural foods, and eating to enhance your personal Metabolism Type. The Diet Solution is safe, sensible, and effective. (It is NOT a diet!) |
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