Quickest Way for Middle-Aged Women to Lose Weight

Middle-aged women who want to lose weight quickly need to evaluate their routines with regard to food choices and exercise. A slower metabolism, hormonal changes and unrealistic ideals contribute to making risky decisions regarding body image.

If the desire to lose weight is less about body image and more about feeling healthy, women will find it easier to summon the determination necessary to adapt to new eating habits and initiate new exercise routines.

Be Honest With Yourself

• Do not accept any self-defeating thoughts or negative behavior patterns. Accept that your choices were the best ones for the time in which they were made. Commit to honesty about exercise and diet choices. Avoid people who enable you to repeat past poor choices. Acknowledge the emotional content that has made you the size you are today. You cannot lose weight while carrying the emotional programming that previously made you gain that weight.

  Be realistic about the amount of time it is going to take to achieve (or come close to achieving) a healthy weight. Rapid weight loss, without giving your body time to adjust to the changes, could lead to areas of sagging skin, which will probably require cosmetic surgery to fix.

Easy Choices

• A quick, weight-loss program with results means education. Find out what the healthy body mass index (BMI) range is for your height and age. Educate yourself with information that brings you closer to quality nutrition. Read the nutrition labels on the packaging of everything you eat.

  Choose foods that will nourish you without added chemicals or harmful preservatives. Some processed foods contain ingredients that are not easily digested. Some processed foods have ingredients that are harmful to your body chemistry. Whole foods like natural grains, fruits and vegetables help to flush the digestive tract of unappealing chemicals in processed food.

  Regulate your food choices to include those that appeal to you, but do not severely reduce your overall food intake. This action will not sustain your weight loss because your body will compensate by slowing down your metabolism. Supplements may also contain additives that can be harmful and toxic to the body's immune system. There are many natural herbal metabolism boosters.

Do What Works For You

• Exercise routines must be enjoyable, or you will not create a habit of them. Start by committing to an hour walk at least four times a week and gradual increase it to everyday. This activity, combined with educated food choices, will provide you with more energy and renewed strength to manage and maintain your weight loss for the foreseeable future.