If we are honest with ourselves, most of us could benefit from losing a few pounds.

However, there is so much conflicting and confusing information on dieting and weight loss that it is sometimes difficult to know what to do to lose weight. Check out these simple weight loss tips for women to help you to lose weight, stay in shape and feel on top form.

Avoid Overeating

Food plays a very important part in weight gain and weight loss, which makes controlling your diet one of the most important weight loss tips for women. Overeating is when we regularly eat more food than our body can burn for energy. The extra food is usually stored as fat in the body, which makes us overweight. It is better to eat small amounts of food regularly throughout the day that can easily be turned into energy and resist binge eating in the evening.

Cut The Carbs

Complex carbohydrates such as white bread, potatoes and white rice are high in starch and are difficult for the body to digest. Reduce intake of these carbohydrates as much as possible and replace them with healthier alternatives such as brown bread, brown rice and organic brown pasta.

Go Raw

Raw food such as fruit and vegetables are much higher in vitamins and minerals than cooked food and are low in fat, helping you to lose weight quickly and simply. In addition to eating salads made from entirely raw vegetables and fruit, you can add extra raw food to your diet by making fruit and vegetable smoothies. Research has shown that eating a liquid diet helps you to stay full for longer, so if you want to lose a lot of weight in a hurry it is a good idea to replace two or your daily meals or even all three with a smoothie made from a blend of raw fruits and vegetables. This is particularly easy if you have a juicer, but if not, most soft vegetables and fruits can be blended easily in a blender. Get creative with your combinations to make things interesting and ensure that you get a good balance of vitamins and minerals.

Try Yoga

Yoga is a great type of exercise for weight loss because it uses all of the muscles in your body. Unlike some other types of exercise where you need special equipment, yoga can be done virtually anywhere, even in your favourite park on a beach. The various yoga poses help the blood to flow more freely around your body, tone muscles and help you lose weight. Many yoga routines are extremely energetic and help you burn fat without losing muscle tone, while other yoga routines are more relaxing and are designed to help you stretch and strengthen your body. If you practice yoga regularly, it is a good idea to opt for a variety of routines to help your body in different ways.

Martial Arts

Practicing martial arts is a great way to lose weight and stay in shape in a fun and interesting way. In martial arts, people use a combination of offensive and defensive moves to win fights and they must be extremely agile while using every part of their body. Martial arts training uses a range of different techniques to help fighters stay in top form and increase their hand-eye coordination. A large number of gyms offer different types of martial arts training such as Muay Thai, kick boxing, karate and taekwondo and practicing these martial arts regularly is the perfect way to have fun and get fit at the same time.