16 Incredibly Simple Weight Loss Tips For Working Women

Weight gain in women is primarily blamed on factors such as age and menopause. One key factor that supersedes the rest is lifestyle (1).

By lifestyle, we are not necessarily referring to bad eating habits (although this is a major factor).

We are emphasizing on the changes that you may be going through in your thirties that could contribute to you gaining weight.

These changes could include the fact that in your thirties, you probably have a young family competing for your attention.

It goes without saying that kids could take up a lot of your time! In your thirties, you probably have a career that’s either picking up or is approaching its peak.

That being said, you’re probably extremely busy at work and extremely busy at home. The point being made here is that at your age, you probably don’t have much time for yourself.

Throughout this article, we keep this idea in mind. The weight loss tips you’ll see below are not generic.

They are specifically thought out for the working woman in her thirties.

Unlike many similar articles online, the advice offered below is based on experience that has been backed up by science.

That said, below are some weight loss tips to help you keep in shape even if you have a busy lifestyle.

1. Pre-Cooking Your Meals

One of the most daunting chores when trying to keep in shape is actually cooking every meal.

When the Department of Health Policy and Management made the recommendation that you should eat home-cooked meals whenever possible, they forgot to acknowledge the fact for many busy individuals, cooking is a luxury (2)!

Pre-cooking your meals means that you pick one day and prepare portioned meals enough to last you the whole week.

Yes, the food will not taste as great, but that’s a trade-off you should be willing to make, especially considering the benefits.

Speaking of benefits, pre-cooking has many. For one, you save on time. For a whole week, you won’t have to worry about cooking or battle the negative effects of eating out.

Secondly, you save a lot of money! Moreover, pre-cooking your food means that you’re able to calculate all your macros, allowing you to precisely control your diet.

If you’re wondering where to start, there are plenty of tutorials online that guide you on how to pre-cook a week’s worth of food.

Take-Home: Pre-cooking saves time and ensures that you reap the benefits of home cooking such as tracking macro-nutrients and portions.

2. Focus On Your Diet (Adopt a Low-Carb Diet)

You may want to exercise every day as the CDC recommends, but the fact is, with your busy schedule that may not be possible (3).

Proper conscious dieting could compensate for that.

By conscious dieting, we mean that you should be aware of your body’s energy needs.

Because you’re living a sedentary lifestyle, your body won’t require the same amount of energy as an athlete’s body. That means you should reduce your carb intake!

In fact, the concept of weight loss is simple- aim to expend more calories than you consume.

Working out is one way to ensure a caloric deficit, but if you can’t regularly workout, adopting a low carb diet will allow you to reap the benefits of weight loss without working out as much.

This tip does not aim to downplay the importance of working out.

In fact, many of the weight loss tips below advise you to find alternative means of incorporating physical activities into your daily routines!

Take-Home: Choosing a diet and sticking to it will ensure that you’re eating healthy, even though you don’t have time to work out.

3. Avoid Sugary Drinks

This is a big one. Because sugar is so highly concentrated in carbs, even the small quantities have a lot of calories.

To qualify that statement, a teaspoon of sugar could have up to twenty calories (4).

That fact coupled with the fact that sugar is easily absorbed into the bloodstream means that consuming sugary drinks is the easiest way to gain weight- especially for someone living a sedentary lifestyle.

We recommend that you avoid sugary drinks altogether, and instead stick to water.

When you get the side effects of low blood sugar you substitute sugary drinks for a piece of fruit.

Take-Home: Sugary drinks could easily have you gaining weighting because of sugar’s high carb concentration and easy absorption into the bloodstream.

4. Get A Personal Trainer (Not For Everyone)

This tip is reserved for those with extra resources. There’s a reason why top athletes and celebrities use personal trainers.

You cannot match the wealth of knowledge that a personal trainer has. After all, they have college degrees in physical education and nutrition!

We recommend using a personal trainer because of the specialist knowledge they have.

A personal trainer will be able to tailor-make a fitness and nutrition plan that is specifically suited to your lifestyle and time availability.

More importantly, they will allow you to concentrate on all the other matters competing for your undivided attention.

An important point to note is that it is extremely possible to live a healthy lifestyle without using a professional.

In fact, following the weight loss tips in this article will put you in the right direction towards your healthy lifestyle goal!

Take-Home: Not only do personal trainers have professional expertise in fitness and nutrition, but they also allow to concentrate on other important tasks in your busy life.

5. Walk Instead of Driving

For those who don’t have time for a fully-fledged workout, ditching the car could be an amazing way to control your weight even if you have a busy schedule.

You burn roughly a hundred calories per mile walked (5).

Given those figures, it’s easy to see why walking is a great way to lose weight even for those who don’t have time.

Besides helping you to regulate your weight, according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, walking instead of driving to work could significantly reduce your risk of acquiring lifestyle illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure (6).

That and the added advantage of not being stuck in traffic on your way to work.

And did we mention the money saved on fuel?

Take-Home: Ditching the car could be a great way to incorporate physical activity in your busy schedule.

6. Take the Stairs Instead of the Elevator

Contrary to popular belief, weight loss does not necessarily hinge on endless hours in the gym, but in the many small decisions, we make throughout the day.

Those are the decisions that contribute to our overall health- either negatively or positively.

In this case, having a principle of taking the stairs instead of the elevator could prove to be an amazing way to keep fit for those who don’t have time for the gym.

You’ll burn approximately ten calories for every minute you spend climbing the stairs.

That may not seem like much, but when you add the sum total of minutes you spend going up and down the stairs in a day, then you realize that you actually burn a considerable amount of calories.

Take-Home: When you add up the number of minutes you spend going up and down the stairs, then the benefits become very significant.

7. Have an Active Hobby

Chances are, even though you’re very busy during the week, you at least have a few hours to yourself on the weekends.

As tempting as it is, using that time to sleep and laze around may not be wise, especially considering that you want to lose weight.

Find an active hobby to do. Such a hobby should be fun- not a chore. Great examples include enrolling in a dancing class, hiking, jogging, etc.

The rationale behind this is that you maximize on the time you have to achieve your weight loss results

Take-Home: Active hobbies allow you to maximize on free time for weight loss.

8. Enroll In A Gym Near Your Work Place

When you have a busy lifestyle, convenience is everything.

That said, don’t set yourself up for failure by enrolling in a gym that is too far for you to consistently attend.

Enrolling yourself in a gym that is close to your work premises may be a good way to make sure that you maximize on time.

Take-Home: Enrolling in a gym that is near your workplace will ensure that you can consistently work out, even when you have a busy schedule.

9. Have One Cheat Day a Week

Weight loss shouldn’t be a chore. Indulging once in a while will not do you harm. In fact, it could keep you motivated to stay on the bandwagon.

Now when we say, cheat day, we expect you to enjoy responsibly. Don’t go overboard.

For instance, if presented with the option of white meat or red meat, choose white meat.

Take-Home: Having a scheduled day of indulgence may actually boost your morale to keep on with the efforts to lose weight.

10. Don’t Eat Out During the Week- Pack Your Lunch

Not only is this a great money-saving tip, but it will also ensure that you eat the right portions, and you control what goes in your food.

According to research data presented at a conference meeting of the American Heart Association, temptations to deviate on a meal plan as well as to overeat were noted as being at the highest when individuals in the study were in restaurants (8).

Of relevance is the fact that most of the one hundred and fifty subjects were women!

Take-Home: Avoiding eating out will not only save you money, but it will also remove unnecessary temptations allowing you to focus on a healthy diet for your weight loss goals.

11. Have Healthy Low Carb Snacks On Hand

One of the best ways to achieve your weight loss goals is to compromise. Yes, its sounds counter-intuitive, but we’ll contextualize that statement.

Instead of going cold turkey and avoiding snacking altogether, compromise with yourself by making sure that when you do snack, you do so in a healthy way.

Part of this includes making sure that you always have healthy low carb snacks on hand.

Think slices of carrots and high-quality beef jerky for examples.

Snacking has developed a bad name over time, but it could have some benefits especially if you follow the guidelines above.

For instance, snacking could result in reduced chances of you overeating during mealtime.

Take-Home: If snacking is unavoidable, then compromise, but make sure that you only consume healthy low-calorie options.

12. Remove Distractions While Eating

Admittedly, this could be very hard to do, especially for someone leading a busy lifestyle.

If you, however, can muster the courage to eat without distractions (this means your phone should be away!), then you’ll be one step closer to achieving your weight loss goals.

For those that probably think that this is an outlandish suggestion, consider the evidence below.

According to clinical psychologist Dr. Michael, eating while distracted makes it harder for you to practice portion control this leading to overeating (8).

A study published in the Journal Appetite had similar findings.

In that study, it was noted that subjects who lunch while watching television wound up snacking more after their meal, as compared to those who ate without distractions (9).

On this note, it’s also worthwhile to note, that eating in bed is also not a good idea.

Take-Home: Avoiding distractions while eating will prevent you from overeating.

13. HIIT

An abbreviation for High-Intensity Interval Training, HIIT has become extremely popular over recent years for the immense calories it burns over a very short time interval.

If you’re a working woman, then HIIT could be the perfect workout solution for you.

As the name suggests, HIIT involves simple body movements done performed at a great intensity in short bursts.

HIIT raises your aerobic levels allowing you to benefit all the benefits of long state cardio like running, without sacrificing the time.

Noting the effectiveness of this form of exercise, the British Journal of Sports medicine conducted a study that revealed that exercises that emphasize on short bursts of high intensity are actually better for weight loss than longer, less intense exercises (10).

HIIT workouts last anywhere between seven minutes to thirty minutes.

We’ll generalize and say that you could probably squeeze in a thirty-minute session within your busy schedule.

The deal gets better. You don’t need any equipment to perform HIIT. You don’t even need to be at the gym.

You can do HIIT practically anywhere- at home while traveling.

Take-Home: HIIT is a godsend for people who want to reap the benefits of cardio but have limited time.

 14. Adopt a Green Tea Culture

There’s a reason why the Japanese have the second-longest life expectancy in the whole world. Part of that reason is their healthy approach to food.

One such approach is the strong preference of green tea as a beverage, to sugary drinks such as soda.

We mentioned that you should probably drop sugary drinks altogether.

In case you were wondering what sort of drinks you could replace them with, green tea is a perfect alternative.

Green tea is generally thought to increase the body’s metabolism, allowing you to burn more calories, even at a resting state.

Again, we don’t recommend abandoning attempts to make your life more active, but some weight loss tips such as this one will give you that added boost if you don’t have time to work out.

Two active compounds make green tea a ‘super drink’. Caffeine is the main one.

Found in other types of tea and abundantly in coffee, caffeine is a stimulant. The other active ingredient is catechin.

Research suggests that catechin could actually aid in the breakdown of fat (11).

With these facts in mind, it’s easy to see why green tea is a great alternative to sugary drinks such as juices and soda.

Take-Home: The active ingredients caffeine and catechin found in green tea are beneficial for weight loss thus making this beverage a perfect alternative to sugary drinks.

15. Employ Carb Cycling

Carb cycling is an incredible approach to dieting.

At the heart of the concept is the idea that your body requires comparatively less energy on the days that you’re not active than on the days when you’re performing taxing physical activities.

Many people who’ve gone through the weight loss process will tell you that carb cycling comes naturally- almost as a habit.

Some will even tell you that it’s the natural way to consume energy.

Why consume excess calories when you’re body isn’t going to use them? It simply doesn’t make sense.

It’s important to note that carb cycling does not entail starving. What you hope to achieve is a restriction of the number of carbs you consume.

Nowadays it’s pretty easy to know how many grams of carbs your food contains. Practically every product comes with nutritional information at the back.

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, out of the daily caloric allowance of two thousand calories, about nine hundred to one thousand three hundred of those should come from carbohydrates (12).

This amounts to about forty to sixty-five percent of your daily caloric allowance.

Take-Home: The idea that you shouldn’t give your body more energy than it needs is at the core of carb cycling and is key to your weight loss journey.

16. Say No To Processed Food

The inputs that make processed food so cheap and convenient are extremely detrimental to you, especially if you’re trying to lose weight.

These inputs include hydrogenated oils, corn syrup and emulsifiers (13). You probably didn’t need us to tell you that though.

Numerous studies have linked processed food to weight gain.

One such study was conducted by the National Institutes of Health’s department of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The study found that processed food translates to a higher risk of weight gain (14).

To be on the safe side, try to minimize the amount of processed food you eat.

Completely eliminating processed food will actually do you more good than harm though. Instead of a bag of chips, opt for a pack of carrot slices!

Take-Home: Processed food could be cheap and convenient but it is extremely detrimental to your weight loss goals especially if you don’t have time to work out.

The bottom line on weight loss tips for working women

The tips given above are neither generic nor random.

They’ve been chosen with you, the working woman in mind. They’re both practical and actionable.

We can guarantee that if you include the advice above in your weight loss plan, you’ll be on the right track.