Lose weight and keep your curves

Some dieters don't want to lose their shapely curves. Losing weight makes you healthier and helps you feel better, but you may not like how your body looks after losing weight. Certain diets and exercise plans can cause you to lose muscle tissue along with fatty tissue. A weight-loss plan will help you lose weight -- which will change your shape to some degree -- but you can do so without losing your curves.

Step 1

Participate in strength training exercises at least three times a week. Resistance exercises, such as lunges and squats using hand-held weights, tone muscles on the thighs, calves and buttocks. Do three sets of lunges and three sets of squats three times a week. A set is 15 repetitions. Secondary muscles affected by these exercises include shoulders, back and arms. You can create a balanced, toned shape when you use strength-training exercises that tone the upper and lower body. Your shape will change from flabby curves to shapely curves.

Step 2

Keep essential fatty acids in your diet while you are on a weight-loss plan to avoid losing your curves. When you burn more calories than what your muscles have stored for immediate use, you burn fat. Your body will burn muscle before fat if you don't eat enough fatty acids in your diet. The American Dietetic Association says that 35 percent of your total daily calories should come from un-hydrogenated fats, also called "healthy" fats.

Step 3

Include protein in your diet while you are trying to lose weight, so you don't lose the curves you want to keep. Protein helps repair and build muscle tissue. If you use strength training in your weight-loss plan, you must eat protein or you will lose muscle mass. Your body will get its protein source from your muscles. This will cause a decrease in muscle mass and cause you to lose your curves.

Step 4

Consume foods that help your body produce leptin, a hormone that helps regulate fat, hunger and energy expenditure. You may find it hard to stay on your diet if you have low leptin levels, which make you hunger and crave foods, especially sugar.