diets work to a point..the south beach diet is good but you need to combine aerobics and weight training to complement them. Women have it harder to lose weight then men since they have less muscle and therefore their bodies use calories at a lesser rate. If you don't do the weight training and you look like a pear if you lose weight you just end up looking like a smaller pear but if you combine weight training diet/cardio/diet the results are damn amazing because weight training will make your arms/legs/stomach more lean (and smaller)...don't think you are going to get huge muscles because its not possible without testosterone.

I've lost over 30lbs of fat using this method and a modified South beach diet.