I think one of the biggest things we as women do that hurt our weight loss is to ignore the benefits of resistance/ strength training. This is the way it was explained to me, Cardio is like your central heating unit, burning calories, and muscles are the actual heater. The more muscle you have the bigger your heater is so the more calories you can burn during cardio.
I'd much rather be at a platue due to the build up of muscle then becuase I'm just maintaining. I've been looking into strength training and the building of muscle. Unless you devote your whole day to strength training you'll never look like those weight lifting women. HOWEVER you will be able to build a slim dancers type build. Which is what I'm after.
I'll also say this about strength training. I ALWAYS loose more weight per week/month when I've been consistant with my training. Even if I don't increase reps or weight, just staying at the same level of training I'll always loose more when I've done it then when I've done just cardio alone. I've also noticed that I haven't really had any flab associated with my 10 lb weight loss since beginning my journey I also attribute this to the slow decrease in weight as well as the strength training that gives my body something to replace the fat with slowly over time!
I hope this helps some of you out there to think more about doing resistance training, even if it's just using the weight of your own body! I wouldn't be as far today with out it!