Battle of the bulge: the unfair differences between the sexes
“It's not fair,” my mother cried. “I’m the one on a diet, and he’s the one who loses weight!” Both my mother and father had put on some weight during the Covid lockdown last year. Two weeks of dieting later, my mum’s weight hadn’t budged, while my dad had lost six pounds. If you are a woman and you’ve have tried to lose weight, you may have observed this phenomenon yourself – and it’s not in your head.
According to a House of Commons Briefing Paper from January 2021, almost two thirds of adult women in the UK are classed as overweight or obese.[i] Although the obesity epidemic affects both sexes, men and women gain, carry and lose weight very differently.
Muscle versus fat
Due to differences in our body composition, women are at a disadvantage as they naturally carry more fat than men. Men tend to have higher muscle mass, and muscle is metabolically “expensive” to keep. That means it uses up energy – ie burns calories - even when at rest, while fat does not. Muscles burn considerably more calories than fat, making the male metabolism 3-10% faster than the female one. No surprise then that in studies, men are consistently found to do better on the exact same diet a woman is following. No fair!
Moreover, nature has distributed body fat in different ways. In women, it mainly sits on the hips and bum, where it serves as a vital store, namely for during pregnancy. In men, fat tends to accumulate any excess fat around the belly. But during menopause, women lose muscle and some bone mass, which increases their body fat percentage. On top of that, a redistribution takes place. The padding on hips and bum reduces, while belly fat increases. The female figure changes from “pear” to “apple” because male hormones such as testosterone, which are present in the female body also, can become more dominant post-menopause.
If you are overweight, it is in fact better (namely healthier) to carry your weight around the thighs and bum rather than the belly. Compared to fat elsewhere in the body, belly or visceral fat is a lot more metabolically active and produces not only hormones – which all affect weight, weight distribution and hunger – but also inflammatory compounds. This visceral belly fat, therefore, promotes inflammation, whereby increasing the risk for heart attack and stroke. (However, we do know from studies that it is lost more quickly than fat from the hips.)
This difference in fat distribution puts the health of overweight men at risk sooner than for overweight women. Yet ironically, while doctors tend to advise overweight women to lose weight as soon as their BMI passes the so-called ‘healthy’ 25 mark, they rarely ask men to lose weight until their blood pressure and cholesterol readings are already off the scale.[ii] This is despite the fact that 68% of British men are overweight or obese as opposed to 60% of women.
There’s clearly an element of bias at work here, which could be down to the societial pressure on women to look good, which means that their excess weight registers much sooner than that of men. Friends and family, too, are less likely to comment on a man’s weight than on that of a woman. Again, no fair! If that wasn’t enough, girls and women often dislike their figures. Most women have been on their first diet before an objective need because they perceived themselves as “too fat”.
The dangers of crash dieting
For many, this first diet – often at a very young age – sets them on a path to yo-yo dieting. Low-calorie crash diets can lead to rapid weight loss at first, but the body reacts to this “starvation” or “famine” by downregulating energy expenditure, that is it makes us feel tired and lethargic.
The minimum number of calories we need at rest is called “basal metabolic rate” (BMR). It is already higher for men due to their greater muscle mass. By following crash diet after crash diet, the rapid weight loss first experienced slows down and may even grind to a halt, even though the dieter eats less and less. Many women gradually decrease their BMR further and further, not losing or even gaining weight while eating fewer and fewer calories.
If a man goes on a diet at all, it is often much later in life. Their BMR is still intact and high, and they have that extra muscle, making it relatively easy for them to lose weight when the time comes. Hence the scenario in the opening paragraph.
For men, exercise is central to weight loss. Men often succeed by motivating themselves with challenges, such as a marathon, a triathlon or the three peaks. Also, they don’t mind lifting weights at the gym.
Think resistance rather than cardio
Women, on the other hand, tend to worry about accumulating too much bulk and might go for endurance or cardio exercise instead. While that’s great for stamina, heart health and mood, it doesn’t do much for weight loss. According to a 2009 study, the “hunger hormone” ghrelin spikes after a high-energy workout in women, while leptin, which tells the brain that you’re full, plummets. So post-workout, women tend to eat more, which puts them at risk of gaining weight – the exact opposite of what most women are trying to achieve!
Researchers are not sure why that is. They can only speculate, and one theory is that it’s the female body’s way to avoid energy deficits to preserve fertility and perpetuate the species. In the female body, a lack of calories suppresses ovulation and hormones that make reproduction possible. Women might beat themselves up about lacking willpower but body chemistry is near impossible to beat and it always wins! Building muscle really is key here, and if you want to lose weight and increase your BMR, resistance exercise rather than cardio is crucial.
The allure of junk food
But physiology is not all. There are some key mental elements that vary between men and women. Of course, there are some generalisations here, and there are always exceptions to the rule, but these are the findings of research papers looking into eating behaviours.
Interestingly, men are more likely to overeat than women.[iii] They are less likely to cook, whether that’s due to time constraints or a lack of skill or interest. Unless home-cooked meals are provided for them, many men can reach for junk foods instead. They are not just convenient but also highly palatable and easy to overeat – in fact, they are engineered for us to overconsume them.
Women who eat too much tend to go for those foods as well, but for different reasons that are emotional rather than practical. In stressful situations, they reach for food that will activate the reward centre in the brain particularly well and fast. That means foods that contain a lot of fat and sugar. It’s a kind of self-medication of the brain in an attempt to briefly dampen the constant firing of stress hormones. In the short term, such foods provide satisfaction, but in the long run, they increase the risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and dementia, and over course weight gain.
Make your own path
So, if you have had the suspicion that men are having an easier time of weight loss than women, you are absolutely right. By knowing this, you can tailor your weight loss journey according to your needs without being fazed by the results of the men around you.
Successful weight loss programmes for women, therefore, address the problem both from a physiological as well as a psychological point of view. On the one hand, it’s about providing the right nutrients to enable hormone balance. On the other, it’s about reducing stressors in everyday life and the negative emotions triggered by stress, which lead to eating binges.
Support through coaching
In my programmes, therefore self-care, stress relief and relaxation are an important pillar, alongside addressing exercise and eating patterns. Eating is supposed to be fun. A simple plan is needed, with new habits introduced and embedded over time, not one that would make life even more complicated and stressful. My plans are totally flexible and go at your own pace.
For a man who wants to lose weight, information and a pack of quick and easy recipes is often enough. For women, it is not that simple. Often, they already know what a healthy diet should look like and don’t mind cooking. However, they need more support to combat emotional eating and manage stress. Therefore, I don’t just provide the practical tools to lose weight, but also the all-important coaching support women need to change their relationship with food for good.
If you would like to chat to me about your needs and to find out if my programmes and packages might be of help to you, you can click on this button below to book a free 30-minute weight loss strategy call. For more information on my services, click here.
[i] House of Commons Briefing Paper (2021): Obesity Statistics UK. https://bit.ly/2N4paQL
[ii] Boswella, RB, White MA (2015): Gender differences in weight bias internalisation and eating pathology in overweight individuals. Adv Eat Disord. 2015; 3(3): 259–268.
[iii] Striegel RH, Rosselli F, Perrin N, et al (2009): Gender Difference in the Prevalence of Eating Disorder Symptoms. Int J Eat Disord. 2009 Jul; 42(5): 471–474.