MEN VS WOMEN, WHO WIN THE WEIGHT LOSS RACE?

Have you ever been in the situation of going on a diet with your husband or your boyfriend at the same time and after a short time, he sees the instant progress and you still struggle with slimming down. You ask many of your friends, they tell you the same problem and you start to think is there the hard truth that women, in general just can’t lose weight as easily as men though you two eat the same food and do the same exercises. If you are still skeptical about this, the information below may help you to answer the question.

There have been so many study about this issue. One of the latest which is published in the British Journal of Nutrition reports that women may not have quite the handicap in losing weight as previously thought. Also, the study indicates that males may have advantages from the beginning but it is not likely that they can win the race. British researchers kept track of men and women who were following one of four weight loss plans: Fitness Plan, Slim-Fast, Atkin’s or Rosemary Conley’s Diet and Weight Watcher’s. After two months, the results surprised them when the men had lost about twice as much weight and about three times as much body fat as the women. But, both sexes started to slow down in losing weight the following weeks. After six months, they were losing weight at the same pace. Therefore, according to the study, though men had the advantage of initial boost, in long term, women still had similar capabilities in slimming down as men.

Why do men lose weight faster from the start?

This is because of different body composition between men and women. When men have more muscle mass, women have more fat. For this reason, women’s metabolisms are slower. Fat tissue doesn’t burn more calories per hour as much as muscle tissue. Hence, men can eat a little bit more calories a day than women without gaining fat. Knowing this, women can adjust their training by lifting weight or doing squats and push-ups at home to boost their metabolism up to 15 percent.

For further information, belly fat burns off more easily than fat at the lower body. More importantly, men tend to accumulate their fat around the waist when women carry fat around the hips and thighs. For this, men seem to look thinner sooner than women after starting a diet. Don’t you worry, if you have more fat around your midsection, you can experience the same effect. However, having belly fat is not good for your health at all because you may have trouble with heart disease and some kind of cancer.