Why Men Have An Easier Time Dieting Than Women
When partners diet together, it’s common for the man to lose more weight, and more quickly, than the woman. This can be frustrating for women who feel as if their diets, physical activity levels, and other health-related considerations are on point. However, there are a number of reasons why men lose weight more easily than women.
Here are 3 of them:
- mindset and other mental factors
- hormones
- body composition/muscle mass
1. Mindset and other mental factors
Mindset and other mental factors, like emotions, are a major reason why men have an easier time dieting than women.
Mindset
Men often realize they’ve gained weight and choose to take control and follow steps to resolve the situation, such as dieting and exercising.
By contrast, women are conditioned to care about their weight and appearance more than men. Society tells women they should be a certain size and, to a large extent, this negatively affects their mindset. Unfortunately, women spend more time than men beating themselves up over excess weight.
How to fix it
Luckily, you can shift your mindset in order to shift to greater weight loss. Some of the simplest ways to change your mindset are:
- Create attainable goals – it’s too easy to beat yourself up if you set unattainable goals. Create realistic goals to give yourself small wins to celebrate along your fitness journey.
- Be more positive – the easiest way to do this is to surround yourself with positive people. Tell your friends, family, and others about your goal and you’ll feel more positive about the progress you’re making!
- Be patient – many dieters fail because they expect a couple of days to add up to significant results. Getting rid of date-specific goals and expectations will help you look at your weight loss journey from a long-term perspective.
Emotions
A 2013 study established that women are more emotional eaters than men. In fact, many studies find that when women get stressed, they eat, whereas men turn to alcohol or other outlets to manage their stress. The primary issue with emotional eating is that most emotional eaters turn to unhealthy foods to satisfy the reward center of the brain. Most often, this means eating sugary, fatty, salty foods, which aren’t exactly diet-friendly.
How to fix it
You can take control of your emotional eating. Here are some simple steps which will help you to overcome emotional eating before it starts:
- Be more aware – most emotional eating is unconscious. By writing down where and when most emotional eating takes place, you can note patterns that help you recognize it coming and stop it before it happens.
- Replace emotional eating with other activities – for example, you may want to drink your favourite beverage, go for a walk, or do a hobby when you feel the urge to eat coming on.
- Practice – you aren’t going to avoid every emotional eating binge right away. Practice makes perfect, so keep practising for the best results!
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and 3. Hormones and body composition/muscle mass
Hormones and body composition go hand in hand when it comes to weight loss.
There’s no denying that men are larger and have more muscle than women. This is mainly due to higher levels of testosterone in the body. Genetically speaking, men are designed to have higher muscle mass and less fat than women. This means that men, thanks to their hormones, can stay slim while eating more calories.
How to fix it
Women aren’t condemned to higher body weights because they have less testosterone than men. However, it’s important for women to increase their physical activity level if they want a body composition designed to burn calories and keep fat off.
A couple of the simplest strategies include:
- Strength training – most women go to the gym and do cardio, thinking that’s the best way to slim down. However, strength training is the best way to increase muscle mass while decreasing stored fat on the body. Ideally, you should strength train two to three times a week for the best results.
- Eating a balanced diet – paying attention to macros is important when you want to increase lean muscle mass. This means that you should balance your protein intake with carbohydrates and fat based on your current weight and physical activity levels. Doing so will give your body the fuel it needs to shed weight over time.
Some myths are just myths
It’s important to note that while it can be more difficult for women to lose weight compared with men, it doesn’t mean that women can’t lose more weight than men. In fact, men tend to lose weight more easily when they first make the diet switch whereas women lose weight steadily over time.
Another reason why men seem to slim down more quickly is because men tend to carry excess weight around their abdomen, whereas women carry weight around their hips and thighs. Thus, men’s weight loss is more noticeable, especially when they first begin to drop the pounds.
So while men and women do lose weight differently, this won’t mean much in the long run.
Small changes to mindset and physical activity can put women on a par with men
If you make a conscious effort to take control of your emotional eating and mindset while hitting the gym and balancing your diet to build lean muscle, the genetic differences between how men and women lose weight will be inconsequential. And if you want an added boost to get you over the initial hump, PhenQ can help by controlling your appetite, burning fat, and giving you the energy to power through your workouts.
As a smart dieter, it’s important you don’t let any factor – including your gender – hold you back. By taking the steps above, you don’t have to any longer.
