If weight loss was a sport, a team of men would score more victories than a team of women as physiologically they enjoy more advantages. But in the game of life, more men are overweight or obese than women. What are the differences between us when it comes to losing those unwanted kilos? Are men or women more likely to be successful slimmers? Or are we essentially the same under the skin?
Is weight loss easier for men?
Girls, it’s sad but true: men generally have an easier time of it when they decide to lose the love handles. This is because they have a greater proportion of muscle tissue to adipose tissue (or plain old fat), whereas women carry more subcutaneous fat beneath the skin. Muscle metabolises more energy at rest than fat, so men have a higher metabolic rate. This means they not only burn more calories when they’re pounding the treadmill, but all through the day.
Plus, they enjoy another natural advantage in the form of testosterone, which helps their bodies respond to exercise by building muscle.
On the other hand, women’s softer and less muscular bodies have a lower metabolic rate and so they require fewer calories for energy. And their lower levels of testosterone make it much harder for them to muscle up like Arnie.
Furthermore, other female hormones influence a woman’s tendency to gain weight at all stages of life, from menstruation to pregnancy to menopause. By nature, women are designed to deposit fat and retain fat more easily than men in order to protect their reproductive capacity.
Is weight loss easier for women?
Before anyone starts to feel too smug, that’s not to say that all the odds are in men’s favour. For one thing, they are prone to carry their excess baggage around their hairy bellies where it can do the most harm. Fat that is stored inside the abdominal cavity rather than under the skin (aka the ‘beer belly’) is known as visceral fat, and it is particularly dangerous. It triggers the release of inflammatory molecules that can contribute to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
Women are also at risk of developing these conditions if they accumulate too much visceral fat, but for much of their lives they tend to deposit fat around the thighs and hips rather than the midsection. Their biology protects them in this regard, at least until menopause when the changed hormonal environment means that they store fat in a similar pattern to men.
Men are also less concerned about kilo creep. According to Dr Trent Watson, a leading nutritionist who specialises in men’s health, many men are happily oblivious to the extra 2kg they add to their frame each year until they are in their mid-40s and have more than 10kg to drop. Women might be more obsessed with their weight and preoccupied with how they look, but at least that means they are aware when they have to lose weight and are more likely to take action.
Fertility and weight loss
The differences between the sexes are not as important as the similarities when it comes to losing weight and improving our body composition and general health. Women and men both put on weight according to the same laws of physics; that is, by consuming more energy than their bodies can expend. And we all have to deal with sedentary living, an environment filled with easy temptations, stressful jobs that leave little time for exercise, and all the other factors that derail our good intentions.
One area where the differences between us are less than once thought is fertility. It is well established that female fertility is affected by weight issues. This is because the production of oestrogen is related to body fat: women who are overweight will produce too much and those who are underweight too little.
But we now know it’s not only the girls who have to watch their weight if they want to conceive. Male fertility too is affected by excess kilos as extra heat around the testicles results in reduced sperm count and motility. Many women who start a weight loss program do so because they want to have a baby. Increasingly these days they are joined by their partners.
Insulin: the equal opportunity hormone
Finally, there is an equal opportunity hormone none of us should forget about – insulin. It performs many complex functions, with its pivotal role being to ensure that glucose is delivered to our cells, particularly the ones that rely on it exclusively to function, such as the brain and red blood cells. When you eat too many unhealthy carbohydrates too often, the pancreas has to pump out more and more insulin. Eventually it does not work effectively and cells cease to respond to its actions. If this happens, the body develops insulin resistance, a dangerous condition that is a precursor to type-2 diabetes.
According to Diabetes UK, there are 2.8 million people in the UK who have been diagnosed with diabetes and a further 500,000 estimated to be undiagnosed. Eighty per cent of cases are type 2 diabetes, which affects men and women in exactly the same way and is linked to obesity.
Fortunately, elevated insulin levels can be reversed by improving the quality of the carbohydrates you eat and losing body fat – especially visceral fat. Resistance training also improves the sensitivity of your muscles to the effects of influence of insulin, so both sexes can benefit from hitting the gym. The Biggest Loser Club offers a fantastic strength training program to get you started.
Vive la diffèrence!
According to Dr Trent Watson, we are all born with a set of genes that determine such things as body shape, hair colour and more that we cannot do much to change. Other genes, such as athletic prowess or propensity to gain weight, respond to the environment in which we live and we can exercise control over them. Our hormones are central to our masculinity or femininity, but they do not imply an unavoidable biological fate. While women find it harder to lose weight and build muscle than men, that does not provide an excuse for not losing weight or working on their abs. And while men put weight on around the middle more easily than women, that is no excuse for allowing the gut to expand year after year. We control our destiny in the end.
The differences between us are not as important as the similarities, and for both sexes insulin is the hormone to watch when it comes to lifelong weight management and general wellbeing. Different for girls? Maybe not so much.