It's a man's world --- at least when it comes to dieting. Men have several advantages over women simply because of the way they're made. They lose weight faster because, in some respects, they get a head start. Even at rest, most men burn more calories than women do.
Muscle Mass
The calories a body burns just to function is its resting metabolic rate. Bodies with more muscle need more calories while at rest because about 75 percent of the calories required to maintain resting metabolic weight goes to sustaining those muscles, the Marquette General Health System website explains. Men generally have more muscle mass than women do, so they automatically burn more calories even when they're sitting idle, doing nothing. A man's metabolism can be as much as 10 percent higher than that of a woman. The higher your metabolism or resting metabolic rate, the more you can eat without gaining weight, even if you engage in no exercise at all. And if you cut back on calories, you will lose the pounds faster.
Activity Level
Men also tend to be more active than women. In the course of an average day, men burn nearly 40 percent more calories than women do --- and they've already started out ahead of the game by burning more calories before they even got out of bed in the morning, just maintaining their muscle mass. Some of this is because more men hold down jobs that require physical or manual labor. But when men work out, they're also more inclined to engage in weight training than woman are. Weight training creates muscle, and muscle burns more calories in an idle state.
Body Fat
Another disadvantage women have is that their bodies naturally carry more fat stores than men's. Women are constructed for childbirth and, potentially, to nurse. The body's fat stores are needed both to sustain pregnancy and to breastfeed, and Mother Nature gives women what they'll need to sustain these roles. When beginning a diet, most men have less adipose --- fat --- tissue to lose than women do.
The Brain
Men are also have a mental advantage when it comes to dieting. "Time" magazine reported in 2009 on a study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory that found that men are more able to control the amygdala area of their brains, which dictates primitive drives, such as eating. When presented with desirable food, the men in the study were better able to close their minds to its lure, even after 17 hours of fasting. By comparison, the female subjects exhibited signs of emotional craving.
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