Whether men lose weight faster than women depends on how you frame the question. Men may generally tend to lose weight faster than women of comparable size due to biological and physiological factors, but every man does not lose weight faster than every woman. The rate that you lose weight depends on individual factors, such hormone levels and how efficiently your body uses energy.
Faster Metabolism
Men may lose weight faster than women because of a a faster metabolism. The structure of the male body evolved or is designed to have more lean body mass or muscle tissue. Higher amounts of lean body mass correspond with a faster metabolism. Men tend to have more muscle than women and more muscle requires more energy during daily physical activities. A man's body may burn more fat because muscles rely on energy from fat for low-level activity like walking. His metabolism may be 5 to 10 percent higher than a woman's, if she is of the same weight and height.
More Active
Men may lose weight faster than women because they tend to be more physically active. Weight Watchers reports that a study published in the "American Journal of Physiology" found that women burn 16 percent fewer daily calories than men. Women in the study also had metabolic rates 6 percent lower than men, and calories burned during physical activity were 37 percent lower than men. The researches concluded that women were not practicing as much physical activity as their male counterparts.
Emotional Eating
Women may be more likely to experience emotional cravings for food -- a factor that impedes weight loss. "Time" magazine in 2009 reported on a study at Brookhaven National Laboratory, which found that men could suppress the conscious desire to eat more successfully than women. Among obese men and women in the study, women retained emotional cravings more than men even if their appetite had subsided. Researchers suspect that hormone differences among men and women may contribute to the incidence of emotional cravings.
Hormones
Hormones may help explain why men tend to lose weight faster than women. Estrogen and testosterone are known as female and male hormones, respectively. Particular forms of estrogen may increase your risk of obesity when the levels are too high in your body. Going through menopause produces hormone fluctuations that may cause problems for women trying to lose weight, particularly with hormones that support body fat retention. The effects of testosterone are particularly evident during male puberty. Young men may far outperform young women in athletics, because their testosterone levels are much higher. Physiological effects of testosterone in young men include darker and thicker skin, more sex drive, higher resting metabolic rate, more blood and increased muscle protein synthesis. Unlike women's drastic hormonal changes during menopause, the effects of testosterone only gradually decline as men age.
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