It's a sad fact that men lose weight more effortlessly than women do. Several reasons contribute to this, but the bottom line is that if a man and a woman recline in a field and stare at the sky for an hour, the man will burn more calories than the woman.
Metabolism
Most men burn more calories than women when they are at rest because they are bigger. Resting metabolic rate, or RMR, is approximately 10 calories per pound for women and 11 calories per pound for men. Your RMR is the amount of calories you expend when you are utterly still, just for your bodily functions to work properly. The larger your body, the more calories maintaining it burns. A 180-lb. man would burn 1,980 calories if he remained still all day, staring at the sky. The 140-lb. woman next to him would burn only 1,400 calories doing the same thing for the same amount of time.
Fat Stores
In order to lose weight at the rate of one pound per week, an individual must either reduce caloric intake by 500 calories a day, burn an additional 500 calories per day, or create the deficit by a combination of cutting calories and performing calorie-burning activity. This pound comes from body fat. Most women carry more body fat than men do. Their bodies are made for breastfeeding and pregnancy, and body fat is important to both those biological processes. One less pound of body fat on a woman would still leave more fat behind than the same pound coming off a man of the same height and weight.
Lifestyle
Society contributes to the differences in weight loss between men and women, as well. While women naturally burn fewer calories than men in a given day due to metabolism, Weight Watchers indicates that in general, women are not as active as men. Men burn 37 percent more calories through movement than women do in an average 24-hour period. This might be because men tend to engage in skilled and manual labor more than women do, or because they're more inclined to throw a football around with their friends on a Sunday afternoon.
Recommendations for Women
Because they're at a disadvantage, women need to step up their game to lose weight as efficiently as men do. Losing weight takes women longer, so if you're a woman, the diet you choose is important. It should be something that you can sustain long-term. You will probably be able to take weight off just as quickly as a man if you crash-diet, but the pounds are not likely to stay off. Aim to create a deficit of about 500 calories a day to consistently trim off a pound a week through a combination of healthier eating and 30 minutes of exercise a day.
References
- American Council on Exercise: Caloric Cost of Physical Activity
- Marquette General Health System: What is "Resting Metabolic Rate?"
- MayoClinic.com: Can I Lose Weight if My Only Exercise is Walking?
- "Time Magazine": When Men Are Better Dieters Than Women; Jeffrey Kluger; Jan 19, 2009
- Weight Watchers: When Men Lose Faster Than Women
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