Weight loss: Man vs Woman
Idle_Moon
Posts: 151 Member
Hi everyone,
Is it easier for men to lose weight than for women to lose weight? Do they lose more weight, or do they only lose weight faster? And if they lose more weight, is it because they are losing more muscle mass, or actual bodyfat?
Also, what calorie deficit does a man need to lose 0.5kg, opposed to what a woman needs?
I'm looking forward to your replies.
Is it easier for men to lose weight than for women to lose weight? Do they lose more weight, or do they only lose weight faster? And if they lose more weight, is it because they are losing more muscle mass, or actual bodyfat?
Also, what calorie deficit does a man need to lose 0.5kg, opposed to what a woman needs?
I'm looking forward to your replies.
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Replies
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A few questions in your post so I'll bullet point;
-Yes men lose weight quicker.
-They only lose more weight if they have more weight to lose
- See point above
- The calorie deficit is exactly the same. To lose 0.5kg/week everyone requires a 500cal deficit each day.6 -
trigden1991 wrote: »A few questions in your post so I'll bullet point;
-Yes men lose weight quicker.
-They only lose more weight if they have more weight to lose
- See point above
- The calorie deficit is exactly the same. To lose 0.5kg/week everyone requires a 500cal deficit each day.
Summed up nicely!0 -
@trigden1991 Thank you for your answer!
The last point is something I don't understand. If both require the same calorie deficit, how is it possible that men lose weight faster? For example, a woman loses 0.5 kg per week, so in one month she loses 2 kg. Do men lose more than those 2 kg in the same time period?0 -
Men carry less water as far as I understand
Women retain water more easily due to hormones, sodium intake etc.
Being a woman sucks! LOL4 -
Here is an article discussing the differences:
http://www.shape.com/latest-news-trends/why-men-lose-weight-faster1 -
Men are larger so they lose more weight faster, even if it is in the same proportion as a woman the pounds will be more. They also carry fat differently than women and yes they lose fat more quickly due to different genetics. The hormone testosterone helps a lot with weight loss and men have a whole lot more of it. Also men tend to eat plenty of protein and lift weights- both are great for fat loss and preserving muscle! Women tend to eat too little protein and do a bunch of cardio, this is bad for weight loss and will cause muscle loss not fat loss.1
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trigden1991 wrote: »A few questions in your post so I'll bullet point;
-Yes men lose weight quicker.
-They only lose more weight if they have more weight to lose
- See point above
- The calorie deficit is exactly the same. To lose 0.5kg/week everyone requires a 500cal deficit each day.
Pretty much this...and I'd add that it is likely a bit easier for a man because we inherently tend to have higher calorie requirements so we can still eat quite a bit and lose weight. Also, women tend to have greater fluctuations from water weight due to hormonal changes...men fluctuate too, but not as much.6 -
@trigden1991 Thank you for your answer!
The last point is something I don't understand. If both require the same calorie deficit, how is it possible that men lose weight faster? For example, a woman loses 0.5 kg per week, so in one month she loses 2 kg. Do men lose more than those 2 kg in the same time period?
Men can often use a larger deficit due to their larger calorie burn, which allows them to lose weight more quickly.
A moderately active 25 yo man who weighs 180 and is 5'8" has a TDEE of about 2750.
A moderately active 25 yo woman who weighs 180 and is 5'8" has a TDEE of about 2500.
A 20% deficit for the man would be 550 calories per day.
A 20% deficit for the woman would be 500 calories per day.
Using his deficit, the man would lose 1.1 pound of fat per week.
Using her deficit, the woman would lose 1 pound of fat per week.
That's just looking at fat loss. Weight loss is a different matter and is complicated by water weight, which affects both sexes, but females to a further extent due to hormonal fluctuations.4 -
The rate of weight loss is just an estimate. If you are in a 500 calorie daily deficit you then are supposedly eating 3500 calories less per week (500 calories x 7 days = 3500 calories) than you burn. 3500 calories is the calories in 1 pound of fat. But your TDEE is just estimated and your calorie deficit is based of of that, so it will vary from person to person. And no one loses just pure fat it's usually a combo of fat, water & muscle- though there are things one can do to prioritize fat loss and preserve muscle. Hormones and activity level have a lot to do with it too.
But yes men lose faster so even if you're both set for the same loss rate the man will usually lose a little faster anyway.0 -
@trigden1991 Thank you for your answer!
The last point is something I don't understand. If both require the same calorie deficit, how is it possible that men lose weight faster? For example, a woman loses 0.5 kg per week, so in one month she loses 2 kg. Do men lose more than those 2 kg in the same time period?
As well as the answers from other's, I would add that women have hormone fluctuations to contend with. Even if they are losing fat at the same rate, it can easily be masked on the scale by increases in water weight.6 -
I've never heard that men lose weight faster. Is that actually a thing?
And just to clarify, we're not talking about losing weight faster on the same deficit, are we? Because that would be very counterintuitive.0 -
@CattOfTheGarage That's what I'm confused about.0
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CattOfTheGarage wrote: »I've never heard that men lose weight faster. Is that actually a thing?
And just to clarify, we're not talking about losing weight faster on the same deficit, are we? Because that would be very counterintuitive.
Men tend to be heavier than women. Heavier people tend to lose weight more easily than lighter people.
Men tend to have more muscle mass than women, so they tend to have higher BMRs (even if height and weight are the same).
When people talk about "men" vs. "women", they're not really comparing apples to apples. They're comparing the 6 foot tall 220 pound guy to a 5 foot tall 120 pound woman. And, yeah, the big guy will lose weight more easily.
Then there are the guys that stop drinking beer (and make no other changes) and drop 10-20 pounds because they really were drinking that much beer. :-)4 -
It's probably more to do with men generally being larger therefore needing more calories to sustain a weight and getting that deficit is easier.
You don't see men posting about struggling to eat at 1200 cals as they even the small men are probably at 1800 or so for the equivalent loss rate.
Personally i'm around 25lb from getting down into a normal weight range and am eating 2K a day and expecting to drop 2lb a week. Couldn't imagine there are many women who could do expect those sort of results without serious exercise to create a huge deficit.
So as @jemhh pointed out yes technically all things being equal men do lose faster its probably more the general size of the 2 sexes that makes it seem like men have it easy1 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »CattOfTheGarage wrote: »I've never heard that men lose weight faster. Is that actually a thing?
And just to clarify, we're not talking about losing weight faster on the same deficit, are we? Because that would be very counterintuitive.
Men tend to be heavier than women. Heavier people tend to lose weight more easily than lighter people.
Men tend to have more muscle mass than women, so they tend to have higher BMRs (even if height and weight are the same).
When people talk about "men" vs. "women", they're not really comparing apples to apples. They're comparing the 6 foot tall 220 pound guy to a 5 foot tall 120 pound woman. And, yeah, the big guy will lose weight more easily.
Then there are the guys that stop drinking beer (and make no other changes) and drop 10-20 pounds because they really were drinking that much beer. :-)
I was just coming in to mention the beer thing... My husband recently lost 10lbs effortlessly by cutting back on his beer consumption AND adding breakfast everyday, he never used to eat breakfast. He wasn't overweight to begin with, he just wanted to lose his little beer gut. He lost it annoying easily and quickly!! :grumble:1 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »CattOfTheGarage wrote: »I've never heard that men lose weight faster. Is that actually a thing?
And just to clarify, we're not talking about losing weight faster on the same deficit, are we? Because that would be very counterintuitive.
Men tend to be heavier than women. Heavier people tend to lose weight more easily than lighter people.
Men tend to have more muscle mass than women, so they tend to have higher BMRs (even if height and weight are the same).
When people talk about "men" vs. "women", they're not really comparing apples to apples. They're comparing the 6 foot tall 220 pound guy to a 5 foot tall 120 pound woman. And, yeah, the big guy will lose weight more easily.
Then there are the guys that stop drinking beer (and make no other changes) and drop 10-20 pounds because they really were drinking that much beer. :-)
My husband. Yep.0 -
Actually he only lost 10 pounds because he only cut his beer consumption in half, didn't stop drinking it completely.0
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But we are talking about men losing faster because they can sustain a bigger deficit, right? We're not talking about faster loss on the same deficit.
In which case it's not really a gender thing, it's just about bigger people with more lean mass losing faster than smaller people with a higher BF%. Right?2 -
Couldn't you compare bf loss like they did on biggest loser and a woman lose as much as a man instead of pound per pound?0
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CattOfTheGarage wrote: »But we are talking about men losing faster because they can sustain a bigger deficit, right? We're not talking about faster loss on the same deficit.
In which case it's not really a gender thing, it's just about bigger people with more lean mass losing faster than smaller people with a higher BF%. Right?
Not really. I'd suggest reading up on women and fat loss. Lyle Mcdonald, in particular, is a great source for info.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/announcements/women-training-and-fat-loss.html/
Excerpt:But there is another issue and this gets a little bit dense. Women tend to lose more fat and less LBM (lean body mass, everything that isn’t fat such as organs, skeletal muscle, bone, etc) than men. And to lose one pound of fat takes a larger caloric deficit (the classic 3500 calories which isn’t quite right but no matter) compared to losing one pound of LBM (about 800 calories). So with even the same caloric deficit (say 2000 calories per week) the woman will lose about 0.6 pounds and the man (losing say 25% LBM) will lose 0.8. Add to that men’s visceral fat and higher energy expenditure and it’s triple whammy for women. So yes, women are losing more fat but that requires a larger total caloric deficit and women’s are usually smaller to begin with (2).3 -
That's interesting then. Makes it sound like more of a problem than a benefit from the male point of view, as you may be losing faster but it's because you're losing muscle. Does this mean men should actually be more careful not to set an aggressive deficit than women?
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CattOfTheGarage wrote: »That's interesting then. Makes it sound like more of a problem than a benefit from the male point of view, as you may be losing faster but it's because you're losing muscle. Does this mean men should actually be more careful not to set an aggressive deficit than women?
No. Male TDEEs are higher to start.1 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »That's interesting then. Makes it sound like more of a problem than a benefit from the male point of view, as you may be losing faster but it's because you're losing muscle. Does this mean men should actually be more careful not to set an aggressive deficit than women?
No
Why not? One of the main reasons to avoid a large deficit is to protect lean body mass, in my understanding.1 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »CattOfTheGarage wrote: »That's interesting then. Makes it sound like more of a problem than a benefit from the male point of view, as you may be losing faster but it's because you're losing muscle. Does this mean men should actually be more careful not to set an aggressive deficit than women?
No
Why not? One of the main reasons to avoid a large deficit is to protect lean body mass, in my understanding.
Males have higher TDEEs than women, which allow for greater deficits. In addition, LBM is made up of more than muscle. It is everything except fat. Males will lose more water weight, for example. Women only wish they could lose water weight with the same ease.0 -
I meant aggressive in proportion to body weight. Obviously you don't want a small woman trying to sustain a bigger deficit than a big man. But if you have a man and a woman of the same weight, the tendency based on most of this thread would be to advise the man that he's OK to have a bigger deficit, and the woman to be more careful. But in view of the Lyle Mcdonald quote above, if the man is more prone to losing muscle (and he does seem to be saying that specifically, as well as more LBM in general) then it seems to me he should be more conservative with his deficit than the woman, not less.
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@trigden1991 Thank you for your answer!
The last point is something I don't understand. If both require the same calorie deficit, how is it possible that men lose weight faster? For example, a woman loses 0.5 kg per week, so in one month she loses 2 kg. Do men lose more than those 2 kg in the same time period?
Usually men can get away with having a bigger deficit without going below healthy thresholds.
Example a woman who is 5' 4" may use a 500 calorie deficit for 1 lb a week loss. This might bring her down to 1300 calories a day. She can only safely go down to 1200 a day. A man might use a 1000 calorie deficit which might bring him down to 1800 a day. He can safely go down to about 1500 a day still. Men just get more wiggle room! However if they both use a 500 calorie deficit, they should lose at approx the same rate.0 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »I meant aggressive in proportion to body weight. Obviously you don't want a small woman trying to sustain a bigger deficit than a big man. But if you have a man and a woman of the same weight, the tendency based on most of this thread would be to advise the man that he's OK to have a bigger deficit, and the woman to be more careful. But in view of the Lyle Mcdonald quote above, if the man is more prone to losing muscle (and he does seem to be saying that specifically, as well as more LBM in general) then it seems to me he should be more conservative with his deficit than the woman, not less.
Nobody should set a deficit that undermines their nutritional needs.
You haven't defined aggressive but if you are talking about a deficit that prevents sound nutrition or energy availability, why would either sex need to be more careful than the other? Such a diet would be unhealthy for both. Among other problems, males may risk more muscle loss while females may risk more bone loss but surely we're not going to set up a debate whether muscle or bones are more important.
If you are not talking about a deficit that undermines nutrition or energy availability, there is no problem for either sex.0 -
What's interesting about the above Lyle Mcdonald quote is that he is not just saying that men are more prone to muscle loss, but bone loss too (he specifically includes bone under lean body mass while stating that men lose LBM more quickly than women).
I'm just surprised by this, because I had had the impression that men would keep their muscle more easily, in the same way that they gain it more easily, and also because the general perception seems to be that men losing weight more readily is a bonus for them and means they can go gung-ho with bigger deficits, when in fact it seems to me that if they are more prone to lose lean mass, including bone, that that's the opposite of a good thing and means they have to be extra careful with their nutrition compared to women.
Of course, Lyle Mcdonald could be wrong. I know very little about him but I believe he is well respected in the fitness world, but that doesn't guarantee infallibility.0 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »What's interesting about the above Lyle Mcdonald quote is that he is not just saying that men are more prone to muscle loss, but bone loss too (he specifically includes bone under lean body mass while stating that men lose LBM more quickly than women).
I'm just surprised by this, because I had had the impression that men would keep their muscle more easily, in the same way that they gain it more easily, and also because the general perception seems to be that men losing weight more readily is a bonus for them and means they can go gung-ho with bigger deficits, when in fact it seems to me that if they are more prone to lose lean mass, including bone, that that's the opposite of a good thing and means they have to be extra careful with their nutrition compared to women.
Of course, Lyle Mcdonald could be wrong. I know very little about him but I believe he is well respected in the fitness world, but that doesn't guarantee infallibility.
Again, with proper nutrition there is not cause for concern. Men can use larger absolute deficits due to their TDEEs. I've never seen anybody propose that they are okay to eat at sub-healthy caloric or nutritional levels. I'll note that Lyle Mcdonald is the author/creator of guidelines for a diet that uses very large deficits and that he specifies how to fulfill your nutritional requirements even while following that diet.
Females get into bone issues at overly low calorie levels due to a reduction in estrogen. While men do produce estrogen, there doesn't seem to be a link between it and bone mineral density. There's a ton of research about this (I've mostly read research related to females.) Again, though, we're talking about calorie levels that are overly low in that they cause energy availability issues. It's a pretty interesting subject, especially since women lose bone mass between menopause and their mid-60s at a rapid rate while men don't. This gets into a lot of complexities for which MFP is not the right forum though so I'll stop now 1 -
@jemhh How'd you get to be so smart! I learn something new every time you post
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