© 2024 Divine Weight Loss | Website design by Jetfuel Creative
Have you ever wondered why your diet affects you differently than your partner? It may come down to gender differences that determine how fast, how much, and how long a diet works.
Curious about the connection between hormones and weight gain and other factors that affect how and when males vs. females lose weight? Discover more in this guide to male and female stages of weight loss.
There are some key differences in the way men vs. women lose weight. But in general, the stages of weight loss they go through are the same.
Whether someone is male or female, they will go through rapid and gradual weight loss and weight loss maintenance stages.
The first stage of weight loss for men and women occurs during the first four to six weeks after starting a diet. For most people, this is when they observe the most significant changes to their weight or waist sizes.
During this phase, most of the weight change is due to water loss, not fat. Your weight may also change rapidly due to significant reductions in protein, muscle, and glycogen stores.
Rapid weight loss may motivate you to stick to your diet. But this phase will not last forever, and you don’t want it to. As soon as your body burns through its energy stores, the real fat burning will begin.
The second stage of weight loss for men and women occurs after the six-month mark. It can go on for a few months or even years, or until someone stops losing weight and enters the management stage.
Many people refer to this phase as “plateauing” because if you look at a graph of their weight change, their results flatten out during this phase. In other words, people still lose weight, but at a much slower pace.
One reason why plateaus occur is that your body may slow down your resting metabolism to conserve energy. This natural response is leftover from our evolutionary history and protects your body from starvation.
Additionally, you have probably heard the saying about how muscle weighs more than fat. Fat really does not weigh much, so this phase may feature significant fat loss, but those results may not be reflected on the scale.
The final stage of weight loss for men and women is management. This stage begins when your body stops shedding fat and pounds, and your weight remains relatively steady.
Most people hope to enter the weight management stage at their ideal weight. The goal then becomes maintaining their results by consuming an amount of calories that roughly equals the number of calories they burn per day.
Men and women alike struggle to maintain their results in the long term. This struggle may be due to an unsustainable diet or failure to implement lasting lifestyle changes to keep weight under control for good.
Even though men and women go through all three stages of the weight loss process, they do so at differing speeds. Differences also come from the varying compositions characteristic of the male and female body.
Of course, differences also come down to the individual. Genetics, ethnicity, age, culture, sleep patterns, and pre-existing medical conditions can also impact weight loss, even when controlling for gender differences.
In general, though, men tend to lose weight faster and shed more lean mass than women, and women tend to lose more fat mass and struggle to keep it off compared to men.
If you feel like your husband or boyfriend loses weight faster than you, you’re onto something. Men and women tend to lose the majority of their weight during the rapid weight loss stage, but men see results faster.
For example, a study found that men shed the majority of the weight they are going to lose within three weeks of starting a diet. Meanwhile, it takes women three to six months to see the full results of a new diet plan.
For the average male, fat represents only about 10% to 15% of their total body weight. Women naturally have a higher percentage of body fat, which typically ranges between 18% and 20% of the weight.
Studies show that men typically lose less fat mass than women during a reduced-calorie diet. Women may shed more fat during a diet simply because our bodies have more to lose.
Lean mass represents the difference between someone’s total weight and the weight of their body fat. Studies show that men’s bodies are better at shedding lean mass than women’s bodies, especially early in a diet.
Losing lean body mass is not always a good thing. It can be a product of losing weight too quickly, which we already mentioned men are prone to do. Losing too much lean mass can also negatively impact metabolism.
Women have a higher percentage of body fat, but we also have a lower resting metabolic rate. Often, this is due to the fact that men tend to have more muscle, which can increase resting metabolism.
Hormones also impact metabolism. As estrogen declines after the age of 30, your metabolic rate drops, too. Combined, these factors explain why maintaining results in the long run can be more difficult for women than men.
Male and female stages of weight loss are the same. However, men tend to lose weight faster than women and may have an easier time keeping it off in the long run.
Are you struggling to achieve your weight loss goals or maintain your results in the long term? Divine Weight Loss offers customized medical weight loss plans supervised by a licensed and experienced doctor.
Contact Divine Weight Loss in Riverview, Florida to learn more about our weight loss programs and how we can help men and women shed those pounds and keep them off for good!