Why don’t women lose weight as easily as men?

Women know how easily they can put on weight and how difficult it is for them to lose it. Wondering why this happens? It is because of a simple fact that women are usually smaller and lighter than men. When you have a smaller body, you have lower calorie needs. When you have lower calorie needs, your relative deficit (20%, 30% etc) gives you a smaller absolute deficit and therefore you lose fat more slowly than someone who is larger and can create a large deficit more easily.

There are also various other factors that make it difficult for women to lose weight easily. They are:

Body Mass: Women have less lean body mass than men and more fat cells. The lower the lean body mass the less muscle they have and unfortunately muscle burns more calories than fat. This is why personal trainers usually suggest women to strength train – strength training builds muscle and therefore burns more calories.

Thyroid: It’s an endocrine gland in our bodies whose primary function is to control how quickly the body burns energy. Women, more than men, have thyroid problems.

Pregnancy: The potential to become pregnant is what makes women have less lean muscle mass – a women’s body has 20% more fat cells than men.

Brains: Women’s brains make them have a harder time resisting foods they crave than men. They are also more likely to overeat than men and more likely to have eating disorders or behaviors such as binge eating.

Sleep & Stress: These two go hand in hand. Lack of sleep (night-time parenting) causes stress. Stress AND lack of sleep causes the levels of cortisol (a hormone) to increase. High cortisol levels leads to an increase in appetite and thus causing women to overeat. They need to stop doing all the household chores and get some good beauty sleep if they want to have better control of their eating habits.

Exercise: Women don’t exercise hard enough. They all know the importance of it but very few are aware of how hard they need to exercise in order to lose weight. To lose weight women need to work out at 80% of our Max heart rate because that is their Aerobic Zone.

Source: http://www.fitwatch.com/weight-loss/why-women-lose-weight-more-slowly-than-men-650.html and http://fitnesscheerleader.com/lazy/why-women-cant-lose-weight/

Contact Young Naturopathic Wellness Center for your weight management

The Young Naturopathic Wellness Center was founded to provide patients with appropriate diagnoses and effective, individualized treatment and education to help them achieve wellness.

To achieve your own wellness, call 408.761.6781 today to schedule your appointment. For more information about the Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness, visit http://www.drreneeyoung.com/ and http://www.youngwellnesscenter.com

Watch our video to learn more on weight management

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2ZF9BSrlY