Why 6% more for women? Male – female weight loss differences
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You may or may not know that, as well as our ’20lbs in 8 weeks’ weight loss challenge (that you can potentially get for free BTW –> myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting)………..
We run a Beach Body challenge.
Basically the same thing for those that don’t have 20lbs to lose.
Both designed to encourage and reward progress.
To get to 10-15% body fat for men and 16-21% for women.
Which is pretty slim.
We sometimes get asked why there are different numbers for men and women.
Why 6% more for women.
The short version is that women store more fat in certain areas.
In fact women need more fat.
A man can get down to about 4% or so before there might be any health issues.
Research varies but most agree that going below the low teens isn’t good for women.
Menstruation stops at 8-12% for most.
And women usually struggle to lose fat more than men.
Particularly as they get towards these lower numbers.
Under controlled conditions there wouldn’t be any difference.
If we locked a man and women in separate rooms and tightly controlled energy intake and expenditure, weight loss would come at approximately the same rate.
But, life isn’t like a lab.
In real life, women have hormones and other systems within the body that make that later weight loss harder.
Why is that I hear you ask?
From an evolutionary perspective, it’s reasonably obvious why.
A successful pregnancy requires around 50,000 calories of extra energy compared to a normal nine months of not being pregnant.
Based on there being 3,500 calories in a pound of body fat (debatable, I know) that equates to stone of body fat.
So, when we were cave men and women, a woman who had a stone of extra weight was somewhat better equipped to survive a pregnancy than one who wasn’t.
When you factor in seasonal variations on food availability, a women who was good at storing a couple of stone during the plentiful times of year would be more likely to pass on her genetic material.
It’s not the only factor, of course.
Plenty of leaner women will have had plenty of successful pregnancies and vice versa.
But I’m sure we can all see that a cave lady that was “better” at storing fat (for whatever reason) was more likely to have more cave babies who would inherit that ability.
Conversely, the men who were most likely to pass on more of their genetics were those that could source the most food.
Those that could hunt down and kill the most animals.
Meaning the leaner, faster and stronger cave dudes would, on average, have more children.
So, if you’re a lady struggling to get lean, don’t beat yourself up over it.
It can be done, but it will probably be harder than for a guy.
To some degree your body doesn’t want you to get leaner – particularly that last little bit.
Our power comes from being aware of genetics and so on………..
But not being beholden to them.
It is what it is.
Realise it might take a bit more time and effort than we might like.
But that it can be done, if we so desire.
Or we can accept those differences and reach a level and balance that we are happy with.
Much love,
Jon ‘1%’ Hall and Matt ‘Full fat milk’ Nicholson
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RISE Macclesfield – myrise.co.uk
Serious transformations. Fun times!
Enter your details at myrise.co.uk for more information about what we do.
Or check out our monthly find-out-more meeting if you want to learn more about our free ’20lbs weight loss in 8 weeks’ and ‘Beach Body’ challenges –> myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting
