Men Vs. Women When It Comes To Losing Weight

As much as men and women are different, the weight issue plagues both of them and for better quality life, it gets to a time when they both need to lose some weight. However, their differences do come into play as regarding to how they lose the weight. This article tries to uncover these differences and how they affect the weight loss challenge in both sexes.

Perception

While most women obsess about gaining weight and keep counting and restricting their calorie intake, most men see gaining a few pounds as a normal part of life, which they accept. Most of them do not even realize they have a weight problem until a doctor points it out to them.

A recent survey that was reported by The Independent recorded that while 43% of men who were overweight claimed not to be, and a further 7% were proud of their beer bellies. A similar study carried out by Cancer Research UK found that 25% of men are in denial about their weight problems. On the other hand, most women tend to believe they have a weight problem, even when they do not.

Goal setting

Setting of goals is another area where the differences between men and women come out vividly. While the average man has a good image and will probably not even see the need to lose weight until his doctor tells him that he needs to, the average woman is insecure and will think she needs to lose weight even when she does not.

This leads to men setting realistic and achievable goals for themselves, probably to just trim a little and become more fit, and because they believe they will succeed, they have more chances of sticking at it. Women on the other hand set for themselves unrealistic targets and deadlines that are much too short. Even when they have made progress and managed to lose a little weight, it is just never enough for them. This leads to a general feeling of discouragement and they give up easily.

Exercise

The general attitude towards exercise between a man and a woman is different too. With for most men, exercise takes the form of sports and fun activities, which they enjoy, however, for most women it is a strenuous task that needs to be endured. This means that most men will already have an upper hand to women when it comes to exercise because they have a more positive attitude towards it.

Body structure

Because they are bigger, men require more calorie intake than women do. This means that men can still lose weight even while taking foods with high calorie content while the same certainly does not apply for women. Men also usually have higher muscle content than women. That is good news for them too, as the rate at which our bodies’ burn calories are partly determined by muscle proportion. In addition, because they have hormones such as testosterone, it becomes easier for men to build muscle, thus burn calories much faster.

Attitude to food

Men are less likely to develop an emotional attachment to food as compared to women. This means that eating for men can be much easier to control than in the case of women who use food for comfort as such a case would require that psychological problems be sorted out first. In addition, though there are more men going into the kitchen nowadays, usually the women cook and do shopping so they are faced with greater temptations.

Dieting

It is not all-good news for men though. Most men have a problem when it comes to dieting, first with their perception of it and because of peer pressure. It is not uncommon to hear a man make such a statement as ‘salad is not food’, or ‘it is not food if it has no meat in it’.

This shows a bad perception of food that is meant to be a healthy option, which means they tend to have more problems dieting than women do. It is also easier for a woman to diet than a man. She is likely to be surrounded by supportive friends who will support her in her quest to lose weight while for a man trying to cut down on the meat and beer will only elicit mockery and laughter from friends.

This post was written by guest blogger Jack from http://www.electricshaving.net/. Jack likes to write posts related to gadgets, technology and lifestyle.