Why men find it easier to lose weight than women

Is there such thing as gender equality in weight loss? Not initially, claims a study. Image via Thinkstock

Muscle is to blame – or to thank, depending on which side of the gender divide you were born on – when it comes to weight loss differences between men and women.

Because men traditionally have more lean muscle mass, which burns more kilojoules than fat , even at rest their metabolic rate can be between five to ten per cent higher than that of a woman.

In addition to lean muscle mass, if you're a guy you can thank the testosterone you have - and the extra estrogen you don't - for your weight-loss edge. On average, women have between 6 and 11 per cent more body fat than men, an assumed evolutionary adaptation to help during pregnancy. From puberty to menopause, women maintain more average body fat than men - even when they take in fewer calories.

According to the results from a 1.2 million person-strong UK study, men lost an average of 6.1 per cent of their body weight over a 12-week dieting period – 1.5 per cent more weight than women, who lost 4.6 per cent in their first 12 weeks. “Research suggests that men’s brains are more solutions-based and they often tell us that they have fewer commitments at home, so once they find out how our eating plan works they tend to just get on and do it,” says Dr Jacquie Lavin, head of nutrition and research for Slimming World, the company behind the study. However, after six months there was no difference in weight loss progress between men and women.

While men store - and lose - weight predominantly from their midsections, women lose weight more evenly, making the changes less visible. Image via Thinkstock.

Ladies' fat stores are also typically more spread out, which is partly why they tend to lose weight at a slower pace than guys and the results are less obvious. “Women with excess fat around the middle will lose it more or less as readily as men," says Dr David Katz, founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center at the Yale University School of Medicine. "Men are just more prone to gain weight around the middle."

It’s not all doom and gloom for women looking for an even weight loss playing field. While women typically store body fat in their thighs – a far safer area than the midsection - according to a recent study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, women may be also more successful losing weight than men when they incorporate certain probiotics into their diet. “After the 12-week diet period, we observed an average weight loss of 4.4 kg in women in the probiotic group and 2.6 kg in the placebo group,” said research lead Professor Angelo Tremblay. “However, no differences in weight loss were observed among males in the two groups.”

Australian rates of obesity are currently climbing faster than anywhere else in the world.