Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1544361
96 maconmagazine.com | April/May 2026 Ye s , l a d i e s , l o s i n g w e i g h t i s m o r e c h a l l e n g i n g f o r y o u … B u t h e r e i s w h a t y o u c a n d o F I T N E S S C O R N E R W E I G H T , W H A T ? A Women in Business summer session. Photo by Jessica Whitley. Anatomical and hormonal differences point to an undoubtably higher weight loss challenge for women, whether only diet changes are made or diet and exercise changes are made. That said, I will now note the importance of resisting the tendency to compare. Why? Because it's easy to get discouraged to see one person get results from something when you don't see results. It's very easy from this perspective to resign oneself to never being able to lose the weight, which simply isn't true. While accepting the additional challenge, know this: You can lose weight! The key for women seems to be centered around maximizing muscular potential, since more muscle means more fat burning, while increasing Caloric burn and decreasing Caloric intake. This can be done through a combination of strength training, hormones. Body fat is an endocrine organ that secretes estrogen as well, which could cause even more difficulty when trying to lose it. In other words, once body fat is gained, it can seem to help itself stay put. Not encouraging, I'm sure, but stick with me — because there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In a systematic review of studies on weight loss interventions published in Obesity Reviews, 21 studies directly compared weight loss responses of men and women. Out of those, 11 showed "significant" differences regarding change in weight where, for the most part, men lost significantly more weight than women did with either diet-only intervention or diet and exercise intervention. It's important to note that women still lost weight in the studies. Four of those 11 studies involved diet-only interventions, and of those, men lost significantly more weight in three of them. However, where men and women were given a calorie-restricted Mediterranean diet in one study, women actually lost more weight than men. Interesting. More on this later. In studies that included diet and exercise intervention, men lost significantly more weight than women in almost every study. However, I'll note again that women still lost weight. I t's true. Ladies, you do have a more challenging time losing excess weight than us guys do. It's not a bluff or an excuse; it's a fact that's supported by science. There are clear differences in how male and female bodies operate that make fat loss more of an uphill battle for women, and I want to talk about this in this Women's Issue because understanding these differences will, I believe, ultimately help women maximize healthy weight loss. Differences in weight loss difficulty between women and men can largely be boiled down to one thing: Hormones. While both men and women produce estrogen and testosterone, women have significantly higher amounts of estrogen, which encourages higher levels of fat storage necessary for pregnancy and breastfeeding. Men, in contrast, have significantly higher levels of testosterone, which promotes muscle gain and fat reduction. Because muscle is a highly metabolically active tissue, it uses more energy, which means that men, on average, will burn more fat at rest and with activity than women will, simply because of having a greater muscle mass. Consider this as well: when it comes to body fat, having excess fat in and of itself can have a magnifying effect on