Pound Wise

Why men lose weight faster, and tips for catching up

Some years ago, five men in my office went on a diet. They all lost weight. No surprise. They had the kind of incentive you can't ignore: They each put $1,000 into a pool, biggest loser take all. Competition, even wagering, is a typical approach for men, who, it turns out, diet very differently from the way women do. "Men cut to the chase," says Wendy Bazilian, DrPH, nutritionist at the Golden Door and author of The SuperFoods Rx Diet. They hire specialists: a nutritionist, a trainer. They just want to get the task done." If you've ever dieted with a man, you know the unjust fact of life: Men lose weight faster. Here's why, and what women can do to even the odds.

FEMALE VS. MALE
The Physiology: Men Are Bigger
Men weigh more than women, and they carry more lean body mass, the body's major calorie burner. "Their metabolism runs 5 to 10 percent hotter," Bazilian says, adding that after age 40, women lose lean body mass nearly twice as fast as men.

The Psychology: Men Diet Differently
"They approach dieting like they're building a tool cabinet," says Pamela Peeke, M.D., author of Fit To Live. "They don't take copious notes or read 900 books. They just find out what kind of foods they need to eat, and go out and buy them."

The Culture: Men Live in a Different World
"It's merciless," says Peeke. "A woman can never be too thin. A man can look like crap and be one of the most powerful people on the planet." Or play the husband of a gorgeous young woman on television. When do we ever see the reverse?

Add to these bad attitudes the fact that women are more often exposed to temptation: about twice as often as men. Women are more often in the grocery store and the kitchen. We test food for our babies, finish our kids' plates. And, with the glass ceiling cracked, we're also facing the giant convention-hotel breakfast buffet, the perennial office snack bowl, and the multi-martini steakhouse dinner.