Women always seem to have more trouble losing weight than men!  I certainly find that to be true!  Several years ago, when I switched to a Real Food diet following the dietary guidelines of the Weston A. Price Foundation, I became much healthier.  I had more energy, didn’t get sick as often, and I just generally felt better!

However, I wasn’t so happy that, along with that better health, I also saw a slow weight gain.  I avoided junk food but I had gained almost 10 pounds.  That may not seem like much to some of you, but all those pounds were gained while eating a Real Food diet.  I thought that couldn’t happen!

The good news for me is that I have found a way that works to keep my weight where I want it and without harming my health.  What motivated me to write about it right now was a presentation I attended at the recent Wise Traditions Conference in Indianapolis.  It completely validated what I have done and helps me understand why it works.

Konstantin Monastyrsky, author of Fiber Menace and of the website Gut Sense, presented “The Art of Eating without Harm”  at the conference, and a part of that topic was a superb discussion of “Why One Calorie For Her May be Half a Calorie for Him.”  For me, it answered the question of why women find it easier than men to gain weight and find it harder to lose it.

Why was this important to me?

Well, earlier this year, I got really tired of the amount of weight I had gained, ans was still gaining.  Even my larger size clothes were becoming uncomfortable, so I decided to try some new methods.  Notice that I didn’t say new diets!  I totally believe in my traditional, Real Food diet.  I eat the right foods.  They are healthy and nutritious and keep me well.  However, I had heard so many times that when eating only real foods, I didn’t need to count calories, or even count carbs!  But that wasn’t working for me.

At first, I tried reducing the period of daily eating to eight hours or less, similar to the intermittent fasting recommended by Dr. Mercola and Paul Jaminet of The Perfect Health Diet.  I didn’t make any other changes to my diet; I was eating about the same amount of food, real food, just during a reduced time window.

After a few weeks, I could tell it wasn’t working–I wasn’t losing weight.  By October, I decided I needed to do something else.  It occurred to me (why did it take so long since it’s just common sense?) that if I was eating a healthy diet and still gaining weight (or at least not losing weight) that I must be eating too much food!  So, although I didn’t start counting calories or eliminating types of foods, I did begin to watch my portion size.  I also continued with eating a minimal breakfast of bone broth and maybe herbal tea or decaf coffee with cream.

Specifically, I decided that I needed to eat only about half as much food as my husband does.  He is about 6 inches taller than I and much more active, where I am a postmenopausal woman who exercises daily but not strenuously and spends a lot of time at my computer writing posts like this one. I can’t need as much food as he does!

Have you noticed that restaurants never have different sizes of meals?  I always get served just as much food as my husband!  And that’s probably twice as much as I need. [See that man-sized steak and veggies, plus a big pile of mashed potatoes, in the photo!  It’s twice what I need at one meal.] Not just at restaurants, but at home too, I would use the same size plate as my husband.  Clearly, that wasn’t working.  I started using a smaller plate (or bowl), usually a salad size plate, to help define my meal portions.

It worked!  I began to lose the weight I had gradually gained over the years.  It’s common sense after all.  I don’t need as much food as my husband to maintain my proper body weight!  I didn’t have a lot of weight to lose.  I hadn’t been overweight before changing my diet and had gained weight slowly.  I have now lost the amount I had gained, about 8 to 10 pounds, and that is enough.  I don’t want to be too thin.  A little extra fat at my age provides a source of some additional female hormones.  For maintenance, I won’t return to eating as much as I did before, and I will monitor my weight occasionally to be sure I don’t continue to lose or begin to gain again.

The number of pounds I lost may not seem important compared to what many people experience with our obesity epidemic today, but the majority (not all) of truly obese people gain weight from eating the wrong foods not from eating too much food.  There are also other environmental causes for weight gain, such as BPA and hormone-laden meat and milk, but that’s too big a topic to include here.

I don’t think that eating less of the wrong foods would have worked at all!  What worked for me is eating a nutritious, Real Food diet with plenty of fat and protein to keep me from getting hungry before time for the next meal.  Hunger is one of our bodies’ warning systems.  It’s trying to tell us that our bodies need nutrients!  We shouldn’t ignore hunger.  We should try to figure out what we’re missing from our food.  It may not be amount of food, it may be specific nutrients.

In early November, while I was looking forward to the conference in Indianapolis, I was somewhat worried that my new-found success would be sabotaged by the delicious food that is always served at a Wise Traditions conference.  However, my new guideline of watching portion size worked there just as well as at home.  Since most of the conference meals are buffet style, I stuck to filling only about half of my too-large plate so that I would not waste food.  I got some of almost everything, just not too much.  As I said earlier, I didn’t cut out any “types” of food, I just ate less Real Food.  I was glad I could enjoy the food without gaining any weight at the conference.  [The photo at right was taken at the Atlanta conference in 2013–it’s the way I used to fill my plate.]

Well, finally we get to the real nitty-gritty of this post.  Why is it so much harder for women to lose weight than men?

These are some of the reasons Konstantin Monastyrsky gave to answer why women have more problems with weight than men.  I can surely relate to many of them!  It’s both easier to gain weight and harder to lose it for women.

• Women naturally have a higher fat mass than men.  It’s necessary for supporting them during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Women gain weight faster on similar amounts of food.
• Women usually have less muscle mass than men and need less glucose; however, low carb diets may not be appropriate for women, especially older women, because they can accelerate muscle wasting.
• Then there’s the thermos effect.  Fat is insulation from cold.  Women often feel cold more than men do.
• Women are usually shorter than men.  Smaller people don’t need as much fuel; therefore, they need to eat smaller portions.
• There’s an innate response to reduced calorie input that can make eating less ineffective.  Especially, as I mentioned above, if the diet is nutrient-empty.
• Monastyrsky said that low-carb diets are counter productive for women and can cause almost instant rebound and obesity.
• Women and men often have widely differing energy requirements.  Lifestyle dictates requirements.
• Older women (that’s me) tend to gain more weight to produce more female hormones after menopausal.  The tendency to gain weight can be hard to overcome.
• There is one time when reducing carb intake can help women lost weight–when they are ovulating and menstruating.
• Overeating junk food stimulates hunger and cravings more than eating real food. [Probably because they are empty of nutrients.]
• Weight gain during pregnancy and breastfeeding is normal to prevent slowdown of the metabolic rate and to conserve energy.
• There are also anthropological reasons why women gain weight. Women living in temperate climates tend to gain weight during warm periods to prepare for expected winter scarcity.  He said that our modern lifestyle of cool, air-conditioned homes and offices sends the signal to our bodies to gain weight as if preparing for winter.  Don’t overdo air conditioning.
• When eating out, portions for women are the same size as for men. Ask the waiter to cut the serving in half or do it yourself and take the rest home. Monastyrsky said that asking for a smaller portion “isn’t embarrassing but rather a sign of class and wealth.”
• Women tend to try many more diets than men which can lead to “Chronic Dieter Syndrome.” Each dieting cycle reduces the metabolic rate and increases fat stores. Incorrect dieting is counter productive. He also compared a diet to a course of antibiotics–we need the full course, the complete diet, otherwise we create diet-resistance.
• Food preparation stimulates the appetite, and women are more likely to prepare the family’s food.

His reasons why women tend to gain weight more easily than men make a lot of sense to me, and they also give us clues about what we can do about it.

I think I’ve found my solution (time will tell)–eating smaller, more reasonable portions of nutritious, Real Foods.  If you have found a solution that works for you, let us know in the comments.  Your method might help someone else.

I certainly hope you find what works for you and without harming your health and well-being!

You might also want to read:

How to get started with a Traditional, Real Food diet
Why eating fat doesn’t make you fat!
Why I do what I do!

NOTE:  I am not a health professional.  Read my Disclaimer.

Photo credit: cobraphotography/Shutterstock