After coaching nearly a hundred females on their journeys, I am confident that I know the biggest reason why females struggle to lose weight more than men.
For the men reading this, make sure to go through it in its entirety so you can better support your partner.
There is a good deal that goes into the why BUT the main reason is this one thing:
You move too fast.
Lemme explain with 3 major points.
1.Females can’t eat as much as men.
Females just have smaller bodies and less overall muscle mass. Your height, weight and muscle on your frame play a MAJOR role in your daily burn.
So trying to match the size of your calorie deficit to a man’s is setting you up for failure. Too large of a deficit and you will start feeling like crap quicker and hormones will shut down making it feel impossible to see the scale drop.
Men usually try to hit a 500 calorie or more deficit when going for weight loss.
But if a females maintenance calories is between 1600-1800 calories… a 500+ calorie deficit will make you hate your life. Hunger? Never ending.
Solution: Smaller deficit (around 200-300 calories) and be as patient and consistent as possible.
Disclaimer -> that is NOT a big deficit and can easily be thrown off from one high calorie coffee from Starbucks. Learning and understanding nutrition is borderline required or you will never see the results you want.
2. Your fat loss is masked by your menstrual phase.
This is the true killer of results. I have to give a disclaimer to every female client as we are entering a weight loss phase that this is going to play tricks on you.
You can LITERALLY do the same exact thing from one day to another, but if you begin to enter your ovulation/luteal phase… you will put on water weight. Its unavoidable.
So what is the solution?
Trust your inputs and be as consistent as possible.
During the Follicular phase (roughly the 2nd week of your period), you will likely see your lowest weigh in with being consistent.
I am not joking, I can predict when female clients are going to see their lowest weights just based on trends. Like a current female client of mine hits her lows between the 5th and 12th of every month…
From what I see for most females is they get frustrated that the deficit or the work they are putting in isn’t showing. They then over eat one night or over a weekend and literally delay when they will see results. So now they won’t see any results for maybe another week or two and boom, it feels like calorie deficits don’t work and it is impossible to lose weight.
You NEED to trust yourself and the process. You NEED to just keep going. You NEED to make it sustainable.
Check this out.
Example. |
This female client had an amazing 1-2 weeks of weight loss. Didn’t change a thing and was perfectly dialed… yet she put on like 4lbs of straight water in a day just because she entered a different part of her menstrual phase. This water being put on is called “masking” because it is literally masking your results.
Trust yourself and be patient. It is NOT a race. It literally can’t be because your body is going to fight you both physically and mentally.
3. You need to eat more.
Females put a lot of blame on hormones as to why they can’t lose weight and it is rightfully sow. But why and do they actually understand it?
By throwing yourself in a harsh deficit filled with processed protein filled foods with no quality fats, you will literally shut yourself down hormonally. Cortisol goes up. Thyroid is screaming at you. Metabolism feels in the dirt. Hunger is through the roof.
That masking I talked about before? Worse than ever before and honestly might not ever go away. You could be losing body fat and probably are in such a deficit BUT the water retention is so rough you just can’t stick to it long enough.
Your hunger also becomes insane making you miserable. Your hormones down regulate from the lack of quality fats and eating enough so your energy drops, you become moody and you begin to move less overall.
All of this resulting in one giant mess. You feel like you have a brick wall in front of you. Weight loss… impossible.
Solution: Eat more. FUEL.
Stop rushing. Focus on eating more protein, more quality fats, and loads of good carbs to fuel workouts. During the workouts, make sure you enjoy it and you are trying to put on more muscle. The more muscle you have, the easier fat loss is.
By focusing on fueling, you will become more knowledgeable and get insanely consistent. Naturally during this phase you will likely drop inflammation and your hormones will get more happy.
You will literally look better.
THEN going for a slow fat loss phase will be a breeze because you trust yourself and the process.
Now you see why it is so hard. So much is working against females for weight loss. If you try to move too fast, it just makes things harder. Take your time, learn and educate yourself, and trust the process.
It honestly pisses me off. It frustrates me. But it is what it is and we gotta make the most of the situation we are handed.
If you need any extra help after reading this, shoot me an email.
If this fired you up and made you want a direct path to success, book a call. Let’s do this.
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