Gender: Does it Really Make a Difference?
How Sex Affects Fitness, Weight Loss, and More
-- By Dean Anderson, Fitness & Behavior Expert
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This article is about gender differences in exercise and weight loss. This is your chance to get the facts you need to answer such burning questions as:
- Does weight training cause women to bulk up and look like one of the guys?
- Is it really easier for men to lose weight?
- Do men and women of the same weight need different calorie intakes?
- Should men and women utilize different approaches to exercise?
- Are men and women different in their reasons and motivation for losing weight?
- Do men secretly worry that their outfits make their butts look bigger?
Body Shape and Bulking Up: The Testosterone Factor
FACT: Most women (and many men, for that matter) will NOT build large muscles in response to weight training—especially while restricting calorie intake for weight loss. The ability to build large muscles depends mostly on levels of the male sex hormone, testosterone. Every person has some amount of both testosterone and estrogen, but the average man has 20 to 30 times more testosterone than the average woman. But even this amount is not enough to allow every man to build large muscles. The bottom line is that relatively few men, and very few women, will end up looking like bodybuilders, even with extensive weight training.
