I am getting a bit weary of people telling my husband how great he looks for a 50-year-old and frequent updates from the bathroom scales, just letting me know that his weight has dropped yet again. I take all the credit for his current state of health of course, but just can’t understand why my weight doesn’t follow the same downward trend. While I am of healthy weight for a woman of my age and am weight stable at an age where my hormones just want me to gain weight, I look at my lean and apparently ‘youthful’ looking husband with envy.
I know I am not alone. This is a common lament from the many women I have shared my low carb theories and advice with. Remove most carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice, cereal and processed foods) from your diet, increase good quality natural fats (and what man doesn’t like some good old-fashioned butter, cream and cheese in his diet) and watch his weight just fade away. There are endless stories of women who watch their husbands lose weight with a minimum of low carb effort, while they themselves lose weight on the same diet, at a much slower rate.
There is actually some science behind this phenomenon. To put it very simply men tend to have more lean muscle tissue which burns more calories than body fat does, even during rest. When men and women follow the same weight-loss programme, particularly one as effective as low carb, men do drop weight faster. Note though that this is short-term and weight-loss between the sexes does even out in the long-term. While initially you may not lose as much as your husband/partner on a low carb/high fat diet, be patient, your weight will drop, and in addition your skin will improve, your energy levels will increase and your aches and pains will decrease.
There was a time that my husband queried my increased use of saturated fat in his diet and whether there was a small possibility I could be fast tracking him to an old age plagued with heart disease, diabetes or even to an early grave. Those concerns have well and truly dissipated, however, as at 50 he looks, runs, behaves, and works like a man in his 40’s (he would say 30’s but let’s be realistic). So low carb by default (my fault) he may be, but he is certainly not complaining.
