Why do men lose more weight on a low-carb diet? A surprising answer

May 12 2020 by , video by Simon Victor in Low Carb Denver, Weight loss

Have you watched Dr. Lucia Aronica’s fascinating video presentation from Low Carb Denver 2020?

If you’ve ever wondered why men tend to lose more weight than women on a low-carb diet, it’s must-see viewing. The Stanford researcher goes into a surprising reason why men may drop pounds faster than women when both adopt low-carb or keto eating.

Want a hint? It has less to do with biology and more to do with gender norms. And Aronica details a simple way that some women might be able to achieve better results on low-carb.

Aronica is a representative from the prestigious Stanford DIETFITS study, in which 609 overweight men and women were randomized to a low-carb or low-fat diet and followed for one year.

Both diets minimized processed foods, refined grains and added sugar. The study found, minus those foods, both groups lost on average the same amount of weight. The New York Times declared: “The key to weight loss is diet quality, not quantity, new study finds.”

But not so fast.

At LCDenver, Aronica presented not-yet published results from a secondary analysis, that examined weight loss by sex and gender. Aronic explained: “Sex is anatomy, physiology and genetics” but gender is “how men and women behave based on society and culture.”

Accounting for sex only, within the low-carb group the men lost significantly more weight than men on the low fat and more weight than women on either diet.

“That might sound like bad news for women,” Aronica said. “But before you all rant, ladies, please wait to watch round two — the gender round.”

That’s when the researchers found a startling difference in how men and women behave on a low carb diet. It revealed that the low-carb diet could be much more effective for women, if only more women would…

What do you think the answer is? Can you guess? What do women do on the low-carb diet more often than men that undermines their success?

We are not going to give away the punch line just yet. Check your response by watching the presentation. See what the answer is and whether you guessed correctly.

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