Why are men so smug about losing weight?

[Bikergran]

Is it just me, or do other women get utterly p*ssed off when men stop scarfing down beer and chips, lose weight, then a) strut round like they're Mr Universe and b) tell women they don't understand why they're making such a fuss about dieting, it's easy. BIL has just come to stay for a few days, first thing he announced when he walked in was his weight. He's stopped drinking 4-5 pints a night, of course he's going to lose weight!! Of course I said "Well done!" but I just wanted to throw something at him........

Sounds like you have a BIL. He sounds like a dickhead.

That was supposed to say ‘sounds like you have a BIL problem’ 🤦🏻‍♀️

Is managing one’s weight ever impressive? You are one of those people who equate weight with virtue. Fat people are lazy, gluttonous and of lower value. Thin people are virtuous, honourable and deserve to be looked up to.

it’s your attitude that’s the problem.

And they reveal themselves are being people who equate weight with virtue. It messes with them when people lose weight using medication as they see it as cheating and they don’t credit that sort of weight management as virtuous.

I am still to hear what the competition is and who it is they think are being cheated?

He cut out alcohol and one meal a day in an effort to lose weight, I don’t get what the smugness is other than jealousy on your end.

It’s not about bashing, if anyone loses weight that’s amazing- but unless that person readdresses their relationship with food all the good work to loose weight will be undone when they finish the treatment

I’ve always found the exact opposite.

And what’s to say that many of those on weight loss injections aren’t doing this?
I stopped taking WLI in November at 61kg. 6 months later I am… 61kg.

I don't know if that's entirely true. Someone else might enlighten me. I have been exactly a stone overweight for 10 years. I don't gain any or lose any. If I lose a stone which I'm in the process of doing through fasting/exercise, and then return to her similar diet that I had during the 10 year period am I going to put any on?

Probably, as you were eating to maintain a weight 1stone higher than your new weight. You will need to drop your daily calorie intake to maintain your new lower weight.

While on Mounjaro I calorie counted and lost 3 stone. When I finished taking it, I calculated how many calories I’d need to eat to maintain my new lower weight, and have stuck to that since.

And that’s fabulous for you, but the person I know has always been a compulsive overeater( at her own admission) , so while the weight loss injections are certainly working (over a stone loss ), I do worry that her old eating habits might come back

Which is exactly what happens if someone goes on a diet and doesn’t make a permanent change after losing the weight. There’s no prize for doing it the “right” way.

They might. And they might not. But at least when she stops taking it she’ll be starting from a lower point and has a chance of maintaining it. I doubt she had any real chance of losing the weight at all without the WLI.

That is good to know. Thank you. It makes sense I guess because you're shoving around a bit more weight!

Also she may not need to stop taking it at all. Many are seeing it as a lifelong medication, just like statins etc.

I can lose about a stone in a couple of weeks each spring very easily this way, but then it becomes much harder. Tend to lose more in spring/summers when salads and smoothies are nice lunches and put it back on in winter when the weather makes me want comfort food and not go out as much. I don't talk about weight much with anyone but my wife and my mother when she tells me off for getting too fat, she seems to do it less now, don't think I'm smug, but am quite pleased with myself as much with the weight as with avoiding a lot of temptations.

I’m finding the exact opposite

Show him this.
Metabolic Rate:
Men typically have a higher metabolic rate due to their lower percentage of body fat and greater muscle mass compared to women. Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat, even at rest.

Body Composition:
Men tend to store more visceral fat (fat around the organs), while women tend to store more subcutaneous fat (fat under the skin). Losing visceral fat improves metabolic rate, which can contribute to faster weight loss in men.

Hormonal Factors:
Hormonal differences between men and women can also play a role, with men having higher levels of testosterone, which promotes muscle growth and metabolism.

Totally bitter and jealous!

Who wouldn't be watching him losing weight on the same effort of exercise and eating nearly twice as much and listening to him whinging about being hungry?

I'd love it if my moderate excess causing multiple sites of painful chaffing after running could be metabolised away so easily! Why wouldn't I be jealous about it???

He will be hungry though… by nature of his size he’ll be burning more calories than the OP, so needs more calories to not be ‘hungry’. I find that when I’m burning the same number of calories as I consume I feel great, but if I try to consume notably fewer than I burn (ie lose weight) I’m shaky and hungry and feel awful.
So he may be eating twice as much food as her, but could still feasibly be feeling hungrier if he’s in a bigger calorie deficit.

It seems to me, based on people I know and on the many celebrity examples, that men DO find it easier to lose weight once they put their minds to it. I think they have a less emotional relationship with food than women, usually, although I don't know if this is innate or culturally determined or what. And they like stuff where they can do sums and make calculations - % body fat, eating X calories, X grams of protein / carbs and so on. It's like a science project.

When you see an interview with a well-known man who seems to have halved in size (Tom Kerridge, Nigel Lawson, Peter Jackson, whoever) it's generally very factual: "I swapped burgers for salads", "I stopped drinking beer", "I cut out all sugar" etc. They've got much more of a "decide, once, what needs to be done and do it" kind of attitude. They don't waste time sort of wallowing in their guilt about how they got the be obese in the first place and all that; they have less of a problem managing their negative emotions without a bad diet. Sure, men have plenty of unhealthy was of coping with unhappiness, but they tend to be different ones. Again, not sure if this is innate or more of a learned behaviour. But they do seem better at it.