Historically, weight loss for men, was unheard of. Dieting was the domain of women. So why is it that there is progressively more information to be found about dieting for men and mens diets? Why are men starting to catch up with women in body dissatisfaction? Why are they also now struggling with their weight? What has changed?

Dieting follows cultural trends. In the past it was perfectly acceptable for men to stand around the barbeque shirtless with a pot-belly. The same wasn't true for women. Their value and worth was determined by their appearance, men's was determined by their money-making potential and status. But as our culture has changed, more women have entered the workplace and more men have entered the body beautiful stakes in response to the changing body esteem standards for men.

Weight Loss for men has also not been popular because men have always had bigger bodies than women, so body smallness for men has not been valued by our culture. Large mens bodies have been valued as powerful and strong. In fact smaller men are often thought of as having 'small's man syndrome' : designed to compensate for their small bodies, they develop cocky or arrogant attitudes. And thin men have often been thought of as puny weaklings.

Dieting for men seems to be divided into three different categories:

• Some men are dieting in an attempt to lose weight and get thinner, for health reasons or to feel better about themselves (much as women do)
• much dieting for men occurs in the context of body-building too. The aim in this instance is to bulk up muscle and trim off any excess fat which means that special diets can be strictly adhered to.
• Then with the new emphasis on healthy eating and particular diets for spiritual reasons, many men have entered the roots, shoots and tofu game as well. Their aim is not so much to lose weight as it is to purify their bodies.

The one big advantage men have always held over women is that women's percentage body fat varies along with female sex hormone changes. So while most humans are born with similar percentages of body fat, girls experience a fat spurt at puberty which boys don't: boys sprout up, girls sprout up. The same occurs during pregnancy and menopause, neither which affect men.

You can calculate your percentage body fat by clicking here

Thus from puberty onwards, women are designed to carry a higher percentage body fat than men. Women need extra body fat for their bodies to function properly meaning that when women lose too much body fat, such as anorexics, their menstrual cycle becomes erratic or ceases completely and it apparently exacerbates the potential for them to develop osteoporosis.

On the other hand, I've measured the percentage body fat of men (in particular soccer players) who have body fat in the low single digits. For men, this appears to be an indication that they are fitter - and their body does not appear to suffer the ill effects that women do.

The danger of dieting, especially fad diets (and men are just as prone to falling for them as women these days) is that they help men lose muscle and water and then re-gain back fat and in this way it changes a man's body composition so that the more fat they carry relative to muscle, the bigger their chances of becoming fatter and needing to diet.

But in common with women, for those men who hit the gym, build up muscle and then stop, slowly muscle starts being replaced by fat, which slows down the basal metabolism. The slower our metabolism, the slower we utilize calories and the more our body will store food as fat.

Traditionally though, because men have always had bigger muscle content than women, they are physically stronger, have less softness to their bodies and can eat vastly more than women can before they start to gain weight.

When it comes to weight loss, traditionally more men have stepped up their exercise which sadly also puts them at an increased risk of exercise bulimia (they also build muscle faster than women) or cut back on alcohol consumption e.g. beer.

But progressively weight loss for men is more about mens diets and more diet products are leaving the shelves in men's hands. I predict the more men following the same dieting regimes as what women have, the more their weight problems will grow.

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