Research

Hormonal

Men experience greater magnitude of weight loss and cardiometabolic improvement (insulin sensitivity, lipids) from low-calorie diets than women, but women maintain these benefits better during weight maintenance due to lower metabolic rebound.

If you are a woman, expect your initial weight loss on a strict low-calorie diet to be slower than a man's, but recognize that your body may be better at keeping your blood fats and insulin sensitivity stable once you stop dieting. Focus on the long-term maintenance of health markers rather than just the scale number during the first 8 weeks.

StrongQualifiesHIGH confidence
Men lost more body weight during the LCD period... but regained more weight during the follow-up period than women... improvements in HOMA-IR, muscle and hepatic insulin sensitivity... were more pronounced in men than women... women demonstrated a lower rebound in HDL-cholesterol, triacylglycerol and diacylglycerol
Inez Trouwborst et al. · Nutrients · 2021

Why this rating

Large randomized controlled trial (n=782) with rigorous statistical adjustment for weight change and baseline differences.

Source

Sexual Dimorphism in Body Weight Loss, Improvements in Cardiometabolic Risk Factors and Maintenance of Beneficial Effects 6 Months after a Low-Calorie Diet: Results from the Randomized Controlled DiOGenes Trial

Inez Trouwborst et al. · Nutrients · 2021

DOI 10.3390/nu13051588

rct · n=782Cited 29×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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