This Couple Started Working Out Together in Their 40s—But Had Completely Different Results
Weight loss has a gender bias.
Getting fit with your partner can be a lot of fun. But it can also be crazy frustrating—especially if they quickly lose weight and gain muscle while your journey is much more of a struggle.
Fitness influencer Ally Tokar knows what that scenario feels like. The before-and-after photos she recently shared—showing what she and her husband looked like in their 30s and how they look now, in their 40s—perfectly illustrates how two people could follow roughly the same shape-up plan with wildly different results.
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“4.5 years y’all. FOUR AND A HALF FREAKIN YEARS that I’ve been eating vegetables and proteins instead of pizza and drinking 45 ounces of water every damn day and saying ‘no thanks’ to cupcakes when I really just wanted to smear the icing all over my face and moan inappropriately at kids’ birthday parties,” she wrote.
While Tokar struggled to get more fit, her husband, Kory, had a much smoother ride. “And all he had to do was eat a few salads over 3 months and he has a V,” she wrote, describing the toned lines connecting his abs and hips. “Do you have a V? I don’t have a V. WHY DON’T I HAVE A V?????”
Tokar’s story isn’t unusual. And as she found, it’s typically guys who find it easier to lose weight and build definition than women.
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That’s because men typically lose one to two more pounds a week than women do, even when they follow the same age, weight and fitness plan, explains Sean Bourke, MD, co-founder of JumpstartMD, a group of medical weight-loss clinics in the San Francisco Bay Area. “Weight loss is stacked in favor of men on account of differences in hormones, metabolism and muscle mass,” Dr. Bourke previously told Health.
It’s not fair, we know. But luckily, reaching your fitness goals doesn’t have to mean shedding pounds at a steady, rapid clip. If you’re having a hard time losing weight, skip the scale and focus on eating whole, healthy foods and getting regular workouts. It might take longer than your spouse, but you will get healthier and fitter.