Weight Watchers She Loses, He Loses

Karen Miller-Kovach

Description

She loses, he loses . . . and everybody wins!

There's no doubt about it—when couples embark on a weight-loss program together, they improve their chance of success. Now Weight Watchers, the world's leader in providing weight-loss information, services, and support, presents this practical guide specifically designed to help women and men work together to lose weight and keep it off. It explains the many differences between the sexes when it comes to weight gain and loss and helps couples overcome these differences with dependable and insightful information on:

• The weight-health connection and how the genders differ
• Male and female differences in body image
• The language of weight loss
• Why men lose weight faster than women
• Different weight-loss motivators for men and women
• Eating and exercise strategies that work best for women and men
• How best to support your partner's weight-loss efforts

Research shows that women and men who live together—from newlyweds to empty-nesters—tend to gain weight at similar times. The good news is that, working together as a team, your chances of losing those extra pounds increase. Weight Watchers She Loses, He Loses gives you the information, strategies, and insights you need to make it happen.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Diététique
• diététique
• Nutrition
• Fitness
• Weight Watchers
• The Women
• Health
• Diet
• Woman
• Women
• Weight Loss

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781620458709
• Langue: English

Extrait

WeightWatchers.
She Loses, He Loses
WeightWatchers.
She Loses, He Loses
The Truth about Men, Women, and Weight Loss
KAREN MILLER-KOVACH, MS, RD

John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Copyright 2007 by Weight Watchers International, Inc. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
Wiley Bicentennial Logo: Richard J. Pacifico
Design and composition by Navta Associates, Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .
The information contained in this book is not intended to serve as a replacement for professional medical advice. Any use of the information in this book is at the reader s discretion. The author and the publisher specifically disclaim any and all liability arising directly or indirectly from the use or application of any information contained in this book. A health care professional should be consulted regarding your specific situation.
For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Weight watchers she loses, he loses : the truth about men, women, and weight loss / Weight Watchers.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-10046-2 (cloth)
1. Weight loss-Sex differences. I. Weight Watchers International. RM222.2.W3252 2007 613.2 5-dc22 2006036225
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Weight Is Not Just a Female Issue

Chapter 2 The Weight-Health Connection: How the Genders Differ

Chapter 3 When and How the Mirror Lies

Chapter 4 He s Fit, She s Thin: The Language of Weight Loss

Chapter 5 Why Guys Lose Weight Faster

Chapter 6 Dress Sizes, Belt Notches, and Other Weight-Loss Triggers: Why We Lose Weight

Chapter 7 How We Lose Weight: The Two Sexes Do It Differently

Chapter 8 Women and Men Need to Eat Fewer Calories: What Works and What Doesn t

Chapter 9 Move More to Keep It Off

Chapter 10 Support: Everybody Needs Some

Chapter 11 Couples Win the Weight-Loss Race

Chapter 12 Living Healthy: Lifestyle Is Key

Sources

Credits

Index
Acknowledgments
Any book coming from Weight Watchers is a team effort, and She Loses, He Loses: The Truth about Men, Women, and Weight Loss is no exception. This book compiles the insights, feedback, experiences, and science from dozens of sources, including a number of Weight Watchers leaders and Weight Watchers CEO Linda Huett. The credit for putting it all together in such a masterful and creative way goes to Jodie Shield, who is an MED, RD, and writer extraordinaire.
A special note of appreciation to the couples who generously provided their stories for the Couples Close Up profiles. As you can tell from their pictures, these are real people. Unlike the people described in the introductory stories used to open the chapters and the Real-Life Lessons (which I ve answered based on an amalgamation of anecdotes and questions from a variety of sources), these men and women gave us both information and inspiration, making the contents of the book come alive. Thank you.
Thanks, too, to the Weight Watchers Global Development Team, including Ute Gerwig, Norma Larkin, Sabrina LeBlanc, Palma Posillico, Jane Waterhouse, and Sarah Watson, for their insights and contributions as we delved into the Weight Watchers vault of consumer research.
Finally, a note of appreciation to Nancy Gagliardi from the Weight Watchers Publishing Group and Tom Miller from John Wiley Sons. Thanks for doing all that it takes to turn a concept into a manuscript and finally into a book.
CHAPTER 1
Weight Is Not Just a Female Issue
The statistics couldn t be clearer: the world is getting fatter. Two-thirds of American adults are now overweight or obese. Men and women, empty nesters, and the newly married-the issue of excess weight touches the majority of households in some way. Clearly, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight are a desire and a need for millions of people.
As the world s leading provider of weight-loss services, Weight Watchers has over 40 years of experience helping both women and men lose weight with its comprehensive, proven program that focuses on lifestyle modification. In other words, by following a scientifically effective method that teaches people how to lead healthier lives in a realistic way, Weight Watchers members around the world are achieving lasting weight loss.
Over the years, Weight Watchers has learned a few things about what makes people tick when it comes to weight issues. One of the lessons that has been most illuminating is the gaps between the sexes. The gender gap on the topic of weight is broader and deeper than that on just about any other health-related issue. Despite the huge negative impact that excess weight has on men and women alike, there has not been much medical or clinical research that has tried to understand the differences in how men and women think about weight, talk about their weight-related concerns, or approach weight loss. This book examines what is known about women, men, and weight loss. By exploring the differences, it seeks to provide an understanding of how the genders can join forces to lose weight successfully.
Weight-Loss Research Favors Women
In the world of medical research, men have traditionally been the guinea pigs. Until the past few decades, almost all research on major illnesses has focused on men. In fact, the male-favored gender gap has been criticized as discriminatory, and critics have suggested that it results in better medical care for men than for women. Why have scientists tended to focus their research on men? A key reason is that men are simpler to study from a biological perspective. They do not have the monthly and lifelong hormonal fluctuations that women have; researchers need to control for women s hormonal fluctuations when conducting medical research on them.
There is, however, one area in scientific research in which the vast majority of studies and study volunteers have been women: weight loss. Why? When researchers are recruiting participants for a weight-loss study, the majority of the volunteers are women. In general, weight-loss trials that are designed to include both men and women include 80 to 90 percent women and only 10 to 20 percent men. As you ll learn from this book, this is due to the fact that men tend to be less aware of their need to lose weight, and less focused on weight loss, than women.
The reality is that there are very few studies of weight-loss treatment involving men only in the published medical literature. In doing the research for this book, only three randomized clinical trials (the gold standard in research) done exclusively on men were found. And in the spirit of full disclosure, the condition being treated with weight loss in one of the studies wasn t even obesity-it was erectile dysfunction. The total number of men in the three studies combined was less than 300! That s not even a drop in the bucket compared with the thousands (if not millions) of women who have participated in women-only weight-loss studies.
The lack of male-oriented obesity research is unfortunate because it limits the available pool of knowledge on how best to help men lose weight. Just as women used to be treated for heart disease based on treatments that had been proved effective in men, weight-loss treatment strategies have largely come from studies done on women. Assuming that a man is just like a woman in dealing with weight-related issues is a mistake. Fortunately, Weight Watchers has a great deal of experience in helping men lose weight, and that expertise is shared throughout this book.
Different Sexes, Different Bodies
While the fundamental principles of weight loss are the same for both genders-expending more calories than are taken in-the elements that lead to the creation of the caloric deficit that invokes weight loss are not. Indeed, men and women are different; they are biologically different and emotionally different. Because both biology and psychology are integral to successful weight loss, these differences are extremely important.
The physical variations between the genders require little explanation. The body composition-that is, the proportions of muscle, bone, and fat that make up the male and female bodies-of men and women are quite different. A typical man who weighs 154 pounds has 69 pounds of muscle, 23 pounds of bone, and 23 pounds of fat (the rest is organs, body fluids, and the like). A typical woman who weighs 125 pounds has 45 pounds of muscle, 15 pounds of bone, and 34 pounds of fat. In summary, men are genetically programmed to have more lean muscle mass and heavier bones than women. Conversely, women s bodies are designed to have a higher fat content.
Technically, the definitions of overweight and obesity are based on the presence of excess body fat (though Body Mass Index or BMI is used to categorize people s weight status-more on this in the next chapter). Here, too, the genders differ. Overweight in men is de