Is weight loss really harder for women? We fact-checked

What did @bhushan_namaslay actually say?

The creator made three claims: men have higher testosterone, which builds more muscle, which burns more fat; women have higher essential body fat percentages due to hormonal and reproductive needs; and when men and women eat the same meal, men burn more calories because of greater muscle mass. The overall conclusion was that women can still lose weight, they just need more time.

To be fair, the audio quality is rough and some terminology gets lost in translation, but the core arguments are identifiable. These are not fringe ideas. They show up constantly in fitness content. The question is whether the science actually supports them as cleanly as the video implies.

Does the science back this up?

Mostly yes, but with enough nuance missing that some women could walk away with the wrong impression about what they can actually control.

The testosterone-muscle-metabolism link is real. Men average 270-1070 ng/dL of testosterone versus 15-70 ng/dL in women (Bhasin et al., 2010, New England Journal of Medicine), and testosterone does promote muscle protein synthesis. Muscle tissue burns roughly 6 calories per pound per day at rest compared to roughly 2 for fat (Wang et al., 2010, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition). So yes, more muscle means higher resting metabolic rate.

On essential body fat, the American College of Sports Medicine puts women's essential fat at 10-13% versus 2-5% for men. That gap exists largely because of sex hormones, reproductive tissue, and breast tissue. This is not controversial.

The thermic effect of food claim, that men burn more calories digesting the same meal, is where it gets more complicated. Thermic effect of food scales with lean body mass and total metabolic rate, not sex directly. A woman with high muscle mass will have a higher thermic response than a sedentary man.

What did they get wrong (or right)?

The creator gets the broad strokes right but oversimplifies the mechanisms in ways that could mislead people.

Saying men burn more calories eating the same food than women because of muscle is close to accurate, but it treats sex as the independent variable when lean body mass is the actual driver. Research by Ferrannini (1988, Metabolism) showed thermic effect of food correlates with insulin sensitivity and lean mass, not sex per se. A woman who resistance trains and builds lean mass closes much of that gap.

• Right: Higher male testosterone leads to greater average muscle mass.
• Right: Women have higher essential body fat requirements due to reproductive physiology.
• Right: Muscle mass increases resting metabolic rate.
• Oversimplified: Framing the thermic effect gap as inevitable for all men versus all women ignores individual variation driven by training status and body composition.
• Missing: Menstrual cycle phases affect substrate oxidation and appetite signaling. Women may actually oxidize more fat during the luteal phase (Tarnopolsky, 2008, Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism).

The conclusion, that women just need more time, is reasonable but also undersells what actually helps: progressive resistance training to close the lean mass gap.

What should you actually know?

Sex-based metabolic differences are real, but they are not destiny. The variables women can change, specifically muscle mass and training consistency, have a direct effect on metabolic rate and fat loss speed.

A 2020 study by Roberts et al. in Obesity Reviews found that when women follow structured resistance training programs, differences in fat loss rates between sexes narrow substantially over 12 weeks. The baseline disadvantage is real. The ceiling is not fixed.

If you are a woman struggling with fat loss, the hormonal environment matters, but it is not the only story. Sleep, protein intake (Stokes et al., 2018, Nutrients found women often under-consume protein relative to needs for muscle retention during a deficit), and training load are modifiable. Testosterone levels in women can also be clinically low due to conditions like hypothyroidism, PCOS-related hormonal dysregulation, or post-menopausal decline. If you suspect a hormonal issue is affecting your metabolism, a telehealth provider can run a basic panel. That is not the same as self-diagnosing from a fitness video.

The creator is right that women can lose weight. The framing that they just need more time is a bit passive. What they often need is a program built around their physiology, not a scaled-down version of what works for men.