Body image, weight loss and fairness?

By now, everyone who is close to me knows that I am exercising like a maniac and undergoing a diet (which I have admit has had super fast results). These results have even made many good friends of mine say that they’re envious of how fast my body responds to exercise (although I am very sure that this is said in jest, because they do know this is important to me).

A very good friend of mine, L, was mentioning the other day that she wondered where the fairness was in the ability of some men to lose weight faster than women do. I am not 100% sure if this factoid is true, but according to some, women have more fat than men. If this is the case, there are two possible explanations for differences in weight loss speeds.

a) That women require to have more fat for their metabolic functions than men do.

b) That women start from a higher body fat percentage and thus it takes them longer.

Now, I would hazard a guess that, according to mass transfer laws, women *should* lose weight faster than men if it is true that women actually do have more body fat than men, since the gradient is higher. But this website argues for an evolutionary explanation (my understanding of their explanation is that men are hard-wired to be more athletic than women). What do you think?

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