Weight Loss: Diet vs Exercise

When it comes to weight loss, there are essentially two main factors – diet and exercise. Just because there are just two doesn’t mean that they are equally as important. This may come as a shock to some, but it won’t surprise anyone who’s gone through a weight loss transformation. It’s said that your diet is 70% of the battle. Exercise takes up the majority of the rest.

Exercising burns far less calories than people seem to think. Consider this: jogging for 30 minutes can burn anywhere from 300-400 calories. 30 minutes of cardio isn’t necessarily the easiest task either. You can reduce just as many calories by removing two cans of soda from your diet every day.

There are, however, many efforts to combat the obesity epidemic occurring in America at the moment. It seems a lot of people are reluctant to see their physical fitness classes be removed from their schools. Our first lady even implemented a program called “Let’s Move” that puts an emphasis on being active to help better prevent obesity.

Despite what many may think, people are actually responding to the calls for more physical activity. Over the last decade, the percentage of Americans who became physically active has been steadily increasing. Unfortunately, however, the same could be said for those suffering from obesity. While exercise has it’s numerous benefits, it isn’t always smart to rely too heavily on it when it comes to weight management.

Multiple studies have been conducted to uncover more on the relationship of fat mass and physical activity. What was discovered was that not being active was, most likely, not the main cause of obesity. Apparently, energy expenditure and physical activity levels in countries that are either developing or already industrialized, are eerily similar – making it unlikely that physical activity is the main component of obesity.

It’s been proven that people end up expending less energy by exercising than what was originally thought. They also increased their caloric intake. This can be attributed to the fact that whenever someone burns calories, their body tells them that these calories need replacing.

Often, your metabolism can determine how well you’ll be able to control your weight. The more weight you lose, the slower your metabolism becomes.

Don’t get us wrong. It wouldn’t be true if we were to say that exercise isn’t a component what-so-ever. Combining exercise and a good diet will better help you lose weight more efficiently. Many people seem to find the time to go to and from the gym and clean up afterwards. If those people dedicated the same amount of time (perhaps even half) to cooking and preparing a healthy meal each day, they’d find their results to come more quickly.

Changing your diet can seem like a daunting task full of daily mental battles and strictly enforced guidelines. Looking at it that way will most likely just set you up for failure. If you happen to fall off, don’t wait to get things going again. If you eat an unhealthy meal, don’t wait until Monday to get back on track. Give yourself cheat days. Eating healthy 5 out of 7 days of the week is better than eating healthy 4 out of 7 days.

Exercise may not make all that big of a difference in weight management, however it can end up helping in a lot more ways. Being physically active has been proven to have positive effects when it comes to things like diabetes, neurological diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular disease and depression.

So, moral of the story: exercise will not aid in weight loss as well as an effective diet would. The evidence just simply is not there to support it. Now, don’t twist our words, exercise is important and combining a fitness regimen with a healthy diet can yield impressive results.

If you have a routine that’s worked for you, comment below and share it with us!

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