Weight Loss 101: Is Diet More Important than Exercise?

 

Health and fitness go hand in hand, now we all want to stay fit and shed those extra pounds, but that is no easy task. It doesn’t only require hard-work but also involves motivation and consistency. Now there are different ways to lose weight, you can go on a diet, hit the gym, do a detox or whatever suits your lifestyle best. To get into shape quickly, people want to adopt the option they think could give the fastest results.

There is confusion whether exercise plays a significant role in weight loss or diet, and contrary to the general approach it isn’t exercising instead diet that influences our health and weight.

How is diet more important?

Various factors contribute to diet being more important than exercise. The first reason is that we eat more calories than we end up burning. It is human psychology if we workout or go for a jog we end up eating more calories by snacking up afterward because we think we deserve the reward.

Losing weight by exercise is more difficult than by dieting

Weight loss occurs by burning 20-25% calories via exercise and 75-80% through diet. The reason being the same that losing 20% calories via exercise too requires tons of activity, you have to run about 7-10 miles a day to melt one pound. Imagine if that had been 80% instead of 20% you would have had to spend hours in the gym doing intensive workouts.

Various studies also have proved that people who eat a balanced diet can see better results than the ones who rely on exercise. Among the two groups of people observed, the ones who controlled their caloric intake were able to lose 23 pounds over 15 weeks whereas those who exercised were able to shed about 6 pounds.

Exercise makes you ravenous

When we change our workout regime, our body begins to utilize higher energy and to keep the energy sources full our appetite is increased, so we end up eating more. The only way to control this is to eat clean and healthy and avoid consuming lots of calories.

It is a common belief that people who don’t indulge in physical exertion are the ones that end up putting on weight; this is also not entirely true. Research has indicated that people who were active in their daily lives even suffered from obesity. Another analysis in 2011 showed that children who were involved in physical exertions were also at an unhealthy weight and thus came to the conclusion that physical activity isn’t the primary factor that affects weight loss.

It is easier to cut off calories!

When you initially think of eliminating all calorie-rich drinks, those crispy fries and all the other delicious junk foods from your life, it feels like an impossible task. Trust me it is easier to eliminate these calories, burning them off is tougher.

Don’t neglect exercise

Losing weight via diet is a more comfortable option however that doesn’t mean you give up on working out. You need to create a balance between the two so that you can quickly shed those extra pounds without making severe changes to your lifestyle. In case you need motivation you can read up some weight loss blogs and get ready to burn some fat.

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Kelly Newman is a Fitness Trainer and blogger. She loves to write about everything related to fitness and diet and wants to help people adopt a healthier lifestyle. She works with the team behind Health Listed and does extensive research to provide people actionable health and nutrition information.