When someone asks if diet or exercise is best for weight loss we answer it very easily by saying both are equally important. We tell them that you need to exercise everyday and along with it you need to take less calories than the number of calories you spend. Theoretically this might be true but what about practicality? Is it really true practically? Does that really work? Let’s check what experts has to say about this.
Nutrition and Exercise are Both Equally Important for Weight Loss
This statement completely depends on the person you are talking to. It can either a good suggestion or a bad one. There’s no doubt that both are very important for healthy body but do they really weigh equally? All the exercises are not meant for weight loss and they cannot help you if your nutrition or diet is out of control. Many say that counting calories is important when you work on weight loss which is actually true. If you do not check on your calories and all the nutrients you eat then all your efforts on workouts may go in vein. This may seem easy but is isn’t. People really underestimate the food stuff they eat especially cereals and meat. They eat so much of processed food that contains loads of calories, sugar, fats and salt; these are further low in fiber, phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals. Even when they finally choose to eat fresh vegetables and fruits, they go wrong while choosing them. Potatoes, apple juice, iceberg lettuce are all wrong choices.
There are many reasons why people fail at weight loss and it varies from person to person. Many lies to themselves underestimating the calorie intake by 700 to 800 calories and they even misinterpret the workouts. They think and say that they are working a lot more than they actually do.
The Solution
Though people keep lying to themselves this is not a big problem to solve. Be truthful to yourself. Ask yourself if you are really working as hard as you think you should and change at least 75% of your diet by replacing unhealthy processed food with whole grains, colorful vegetables and fruits, pulses and legumes, etc. Carry your homemade food with you so that you don’t get tempted by outside food. It’s not a tough task if you are really determined to lose weight and feed your body with foods which only fuel and nurture your body.
Eat Smart & Workout
Coming back to the question that does nutrition and exercise weigh equally for weight loss, the answer is no. This is the answer given by experts who have conducted hundreds of studies which gave a conclusion that though exercise alone can give result, diet gave better results.
A batch of people were asked to exercise everyday and keep the diet same and another batch of people were asked to calculate the calories intake and expenditure on day to day basis and eat accordingly; they were asked not to exercise. As a result they found that the exercise batch has lost weight but the diet controlling batch did not. The reason was that they were all terrible at calculating calories. We humans are really bad at calculating the calorie intake and calorie expenditure that spoiled the game. Up on conducting further studies they found that if calculated properly and followed the diet the right way, diet can alone help lose weight. That is why they say 75% is diet and 25% is exercise. Combine both diet and exercise to get good results.
- Hitting a gym or doing aerobics is all easy to do but we all fail at calculating calories. Here is a calculator that will help you estimate the number of calories you need per day. Make sure that you do not lie to yourself and eat right after calculating it. http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html
- Cut down 20% of the calories you calculate in order to lose weight.
- Take more proteins to stay satiated. How much protein do you need per day? Usually it is recommended to take 1g of protein per kg of body weight. Suppose you are 100kg then you should usually take 100g of protein. But as you are trying to lose weight, the number differs. Suppose you want to come down to 70kg, then target to eat 70g of protein instead of 100g.
- Mostly people try to calculate calories and accordingly they set targets for weight loss
but it is recommended to calculate nutrients. Once you are comfortable calculating calories, try to calculate the amount of nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins and fats to be accurate.
