If you’re trying to lose weight, you’ve probably heard conflicting advice. Maybe your friend swears that dieting is more important for weight loss, while your gym buddies argue that exercising is the way to go….but who’s right?
Exercise
People often push exercise as the answer to weight loss. Everyone from fitness coaches to Coca-Cola says that if you exercise enough, you’ll lose weight. Exercising can help you burn calories and gain muscles, which will raise your resting metabolic rate.
While it’s true that exercising can help you lose weight, you probably won’t lose as much weight as you’re expecting. Exercise only accounts for 10-30% of your total energy expenditure, while digesting food uses around 10% - so, why exercise?
Despite the limited immediate effect exercising has on weight loss, it’s still important for a variety of reasons. Exercise builds muscle, which speeds up your metabolism and accelerates fat loss. Studies have linked exercise with lower risks of developing cognitive impairments, such as dementia or Alzheimer’s. Exercise can reduce your blood pressure and the risk of type 2 diabetes, along with preventing heart attacks and strokes.
But behaviorally, those who exercise are also more conscientious about what they eat - which leads to the next part.
Diet
Most health experts would agree that your diet is more important for weight loss. After all, food is responsible for all of the calories we gain, while exercising only makes up 10-30% of your calorie expenditure.
In a study published in PLOS One, researchers found that the Hadza — an indigenous group located in Tanzania — burn the same amount of calories each day as today’s average Westerner. While an American might spend a large portion of their day sitting behind a desk, the Hadza have a very active lifestyle and spend their time hunting and gathering all day. Despite the lifestyle differences, Westerners and the Hadza burned the same amount of calories.
Researchers concluded that our body adapts to the amount of calories we expend — and that there is also a max we can potentially burn regardless of how much physical activity we do — which means it can be hard to lose weight by exercising more. And that the Hadza are healthier thanks to their eating habits.
What you put in your body matters, but a restrictive diet is not without its drawbacks. Unfortunately, it’s easy to underestimate portions and overeat. It can also be difficult to avoid processed foods. Restrictive diets can be difficult to sustain long-term and can result in harmful eating habits like binge eating. Your body may even conserve fat, stop non-essential systems, and release chemicals to make you think about food when you’re on a diet.
The Perfect Combination
So, is dieting or exercising more important for weight loss? If you are purely looking at it in terms of short-term weight loss, then generally speaking, the answer is diet. It’s very difficult to lose weight without changing your diet. And plenty of people have lost weight by not changing a single thing to their workouts (myself included). However, long-term success in keeping off your weight most likely will involve an exercise component.
Your diet alone can’t build muscle, can’t increase your endurance, mobility or bone density. You still need to exercise to do that. If you want to live a long life, you still need to do some form of physical activity.
There’s no one-size-fits-all way to lose weight and it is different for everyone, but a combination of both dieting and exercising is the most effective way for most people.
Need help losing weight? Contact me at happyhelen@gmail.com today!