Diet Exercise and Weight loss

The human body is a wonderful thing as it has adapted over millions of years to the environment around us. The body has thrived through heat, cold, dark, light, feast, and famine.

The body has learned to hoard energy in times of famine. When food intake drops, the body doesn’t know and doesn’t care, if you’re dieting or simply unable to find enough food. To the body, a sustained drop in calories means one thing – its survival time. The body begins to hoard body fat as sort of an insurance policy against the coming hard times. If the decreased calorie intake means something has to go weight-wise, the body sure isn’t giving up that insurance. No way, instead, the body will begin to sacrifice healthy muscle tissue.

So, with most fad or crash diets, it isn’t fat that is being lost, it’s healthy tissue. As soon as food intake increases again, the body happily starts regaining all that lost muscle tissue and the weight loss goes right back on. That’s why exercise and weight loss have to be partners in any successful long-term weight loss program.

Exercise and weight loss work hand in hand with the body’s evolutionary adaptations to ensure successful and healthy weight loss. Regular exercise raises the body’s metabolism so that calories are burned more efficiently. Not only that, but you feel better too. You don’t have to be training for a marathon to enjoy the good feelings that come with some moderate exercise. When your metabolic rate rises, in turn, this sends a clear message to the body that any reduction in food intake does not cause alarm. The body instead properly attributes the drop in calories to the increased activity brought on by regular exercise. Under these circumstances, the body doesn’t hoard fat like a miser. Instead, it burns body fat like there’s no tomorrow to keep up with the energy demand.

The result is naturally efficient weight loss. The weight comes off and stays off. This is why exercise and weight loss are the keys to successful dieting. This natural healthy system has worked for a long time and there is no reason to think it is going to stop anytime soon.

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Health Benefits of both diet and exercise

Even if weight management is not your goal, there are also many health benefits to a well-balanced diet and regular physical activity. There are health benefits to both dietary restriction and increased exercise. Dietary changes motivated by a desire to lose weight often lead to reduced intake of simple carbohydrates and saturated fats, foods with established adverse health effects. As for exercise, increasing one’s daily activity is associated with many positive cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and mental health benefits. Regarding weight loss, however, the effectiveness of the two strategies may not be equivalent.

If you are overweight, you are at risk for pre-diabetes. But start on a combination of moderate physical activity and a sensible diet now, and you can lower your risk for diabetes and other diseases. Find ways to include daily activity and healthier food choices in your life. For the best success, start slow and increase gradually; squeeze in one 10-minute walk and have an apple with lunch.

Using Both Diet and Exercise

If you want a stable, effective, and successful weight loss then you have to take care of both diet and exercise. You need to maintain 80% nutrition and 20% exercise rule. The safest and most sustainable way to reduce weight is a combination of mindful nutrition practices and regular exercise in the long term. Creating a caloric deficit and speeding up your metabolism through exercise, can help you be successful on your weight loss journey. Diet just means eating healthy, lower-calorie meals. Exercise means being more physically active.

The theory behind diet or exercise as a tool for weight loss is simple: either decrease the energy intake or increase the activity energy expenditure to a point where total energy expenditure exceeds energy intake. The total number of calories you burn for energy each day is your total daily energy expenditure. To lose weight, the number of calories you burn should be higher than your calorie intake.

In conclusion, the current data suggest that dietary restriction has significant advantages over exercise as a weight loss tool. A strategy employing both techniques is the most effective for weight loss and will have the greatest benefit to the patient’s overall health.