Diet Vs. Exercise For Weight Loss – What Works Best?

Feeling agitated with the extra flab around the abdomen? Chances are that your mind will wonder around which to pick – diet vs exercise for weight loss. While both of these do have a very crucial role in your weight management, many think one is better than the other.

We are going to unravel the facts behind everything that you need to know about diet vs exercise for weight loss.

You will come to know that both of these do have important impacts on your body and how well sculpted your body looks. It is very important to ensure that you know of the pros and cons of each of them to ensure better results.

By the end of this article, you will have a clear idea of what is better for your weight loss routine – diet or exercise.

Diet Vs Exercise – What Matters Most For Weight Loss

When it comes to describing whether the diet is better or the exercise for weight, chances are that you are going to have a hard time distinguishing between the two.

Weight loss isn’t as simple as you think it as. This becomes especially hard if you don’t maintain a proper balance between the exercise routine and what you are eating on a daily basis.

It might not seem like a lot but it does play a very crucial role in around this.

Say, for example, you are working out for 2 hours morning and evening but then you come around and stuff your face with McDonald’s, that is not going to work out for you.

It is why it is important to ensure that when it comes to the prospect of diet vs exercise what matters most for weight loss; you know what is going to work for you and what isn’t. It goes without saying that you need to first understand what your body needs and move along in that progress.

But, oftentimes, when it comes to picking just one out of the two for influencing your weight loss, I would definitely suggest the prospect of diet.

What you put into your body directly impacts the metabolism in the body and does have direct impacts in the kind of results you can bring about with your weight loss expectation.

The Role Of Exercise For Weight Loss And Maintenance

We always want you to have a fair pick of the situations involved which is why we are going to walk you through the benefits and the steps to get started with either the exercise or diet for weight loss.

Let us start with the kind of impacts that exercise has on one’s diet.

Exercising can include several forms – be it the breaking your back in the gym or even with the yoga that you practice at home.

It is very important to ensure that you keep an eye out on the prospective types of exercises that suit your body the best and proceed along with the same for the best results. If you are training with heavy weights and equipment, it is very important that you get a trainer for the same.

Types Of Exercises That Promote Weight Loss

1. Interval Training

Interval training is one of the most touted exercise type when it comes to the battle between diet vs exercise for weight loss.

If you didn’t know what this form of exercise is, it is defined as the type of exercise which causes a rapid spike in the heart rate followed by a rapid decline. This is often categorized with the high intensity interval training where you exercise with high intensity followed by a period of rest and then indulging in the exercise again.

The main factor involved in this is predominantly the recovery portion of the exercise. It is very important that you do take the time out to get the required interval for the recovery and then get back to the exercise again.

Apart from the high intensity interval training, indoor cycling is also considered as one of the popular types in the interval training.

The main factor behind this is the fact that the more rigorous workout you indulge in, the more amount of calories you are bound to lose in the process. More the energy usage, the better calorie burning for weight loss.

[Also Read: Mental Tricks to Lose Weight]

2. Strength Training

Strength training isn’t the easiest but when it comes to the kind of desirable results that one needs, this does stand out of the lot effectively.

Many people are stuck with the myth that indulging in strength training ends up making you bulky with a lot of muscles that you don’t want to indulge in. This is completely a wrong misconception and on the contrary, it is quite amazing in helping boost the metabolism as well as help in making you leaner.

Opposing to contrary belief, you can only get rid of the flab in and around your abdomen when you start converting them into muscles and the strength training is considered the best way to do so.

Apart from lifting weights, you can also indulge in the circuit training options wherein you switch faster through the exercises and have been found to promote 30% more weight loss than what you do expect along.

It is necessary that you practice them under the trainer because of the kind of accidents the weights can impose if you do it without any kind of precautions in hand.

3. Running

If getting a gym membership isn’t something that your bank account can afford, all you need to do is grab a pair of sneakers and make a run for it (literally!).

Running or even jogging is considered amazing cardio that can actually help to get rid of the problems associated with the consistent weight gain and such that you have been experiencing.

The best way to get started with this is to ensure that you start it slow. Don’t rush through the process right off the breath because that can end up imposing negative impacts on your body and can end up being a problem for your health.

Work your way up by increasing the intensity and the time of running every single day instead of rushing through it just on the first day itself.

[Also Read: Best Foods to Eat and Avoid After Running]

4. Yoga

As we did mention before, yoga is also an amazing and effective type of exercise that can effectively promote weight loss without imposing many negative side effects that you have been struggling to understand.

It is important to understand that there are several yoga poses that promote weight loss, so you should know which ones would work best for you and then proceed along from there.

Surya Namaskar is possibly one of the best ones in the lot, mainly because of the kind of variations they have with the exercises involved in it.

Yoga poses have been found to help boost the activity of the body and even help boost the metabolism from within that beats down the answer to the “diet vs exercise for weight loss what is better”.

[Also Read: How Yoga Benefits your Health]

5. Zumba

If you are not much into the boring routines involving squats and crunches, Zumba is like a breath of fresh air. Many people who weren’t much into exercising have suggested that Zumba is a fun way to get into the routine for weight loss.

Constant physical exercise on the dance beats and rhythm is what makes it such an amazing option to look into.

It is very important to ensure that you do indulge in getting the training under someone’s profession with the proper and much-needed experience.

This will help you get a better perspective on the situation even better and without any issues at all.

How Does Exercise Promote Weight Loss?

Now that we have shared some of the best exercises under the diet vs exercise for weight loss program, it is time that you do focus on the ways that exercise helps with the weight loss.

You can’t blindly follow through a process if you don’t even know what is facilitating the weight loss in the first place, right?

Let us look through how exercise promotes better weight loss, shall we?

1. It Burns Down the Calories

The first and possibly the most important factor that helps in weight loss because of exercise are because of the fact that it helps with the prospect of burning down of the calories.

In order to lose weight, it is important that you burn more calories than what you are consuming. That itself is enough to get your body shape on track without much to think of it.

Indulging in exercising can help in shedding off the excess calories (R) that otherwise would have ended up getting stored as fats in the body.

Additionally, exercise has also been found to have beneficial impacts in reducing the deposition of abdominal fat which is key to better metabolism for your body.

2. Helps Boost the Metabolism

Yet another one of the reasons to fight for exercise in the battle of exercise or diet to lose weight is mainly because of the fact that it has direct impacts on the metabolism of the body.

When you diet without indulging in any sort of exercise, chances are that you will cause wasting of the muscles as well which is often not the best way to lose weight.

You need to get rid of the fat and not the muscle directly. Exercising has been found to have amazing impacts on boosting metabolism, which, in turn, helps with the prospect of weight loss in a healthy way.

[Also Read: How to Boost Your Metabolism for Weight Loss]

3. Prevents your Emotional Binge Eating

One of the most common reasons behind weight gain is often regarded because of the emotional eating that the majority of us indulge in.

If you are wondering what is the connection between your emotional eating and exercise, it is mainly because of the fact that exercise helps elevate mood.

So, if you do want to lose weight and keep your mind refreshed, exercising can help you out with that.

4. Helps Boost the Energy Levels

It might come off as a surprise but exercise helps in weight loss because it helps in keeping your energy boosted throughout the day.

When you exercise, chances are that the same can help impact your stamina, which in turn keeps you active and moving throughout the day, thus helping in getting rid of the excess flab and pounds that you have been struggling with.

5. Controls Appetite

You might not understand this but exercise promotes weight loss by controlling your appetite as well.

If you do have the habit of ending up wasting away your time by stuffing your face with food at odd times in the day, the best way to go around with it is to ensure that you keep an eye out on what you are eating.

Exercise helps curb one’s appetite and helps get rid of the problems associated with the condition of excessive eating that you have been doing for the past few days.

The Role Of Diet For Weight Loss And Maintenance

Now that we have more or less cleared up your ideas regarding the prospect and impacts of exercise on one’s weight loss program, it is time that we focus on the impacts that diet brings along on one’s weight loss results.

Types of Diets for Weight Loss

There are a number of diets that people follow around for their weight loss results. To help you out with the best one, we have listed out some of the best ones that you can take a look into.

1. Ketogenic Diet

For those who aren’t aware, the keto diet is the one based on the higher consumption of fat accompanied by lower consumption of carbs.

Given that our body burns the carbs for energy when you starve the body with little carbohydrates, the body starts burning the fat which promotes faster weight loss.

It is important that you do keep an eye out on the transition that you make. It isn’t easy to go about eating low or no carbs on a daily basis from depending on your entire diet on it.

[Also Read: Balanced Diet Chart for your good Health]

Make small changes include healthier fat to the diet and the rest will fall into place.

2. Vegetarian Diet

You might not get this but if you are planning on switching to a diet to challenge the diet vs exercises for weight loss, it is important that you do stick to a healthy plant-based diet.

They do have amazing impacts on the body and all for the right reasons.

Several conducted studies over the course of years have found that vegetarians are most likely to have controlled weight and lead a very healthy life on a regular basis.

[Also Read: High Protein Diet for Weight Loss]

3. Vegan Diet

More people trek with veganism because of the beneficial impacts it not just brings to their health but for the environment around them as well.

In this, all you eat is a plant-based diet, even sourcing your dairy from the plants only.

It is important that you prepare your mindset first and check whether you are capable of adhering to such a diet and then proceed with it.

4. The Atkins Diet

The Atkins diet is yet another one of the amazing diet types that you can indulge in if you want to lose weight.

Much like the keto diet, even in this, you need to eat with low carbohydrate intake. The main objective of this type of diet is to focus on getting your insulin levels in control and then the rest does fall into place.

5. Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet includes eating habits by the people in Southern Europe.

The diet primarily focuses on the consumption of more fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats to gain a better boost to muscle development in the body.

1/3rd of the diet is dependent on fats which is why it is important that you divert your primary focus on the same itself.

How Does Diet Help with Weight Loss?

If you are here wondering how diet can help with weight loss, there are a few primal reasons behind the same.

Let us take a look at some of them, shall we?

1. Promotes Metabolism

When it comes to the diet, much like exercise, even this promotes the metabolism of the body. You wouldn’t technically know this but for the most part, it helps improve digestion and the function of the GI tract which further promotes better metabolism.

[Also Read: 15 Ways to Boost your Metabolism]

It is very important to ensure that you do keep an eye out on the food that you are eating. If you expect the pizza slice is going to help with your metabolism, it won’t.

2. Burns Calories

Adhering to a healthy diet has been found to have amazing impacts in managing the signs of excess calories in the body.

If you are managing your calorie intake well, chances are that the same will help you out in managing your calorie burning too.

It is very important to ensure that you do keep an eye out on the associated problems and also on the kind of foods that you are putting into your body.

Finally, What Works – Diet or Exercise?

Coming down full circle back to the question we started with respect to the diet vs exercise for weight loss.

With so many insights shared around, which one do you think pans out as a better option?

Opting for exercise or dieting to lose weight can cause a rift in your mind, making you think that one is better than the other.

While dieting often does have an upper hand in this case, we still suggest that you do maintain a balance between both.

Focus more on what kinds of foods that you are eating on a daily basis but at the same time, ensure that you indulge in some sort of physical activity at least a few times in the week to start with.

This will ensure that you burn more calories than what you are eating and in turn, help with the successful weight loss results as well.

Bottom Line

If you have been struggling to still figure out, start by analyzing your physique and the kinds of needs that you are faced with. Diets and exercises are both dependent on the kind of body and functions that you have.

It doesn’t have a standard norm which is something that only you and your trainer and nutritionist can assess well for you.

We hope this article answers your doubts regarding the questions behind diet vs exercise for weight loss.

Owing to the fact that we have highlighted them around, it is important that you do take a step back to analyze what is good and what is not. This will further provide you with a better idea about the possibilities.