Diet, Exercise, or Both??? A Question We All Want to Know!!!

A lot of people are wondering if they should just diet or exercise and others wonder if they should do both diet and exercise together. My background is I graduated with a bachelors degree in Exercise and Sport Sciences and a lot of my classes, of course, were on diet and exercise. We were also constantly debating whether you should diet and/or just exercise. So, the information on this blog should help you to understand the differences of doing diet and exercise together or doing just one!!!!

Difference Between Overweight and Obesity???

First of all, I want to tell you the difference between being overweight and obese.

Definitions:

• Overweight:is the excess amount of body weight that includes muscle, bone, fat, and water.
  
• Obesity: is a medical condition in which excess body mass has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy.
  

The reason I give you these definitions is a lot of people think just FAT people are overweight, when in all reality, body builders are considered overweight but are very healthy. Yes, most people overweight are also obese, but I just wanted to clear that up.

How to correctly measure Overweight and Obesity? BMI!!!

BMI, body mass index, is the correct and most accurate way to measure if you are over weight or obese. Here is how you calculate BMI: (Also, you can go to my sponsor links and find a BMI calculator, press the down arrow if you can't find it!!!)


Suppose you weigh 160 pounds and are 5 feet 10 inches tall;

1. Convert you height into inches: (5 feet x 12 inches) + 10 inches = 70 inches
2. Now (the hard part!) square your height: 70 x 70 = 4900
3. Divide weight by the squared height: 160 / 4900 = .0326
4. Multiply by the correcting factor of 703 since you're not using metric: .0326 x 703 = 22.9 BMI

Now that you have your BMI, lets look at the chart to determine where you are: (click to make bigger)

Now that we have determined where you stand, lets talk about the differences in diet and exercise.

There have been a lot of Journals written about Diet and Exercise and I have posted a summary of a Journal By Sopko et al. (1985) at the end of this blog that measured the difference between a Diet only group and an Exercise only group. The funny thing is that when they did the same caloric depletion, they were almost exactly the same in the amount of weight lost!!! HMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!! (Also, I put a table at the bottom of the summary of different journals that got the same results).

You have to be careful, because there are a lot of website and different studies done that says dieting is the best way to lose weight when compared to exercise, but the funny thing is that in those studies, the caloric depletion of dieting was a lot higher then the caloric depletion in exercise. I wonder why these smart people wouldn't think of things like this?

Now, lets be honest. We all know the answer to the question: Diet, Exercise, or Both? Its BOTH!!! When you diet, as well as have a moderate to vigorous exercise routine, you are going to lose weight a lot faster then just diet or exercise alone. The reason is when you diet and exercise together, you have a greater caloric depletion because you are restricting caloric intake by dieting and expending calories through physical activity.

Which Diet Should I Choose???

You have to be careful because there are a lot of diets out there and some of them could be hazardous to your health and will only last as long as you are on the diets. For one example, the Atkins Diet. My research paper for graduating and receiving my Bachelors in Exercise and Sports Science was on the Atkins Diet. I found a lot of different alarming facts. For instance, in the Atkins Diet, you are supposed to stop consuming carbohydrates. Your body runs off of carbohydrates for energy and when you take away the carbs, your body will actually start to take your muscle fibers, get the protein out of them, and break them down in order to produce glucose and fructose so your body can produce energy and what that results in is week muscles and muscle atrophy. Also, when you finish the Atkins diet and start eating carbohydrates again, your body will start to store them more rapidly because it went through a starvation mode and does not want to be deprived of carbohydrates again which will result into gaining weight.

My wife recently did a diet called the HCG diet!!! Wow, my wife has tried a lot of different diets but nothing like this one. The HCG diet helped her to lose weight rapidly and keep it off. I have some sponser links you can click on to see more about the HCG diets.

In conclusion, Diet and exercise, both together, is the best way to lose weight and also keep it off but, be careful with which diet you chose. GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY WEIGHT LOSE!!!!!!