Why eating right is just as important as exercising?

Exercise is important for fat loss and overall weight management, but your diet has the largest impact.

Trying to lose fat or maintain your current weight can be difficult and even though we all know that a good combination of diet and exercise are essential. Which one is more important? If you could chose would you hit the gym or call it a night and munch on your favorite salad?

Let’s make a little comparison here; there are about 200 calories in a chocolate bar which would take you about an hour to burn or you could simply not eat the chocolate bar. How about running for 30 minutes a day to make up for those 2 cans of soda you had at lunch. There are plenty of HIGH sugar, HIGH calorie foods that we can cut out from our diets to see if we would see our fitness goals manifesting more quickly.

Yes, you can lose weight through diet alone but exercise is an important component and without it, only a portion of your weight loss is from fat - you’d also be stripping away muscle and bone density. Since working out stimulates the growth of your metabolic tissues, losing weight through exercise means you’re mostly burning fat. The number on the scale might not impress you (I say chuck the scale out!), but because muscle takes up less space than fat does, you look smaller and your clothes fit better. Remember, muscle is your friend - so don’t be afraid to life heavy!

Of course a combination of diet and exercise will yield the best results long term and exercise has other countless benefits beyond fat loss or weight management like slowing down the aging process and improving your mental health. But if you are on a mission to lose fat you are more likely to get more bang for your buck if you pay a little more attention to the type of foods you consume. Good news! The numbers show that to lose fat with exercise and keep it off, you don’t need to run marathons. You just need to build up to five to seven workouts a week, 50 minutes each, at a moderate intensity, like brisk walking or Zumba - find what you like and do that.

Set your goals then sweat your ass off until you get there!

Questions? Feel free to drop me a message on any of these platforms.

Twitter

Instagram

© SWEAT FITNESS NAMIBIA