When it comes to weight loss, people who hate to exercise would rather try to lose pounds by restricting the amount or kinds of foods they eat. Others would rather hit the gym more often to burn extra calories without going on a rigid diet.
While it’s possible to achieve some weight loss success by choosing to either diet or exercise, the best way to lose weight is doing a combination of both.
“To reduce body weight, a caloric deficit must be created,” says Joseph T. Ciccolo, PhD, assistant professor of community health at Brown Medical School and a research associate at The Miriam Hospital, both in Providence, R.I. In other words, to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume. This can be accomplished by exercising more, eating less, or ideally, both.
Diet or Exercise: Why You Need to Exercise
Losing weight is more than simply cutting out calories. Without exercise to preserve and build muscle, some of the weight loss you see on the scale might be from losing muscle rather than fat. “Anyone with a focus on body weight is off the mark,” says Ciccolo. “What people should be concerned about is their body composition — the percentage of body fat.”
Weight loss from dieting alone also has a low long-term success rate. In one study, more than 90 percent of people who were obese and lost body fat through diet alone regained it within two years.
Although you have may heard that exercise increases appetite, negating the benefits of working out, this isn’t necessarily true — and shouldn’t be a reason to skip the gym. “While an energy deficit can increase appetite, these changes do not necessarily always match up with the feeling of being hungry,” says Ciccolo. If you slightly increase your caloric intake, keep in mind that when you build muscle, your body also burns a few more calories on a daily basis.
Diet or Exercise: Why You Need to Diet
Exercise alone is not the answer either. Many dieters overestimate the amount of calories burned by working out and fall into the trap of thinking that because they exercised, they can eat more. While exercise is vital for many health reasons, the net calories used are less than you might think. A 150-pound person who walks two miles in 30 minutes burns just 150 calories. As a point of comparison, an average six-inch bagel is 350 calories.
“If you exercise but eat more calories than usual, no deficit will be created and your weight will likely stay the same or even increase,” says Ciccolo.
Ultimately, it’s not diet or exercise, but diet andexercise that make the most sense when trying to lose weight. And once you’ve lost the weight, keep up your exercise efforts. “With regard to weight maintenance, the research is very clear that exercise is crucial to maintaining a healthy amount of muscle mass and a low body fat as we age,” says Ciccolo.
Also, keep your eye on new research. Previous studies have shown conflicting results about whether dieting or exercise is better for weight loss. Some recent data also suggest that men and women may respond differently to various weight-loss strategies. Future studies may offer even more insight into whether diet or exercise is better at helping people shed those extra pounds. Until then, keep exercising and counting calories.
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