Is Diet Or Exercise More Effective For Fat Loss And Muscle Tone?

by Rusty Moore

Obviously both diet and Exercise are key when it comes to losing weight and getting a toned body. The question is this…are they equally important or is what you eat more important than what you burn? As a Fitness site author I am a huge believer in Exercise, but I would say the real key to muscle tone and a sexy body lies in what you eat each day.

In a Perfect World You Should Combine Diet and Exercise

For best results, Exercise with diet is your best route to a lean body. The problem is this, things don't always go as planned and life gets busy. There are times when you simply can't Exercise, but you always have time to diet. No matter how busy life gets, simply follow your diet and you will make forward progress. Exercise whenever time allows, but no matter what stick to your diet (whatever diet plan you end up following).

"You Can't Out-Exercise a Big Mac"

A Big Mac has 540 calories. Do you realize how much exercising it takes to burn those calories? Well about an hour on the elliptical trainer at a moderate pace would do the trick! So after an hour of boring cardio, you are back to square one. You probably won't lose weight at all especially if you added the fries and soft drink. Large fries would be an extra 570 calories and a large non-diet soft drink would be an extra 310 calories. So how much exercise would you have to do to burn 1,400+ calories? Let's not even go there!

It Is Much Easier to Create A Large Calorie Deficit With a Clean Diet

The most proven way to lose weight (really the only way) is to create a calorie deficit. A calorie deficit is basically when your body burns more calories than what you eat each day. To lose two pounds of fat per week, you need to create a daily calorie deficit of 1,000 calories (2 pounds of fat is 7,000 calories). Would you rather hop on an exercise bike for 2 hours or just not eat those calories in the first place. To create a 1,000 calorie deficit through exercise you have to hit moderate cardio for close to two hours. That is brutal! My suggestion in to not eat those extra 1,000 calories in the first place!

This is Simplifying Fat Loss a Bit

The body is actually much more complex than simply responding precisely to a calorie deficit. There are WAY more variables that come into play when it comes to fat loss; the type of food you eat, the timing of your meals, the metabolic effect of exercise, the muscle sparing effect of resistance training, etc. There are a lot of things that come into the fat loss picture that I'm not addressing here.

Diet is MUCH More Important Than Most People Realize

If you are eating a bunch of calories, a large part of your time spent in the gym is a waste. What is crazy is that over 80% of all articles in Fitness magazines focus on exercise, while diet is the key to getting a great looking body. I am a HUGE believer in regular exercise, I just think that diet is what is holding most people back from hitting their goals.

Your Will Get WAY More Out of Cardio When Your Diet is In Order

Show me an overweight person who works outs hard 5 times a week and I will show you a person who doesn't eat well! The mistake people often make in gyms is that they copy the workout routine of a person who is in great shape. The real reason that person is in great shape is because of their clean diet. True weight loss happens "behind the scenes". Working out speeds along the process, but the foundation of a great body is in a clean diet.

Bonus: Here is a Way to Increase Your Self-Discipline

Self-discipline sometimes just depends upon how you view certain things. It really isn't that a certain person is just naturally more disciplined than other people, often times they just think a bit differently about a certain task. Here is the way I view cardio that almost forces me to follow a strict diet. I tell myself that if I do cardio while following a bad diet, that I am accomplishing nothing as far as getting lean is concerned. Since I do a pretty intense High Intensity Interval Training Routine, I would be mad if I didn't see results! I follow a clean diet, because I can't stand the thought of working out that hard for nothing. It works the other way as well. When I'm following a clean diet, I can't stand the thought of not doing cardio because I know it will be that much more effective!

About the Author:

Want a slim and toned body like Jessica Alba or Will Smith? Learn the Fitnessblackbook.com/category/dieting_for_fat_loss/">Diet and Exercise techniques of Hollywood's Hottest Actors and Actresses. Click here for advanced, up-to-date, Fitnessblackbook.com/">Fitness Tips!