The first thing that hits the mind when someone is thinking about losing weight is to hit the gym! But a majority of people do not manage to shed any significant weight by doing months of gymming, and wonder what they might be doing wrong! Experts unanimously acknowledge the importance of diet and nutrition in weight loss, placing 80% importance on dieting and attributing a much lower percentage, 20% to exercise! The mantra with weight loss is that you should put your body into calorie deficit so that it reaches out to stored fat to use up as energy to run its functions, and it’s important to find out whether exercise or diet can efficiently get you into a calorie deficit mode. Many people actually believe that exercise drives weight loss, but as they say, you can never outrun a bad diet, so let’s find out why diet is more important than exercise for weight loss.
What is Calorie Deficit?
Calorie deficit happens when someone consumes fewer calories than those burnt while exercising, resting, or performing basic bodily functions. In contrast, a calorie surplus occurs when a person consumes more calories than those that are burnt, leading to weight gain. In order to have a calorie deficit, the average person must cut down food intake by 500 calories per day. This figure is usually sufficient for weight loss without affecting energy levels, hunger, or bodily functions. For women, the number of calories must not drop below 1200 calories per day, and for men, it should not fall below 1500 calories per day.
How To Get Into a Calorie Deficit:
1. Through dieting: When people take in more calories than they require through their diet, the surplus calories are stored as fat in the body. Calorie deficit happens when you eat less than the necessary calories so that your body reaches out to fat stores to run all functions smoothly. If the body doesn’t get the calories it needs to perform its necessary functions from the food, you create a calorie deficit. Putting it simply, calorie deficit occurs when someone takes in lesser calories than those burnt during exercise, resting, and to perform daily bodily functions. To have a calorie deficit, a person must cut down daily calorie intake by 500 calories. When the calories drop down by 500, weight loss starts to happen.
2. Through Exercise: Another method to maintain a calorie deficit is by doing exercise – either by hitting the gym or engaging in physical exercise. Any kind of physical activity, such as brisk walking, jogging, bicycling or high intensity exercises can burn significant calories. Would you believe that you can burn a lot of calories doing basic household chores like mopping and dusting!
Experts however say both dieting and exercise are beneficial while trying to lose weight, and combining both would accelerate weight loss.
5 Reasons Why Diet Is More Important Than Exercise For Weight Loss:
1. You May Overcompensate with Food: People often overestimate the number of calories burnt during exercise and compensate by eating more food!
2. For significantly overweight people, it becomes quite difficult to get into a calorie deficit by sweating out 500 to 1000 calories in the gym without dieting.
3. Exercise may actually ramp up the appetite leading to overconsumption of food.
4. A study has shown that we burn 10% of our calories digesting food we eat and approximately 10% to 30% through exercise.
5. Cutting out empty calories by eliminating processed food, refined carbs, sugar etc., can get you into calorie deficit much easily than sweating it out in the gym.
However, not to undermine the importance of exercise, it drives weight loss, helps burn calories, builds muscle, boosts metabolism, keeps your body healthy, and keep diseases such as depression, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol, high blood pressure away. Although exercise drives and boosts weight loss, dieting is considered a much more important factor. Research says that both exercise and diet are important aspects of maintaining good health, but for weight loss, focus on your diet first and exercise consistently. As we have mentioned above, it is essential to go into a calorie deficit to actually lose weight and the best way to do that is to start on the Rati Beauty Diet, which helps you get lean without compromising on nutrition or health.
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