When one of my athletes wants to lose weight, the question that arises is should I diet more extensively or should I workout harder? The answer is you should exercise, but you should also eat wisely.
You can lose weight from diet alone, but exercise and diet together are better. Without exercise, you’re not only losing fat, you’re also stripping away muscle and bone density. Working out stimulates growth of metabolic tissues which means that you’re burning mostly fat. If you judge by look and feel, you’ll look better. However, if you just judge by the scale, the numbers won’t be that impressive because muscle weights more than fat. Further, you will look better because muscles take up less space than fat. In other words, your clothes will fit better.
Also, studies show that if you lose weight with exercise, you’ll keep it off longer versus losing weight only through diet. You don’t need run a marathon or be a beast in the gym, you just have to build up to it for the exercises. All you need is to build up to 5–6 workouts a week, at less than an hour each.
When you pick an exercise, pick those exercises where you use your body weight against gravity. Don’t avoid resistance training, like curls, bench press, etc; but do more movements that incorporate body weight such as squats, lunges, push-ups and planks.
And remember to diet wisely. Most people will focus on either diet or either exercise. Focus on both. You need to eat smart. People love no carb diets because they offer the fastest results. But, they are not sustainable. Strive for a balanced diet that focuses on getting healthy carbs. Healthy carbs generally come from fruits and vegetables. Also, focus on getting lean proteins and whole grain carbs. Also, don’t cut calories too low because it causes your metabolism to slow and you start to lose muscle mass.
There are a few formulas I like to follow to determine the appropriate calorie intake. If you are following little exercise, then you should multiple your body weight in pounds by 13–15. Then that will determine your calorie intake. If you’re doing moderate exercise (45-60 min/day 3–4 times per week) then you should multiple your body weight by 16–20.
