In today's world obesity is becoming one of the major problems worldwide. While it continues to spread like a pandemic, fighting it is becoming more and more challenging. This is because obesity can only be fought by watching your diet and exercising. And, therein lies the rub "our busy lifestyle". We choose unhealthy foods from fast-food restaurants because it's easier than cooking, and it saves time. This is the same reason why we do not do exercises, No Time! But, what if you only had time for one of these approaches? Which one would you choose? Diet or exercise?
Well, the answer really depends on you. First you should ask yourself, what is it that you're trying to achieve? Are you only interested in losing weight, or you want to live a healthy long life? If your goal is just to lose weight, watching your diet should be sufficient. But, if you want to improve the quality of your life and live longer and healthier life, you should start focusing on exercise, or both.
Diet for Weight Loss
In a twelve-week long study done over a decade ago (year 2000), scientists compared the weight loss progress of people on "diet only"programs to people on "exercise only" programs The overweight women in "diet only" program lost 5.5kg (12.12 lbs) and men lost 8.4kg (18.51 lbs). This was accomplished by reducing the caloric consumption of women by an average of 945 kilocalories per day and men by 1705 kilocalories per day.
On the other hand, in "exercise only" group, women lost 0.6 kg (1.32 lbs) and men lost 0.3 kg (0.66 lbs). This group had performed walking and jogging exercises 5 days a week for 30 minutes a day. On average, a woman burned 190 kcal per session while man burned 255 kcal. Women in this program lost about 2% of their body fat, while women in "diet only" program lost about 6% of their body fat. The men in "diet only" program lost about 5% of their body fat, whereas men in "exercise only" program did not see any significant change. As you can see, that eating diets low in calories is much more efficient method for losing weight.
Exercising for better life:
Do not let the results from the above study destroy your motivation to exercise. The study did not include any weight training exercises, which are essential to muscle building and losing fat. Exercises have several other benefits than weight loss. A recent study shows that every hour you spend doing exercise, you increase your lifespan by 2 hours. It's not just longevity; it’s also the quality of your life. The more exercises you do, the better your chances of being disease free at the old age. Listed below are some of the advantages of doing exercises:
- Reduced risk of premature death.
- Reduced risk of diabetes.
- Builds and maintains healthy muscles, bones, and joints.
- Improves your psychological well being.
- Improves your mood.
- Reduces depression and anxiety.
- Reduces high blood pressure or risk of developing high blood pressure.
- Reduces high cholesterol or risk of developing high cholesterol.
- Reduces the risk of developing colon and breast cancer.
- Improves your brain function.
- Improves your productivity at work.
- Helps in getting better night's sleep.
- Slows the aging process.
As you can see that dieting may be sufficient for weight loss but exercising is crucial for being fit For many people, the purpose of losing the weight is being healthy, and if you are one of those people, do not stop your journey at weight loss. You should start a good exercise program that would help you in living your life to the fullest.
