You have decided that you want to lose weight. The question is whether you need to address your diet or your exercise, and which of the two will have the most profound effect on helping you achieve your goals? Should you keep a food diary, eat “cleaner” or is it simply the case that you need to use your no-contract London gym membership a little bit more often? Here we try to give you an answer, and hopefully, by the end of the article, you’ll realise what work needs to be done, and where your focus should be. So if you’re looking to make a change, but are unsure in which direction to head off, then read on.
Easy Formula:
They say that the secret to losing weight is easy – you should all eat less and do more. Simple right? But if it were that easy, you would all eat less and do more! This is just a sweeping statement that doesn’t address the nuances of everyday reality – so, what about the real question, what is more important, eating or exercise?
You will already know that you are meant to exercise moderately every day and of course that you should make every effort to eat a little healthier – less sugar, less saturated fat, and fewer calories. But again, it is very easy to say this, and very difficult for you to do it!
Calories:
They say that a pound of fat is “worth” about 2500 calories. So, if you want to lose that pound you need to become calorie deficient. If you are looking to lose around a pound a week, then by becoming calorie deficient by 500 or so calories a day will mean that you are 3500 calories down by the end of the week. If you do this, then you should lose that pound, and maybe a little more.
But how do you get deficient in calories? Starvation isn’t the answer as it poses a real health risk. Think instead of that figure of 500 calories. Now think how long you’d need to be on a treadmill in order to burn those 500 calories, it’s a long time right! Then work out how to cut 500 calories from your diet, losing the biscuit with your tea maybe, or drinking less alcohol. Now doesn’t that seem easier to do than sweating on a treadmill for an hour or so?!
Time:
You need to think about the time that you engage in various activities. If you utilise your no-contract London gym membership 3 times a week for 2 hours a time, that’s 6 hours. However, that leaves 162 more hours when you are not training. Of course, those 6 hours are very important for improving your stamina, strength, toning, and muscularity, but it is clearly a very small percentage of your week. The impact that remaining 162 hours will have is clearly going to be greater. Now, of course, it is true that you do not have to be in the gym in order to exercise, and that you can do so at any time in the week, but the likelihood is that the real efforts will be confined to the gym, and anything else will just be a bonus.
Increasing activity will help, if you use the stairs instead of the lift, walk an extra bus stop or better still take your dog out more, then you’ll get some benefit. But if you then spoil all of this through poor food choices, you’ll not only become disheartened, you’ll likely give up and then you’ll still have the poor diet, but with no exercise at all! That’s a real recipe for disaster.
80/20
They say that in terms of weight loss that there is an 80/20 split between diet and exercise with diet being the greater part. That doesn’t mean that your exercise should be ignored, or that it is simply unimportant, it isn’t, but it just puts it into perspective.
Diet alone may not lose you as much weight as you’d want, nor will exercise alone be able to battle your poor food choices. What works is a combination of both. You do need to keep an honest food diary, take selfies of your body-shape and measurements, but you also do need to work up a sweat at the gym, push yourself and your body to new heights and work hard. You probably already knew the answer in the back of your mind, and it will not be easy. It will, however, be more than worth it, so make those changes today!
Read Also:
