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Should You Exercise Or Diet To Lose Weight?

By Howe Russ


While there are many common myths and questions surrounding weight loss and fitness, it seems whenever you go to a gym you will hear people asking is diet more important than exercise or is it the other way around. Today we will help you to get the the bottom of this conundrum and improve your own fitness results in the process.

Depending upon who you ask and their own fitness background, it's highly likely that you will get a different answer every time you pose this question to somebody. Ultimately, many of us base our decision purely off our own experiences and opinions. For instance, everybody has a friend who is always trying to latest celebrity diet plan. That friend will probably put huge faith in their eating plan being the most important factor because it's what they know.

Likewise, however, those with a long background of exercise under their belts will be much more likely to advise you that you need to concentrate more on the fitness aspect of your lifestyle. Many people even go as far as to advise that if you do this effectively, you can pretty much eat whatever you want. So who is correct?

Actually, it's neither.

Rather than see the potential benefits of both areas, people tend to place a priority on one over the other. This ends up leading them down a path towards failure, of course. For instance, if you ever hear somebody telling another person that your diet makes up 80 percent of your results and exercise only accounts for the other twenty percent, try to avoid falling into the same mentality.

At the end of the day you should be applying both factors if you want to see results and maintain them. If you are trying to work out how to lose weight and you only apply the rules of one principle you will tend to fall into one of two categories, both of which can be seen at most gyms and workplaces around the world:

* Somebody who follows a new eating routine every 3 months and tries to keep up to date with whatever is being championed as the latest super food. Despite losing weight, they tend to have an unhealthy shape to their body because they haven't been exercising at all. Remember, your muscles won't grow or become leaner unless you force them to.

* The guy at your local gym who always seems to be there no matter what time you workout. Every gym has at least one of these characters who believes that more exercise leads to more results. The main issue for this person is that they love the physical act of exercise but they completely neglect to watch what they eat. As a result they are able to build a bit of lean muscle but tend to have additional fat storage around their midsection.

The fact of the matter is that common sense must prevail if you are to get anywhere. If you are interested in dropping unwanted pounds and actually maintaining the results you should be avoiding falling into one of the two popular stereotypes shown above.

It's almost like trying to decide whether fuel is more important than your car. At the end of the day, neither is very useful on their own. The correct approach is to apply both factors to your lifestyle and realize that neither is more important than the other. They are not in competition for your attention, they are two things which are designed to work together. If you are able to apply the basic principles of a good nutritional plan and a healthy workout program you will see positive change and the results will be sustainable, too.

To sum up, listen to bodybuilder Jay Cutler's response when he was recently asked the question is diet more important than exercise or vice versa. Jay advised that placing importance on one over the other is a useless mentality which leads to long term failure and you should be focusing 100 percent on your workout routine as well as 100 percent on your eating habits. Most people aren't trying to become champion bodybuilders, of course, but if you apply a similar mentality to your fitness regime you will notice that discovering how to lose weight isn't rocket science after all.




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