Nutrition or exercise?

fitk29

Is it more about nutrition with weight loss or exercise?

kimny72

Calories. Nutrition can affect health and satiety, exercise can affect health and help you get into a calorie deficit. So both can help you eat the right amount of calories, but neither is absolutely necessary.

Calories are king for weight loss/gain/maintenance.

elisa123gal

good nutrition makes you feel healthy, gives you energy.,.makes you vital. Some exercise can make one more hungry...so if your nutrition stinks you could actually end up eating more calories trying to recover from exercise and never lose weight and even gain.

Counting calories can work..but if you do not eat a nutritious diet.. you could hit your calorie limit and feel like crap if you've been eating crap. Then what happens? We tend to eat more to try and get some energy.. blow our calorie limit for the day and not lose and even gain.

so.. I vote for nutrition as the best place to start...learn how to fuel your body for working out... and learn about how many calories you get a day to shed pounds and cram as much nutritious food into that number as possible.

pulling this all together takes a bit of time and a learning curve.

quiksylver296

jan110144

Both! Exercise allows me to eat more normally and still lose weight. Aldo, it acts as a bit of an appetite suppressant for me. I have a lit more difficulty stating within calorie budget if I don't get exercise in. Finally, I sleep much better when I exercise and feeling rested makes it much easier to stay on plan.

SarahMorganP

I can't exercise, can't even walk more than 10min without being in bed for days after due to a disease I have. So for me, nutrition is it.

lorrpb

What do you mean by "it"? Weight loss? Fitness? A specific appearance? Health?

Running2Fit

The first few months of my weight loss I focused primarily on diet and lost weight successfully. I’ve now added quite a bit of exercise (5 days a week). I eat back all my exercise calories so the exercise is really for health/fitness over weight loss.

WinoGelato

Calorie deficit for weight loss.

Nutrition for overall health and perhaps impacting satiety (some people find certain macro splits fill them up more).

Exercise for fitness, body composition, stress relief....

azzeazsaleh5429

It is mostly nutrition 95% and exercise 5% for weightloss.

WinoGelato

azzeazsaleh5429 wrote: »

It is mostly nutrition 95% and exercise 5% for weightloss.

So if I eat a diet rich in macro and micro nutrients but exceed my calorie target by 500 each day I will still lose weight?

88olds

I can easily undo an hour or more at the gym in less than 5 minutes with a fork in my hand.

Machka9

It can be both.

noodlesno

Someone once told me that Abs are built in the gym but revealed in the kitchen. Not sure how true that is but it was a good line.

The ONLY way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit. The easiest way to do that is watching what you eat, if you try to exercise your way out of a bad diet then you will be in the gym constantly. However, find the balance for you to how much kcal you want to put in via food vs how much you burn off to make the calorie deficit.

Personally, I love exercise and food so I burn at least 800kcals a day beyond living so I can eat more and still lose weight.

nisie3

Calories in vs calories out! As long as you’re burning more than you’re consuming you’re good!

an0393na

Calories is king... Cardio helps burn calories which means weight-loss and weights workouts help to make your body look good once the weight comes off

PhotoSam

Nutrition is more important. Without proper nutrition, your body won't be properly fueled for any exercise you do. "It all comes down to calories" is bad advice. What is better for you.... calories from Twinkies, or from a banana? You can't out exercise a bad diet.

estherdragonbat

Monodiets are bad for you in general. A diet composed solely of bananas is just as bad (and, depending on your goals, possibly worse) than one composed solely of Twinkies. Why not enjoy both? And add some protein?

WinoGelato

PhotoSam wrote: »

Nutrition is more important. Without proper nutrition, your body won't be properly fueled for any exercise you do. "It all comes down to calories" is bad advice. What is better for you.... calories from Twinkies, or from a banana? You can't out exercise a bad diet.

The original question was related to weight loss. In the context of weight loss, 100 calories from a twinkie and 100 calories from a banana are going to have an identical impact on weight loss. Calories are a unit of measure.
Nutrition is important, and no one is saying otherwise; but for impact on weight loss, it really all comes down to calories.

MikePTY

I think you are confusing "nutrition" with "food". Nutrition is totally different from eating at a calorie deficit. You can eat food low in nutrients that care low in calories and you will still lose weight. Nutrients are important for overall health, but as far as weight loss, the focus is on calories.

As far as exercise, exercise can assist in weight loss because it will burn calorie which will allow you to eat more and still hit your goal. However, most of the work is usually done with caloric intake control when it comes to weight loss.