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Diet vs Exercise - Which is more important and why?
RashadLavelle
Posts: 46 Member
in Debate Club
I used to think that it's 80% diet and the rest is exercise, but I'm starting to lean more towards, exercise being more important than diet. We all know that the SAD diet is the worse, that's a given. But many people are reaching their goals and reversing diseases from multiple types of diets and even fad diets. Honestly I believe that exercise is more beneficial than find a perfect diet, because there is no perfect diet. While most people can't seem to agree of which diet is the best, I think we can all agree that we need more activity in our lives. Your thoughts?
9
Replies
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More important for what?
For weight loss? Or for health?
Furthermore 'diet' can have different meanings: fad diets, temporary changes (restrictions) to the way we eat or simply diet in the sense of 'what and how we eat'.
For weight: how much we eat matters, and a calorie deficit can be reached with and without exercise. What we eat can influence how easy it is to stay in a deficit, and exercice can also influence that (higher calorie burn, but also sometimes making us hungrier).
For health, what we eat matters: nutritional value, vitamins, minerals, for some people also the effect some foods have on their health issues.
For health, exercise is obviously important too. Not just for physical health, it can have an impact on mental health as well.
Which diet is 'best' doesn't have one answer, simply because we all have different needs (physically, for satiation as well as simply our own taste preferences). That doesn't mean that what we eat is less important than exercise though.19 -
Unless you are already an Olympic athlete or working out like one, your diet--meaning only "what you eat," not necessarily a particular plan or set of restrictions--is going to contribute more to weight loss than any exercise regimen. Pretty much any published diet plan or fad diet is basically just restricting calories one way or another, there's nothing magical about any of them - as long as calories eaten < calories burned, it is physically and mathematically impossible not to lose body mass. It is just much harder to out-exercise a poor diet than it is to eat many more calories than you can feasibly burn by exercising. And even those Olympic athletes that do eat 10,000 calories during their active season don't just go HAM on pizza and milkshakes, for the most part.
If your goal isn't necessarily to reduce body mass, but rather to increase overall health (e.g. improve cardiovascular health, prevent osteoporosis, improve muscle tone and flexibility), exercise will help more in achieving that goal, although you'll still want to monitor your diet to make sure you're getting all the nutrients you need, macro and micro - if you go out and get Swole As H*ll eating nothing but steak and deadlifting mountain lions or whatever, you're going to get scurvy.7 -
RashadLavelle wrote: »I used to think that it's 80% diet and the rest is exercise, but I'm starting to lean more towards, exercise being more important than diet. We all know that the SAD diet is the worse, that's a given. But many people are reaching their goals and reversing diseases from multiple types of diets and even fad diets. Honestly I believe that exercise is more beneficial than find a perfect diet, because there is no perfect diet. While most people can't seem to agree of which diet is the best, I think we can all agree that we need more activity in our lives. Your thoughts?
More important for what? Diet is far and away going to have more impact on weight loss and maintaining a good weight...I can do all the exercise in the world, but if I overeat, I'm going to gain weight and get fat. A couple of my cycling friends are pretty seriously overweight...they can ride circles around me in terms of endurance and mileage...but they can and do eat like crazy.
Moving is important to overall health and vitality and exercise is obviously going to have a greater impact on cardiovascular health and fitness as well as strength and body composition and I credit regular exercise more than diet for keeping my blood pressure in check and other health markers...but really, the two go hand in hand for overall health IMO. Even if you're exercising regularly, a crap diet is going to ultimately catch up to you health wise.8 -
Depends on the person, as well as "for what," as people have said.
I find that for me exercise seems like it is more important, at least, as I tend to eat reasonably healthfully anyway, and for whatever reason when I'm exercising regularly, my diet seems to just naturally both improve and become more mindful (and that prevents me from overeating). Plus, I tend to have more consistency between how much I want to eat and how much I should eat. Also, exercise/activity makes a big difference for me in dealing with some of my mental struggles, and that again helps me not stress eat/overeat/eat mindfully.
For weight loss, of course, especially if you have been eating non-mindfully or quite a bit too much, getting diet in check is going to be essential, but for sustainability and mindset, I find physical activity more important for me.3 -
Are you talking about for weight management?
For me, diet is way, way, way more important than exercise when it comes to weight management. I can eat 1,000 calories in half an hour or less. It would take me hours to exercise enough to off-set that. Since there is a limited amount of time in the day and I've got to dedicate a big chunk of that to making a living, it's a no brainer for me.
I'm fortunate enough to live in an environment with abundant access to tasty and safe food. The flip side of that is that it's astonishingly easy to eat way more than I need, so I need to practice intentional strategies for controlling the number of calories that I eat.
I love exercise and I appreciate the impact it has on my physical wellbeing, but it's just a small part of the weight management picture for me.
As far as the point of there being no one "perfect" diet, I would also say there is no one perfect way to be physically active. Being on this forum, it's been interesting to me to see all the different ways that people integrate physical activity into their lives. There are people who are active while doing very little intentional exercise, total gym rats, people who love to lift heavy, people who are most active in certain seasons, ultramarathoners, people who are doing activities I'd barely even heard of, people who've tried every kind of video workout ever -- there are so many ways to be active and everyone seems to be getting physical and emotional benefits.10 -
This question reminds me of a comparison that I gave my brother once. What is more important the size of your engine (exercise) or the grade of fuel (food). If you want your engine to last as long as possible, you need high quality fuel. Does not matter the size. If you want race car performance you can get a big V8. fuel does not matter. However, if you want to get the most powerful and reliable car, you need both.
If you are only going to invest in one, go for the long run and tweak your diet. You only get 100 years on this planet, you might as well invest the time into yourself. Don't eliminate one over the other and think that is going to make you happy.
Remember, you can buy another engine if you treat it poorly. Once your body is done, that's it.6 -
RashadLavelle wrote: »I used to think that it's 80% diet and the rest is exercise, but I'm starting to lean more towards, exercise being more important than diet. We all know that the SAD diet is the worse, that's a given. But many people are reaching their goals and reversing diseases from multiple types of diets and even fad diets. Honestly I believe that exercise is more beneficial than find a perfect diet, because there is no perfect diet. While most people can't seem to agree of which diet is the best, I think we can all agree that we need more activity in our lives. Your thoughts?
I think it's a false dichotomy, and reality pretty individual. Whichever important thing(s) a person's doing sub-optimally are the ones it's most important to do better.
Too many calories? Eat fewer.
Sub-par nutrition? Eat better.
Inadequate activity? Do more.
OK activity, but not varied enough (strength, intensity, flexibility, balance, etc.)? Vary more.
Sub-par intellectual stimulation? Learn more.
Poor skill? Practice more.
Stuck in a boring rut? Create more.
. . . and so forth.
I came to MFP as a quite active person, definitely fitter (cardiovascularly) and stronger than most people in my demographic, but still obese. I was routinely active, including quite intense exercise as appropriate in the mix for conditioning/training. I was competing as a masters athlete some, and not always unsuccessfully (mostly "in the pack", sometimes placing). But obese. Bad health markers (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) despite the consistent fairly high activity level.
What do you think would be "more important", in that scenario? For me, it was weight loss. (The nutrition in my eating was already pretty good, too, BTW, so need to change that in any major way.)
You didn't specify "more important for what", as others have pointed out. You also didn't specify "more important for whom" or "more important under what circumstances".
Sure, then and now, I could be more active. But I don't think that's what's "more important" in my big picture, personally.
P.S. I also disagree that SAD is necessarily "the worst" (even though I'm personally a non-SAD-er), but that's a whole different debate.9 -
Depends on the person, as well as "for what," as people have said.
I find that for me exercise seems like it is more important, at least, as I tend to eat reasonably healthfully anyway, and for whatever reason when I'm exercising regularly, my diet seems to just naturally both improve and become more mindful (and that prevents me from overeating). Plus, I tend to have more consistency between how much I want to eat and how much I should eat. Also, exercise/activity makes a big difference for me in dealing with some of my mental struggles, and that again helps me not stress eat/overeat/eat mindfully.
For weight loss, of course, especially if you have been eating non-mindfully or quite a bit too much, getting diet in check is going to be essential, but for sustainability and mindset, I find physical activity more important for me.
Yes, regular exercise is crucial for my mental health, and that's not dialed in I am far more likely to emotional eat or make choices that lead to overeating.2 -
Personally I don't like to put arbitrary percentages on this or that. It's all connected.
Diet.
Exercise.
Sleep.
Stress management.
Bring up the areas you lack, maintain the areas that you don't.17 -
Personally I don't like to put arbitrary percentages on this or that. It's all connected.
Diet.
Exercise.
Sleep.
Stress management.
Bring up the areas you lack, maintain the areas that you don't.
Yep. It's pretty easy to imagine a situation where diet is the most important thing for someone to address first. It's also easy to imagine situations where one should address exercise or sleep or stress management or something else like smoking. There is no one-size-fits-all.
In an ideal situation, we'd all be regularly assessing our lives, habits, and how we feel, and making adjustments based on that information. We never really reach a finish line for wellness (unless you consider death to be the finish line).5 -
Why does it have to be one or the other?3
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First, it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Second, for weight loss eating in a deficit is the only thing that will have you losing weight. Some people (myself included) use exercise as a tool so that we can eat more and maintain a deficit. My primary reason for exercise though is for health and NOT weight loss as you can’t out exercise a bad diet no matter how hard you try,4 -
Dogmom1978 wrote: »First, it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Second, for weight loss eating in a deficit is the only thing that will have you losing weight. Some people (myself included) use exercise as a tool so that we can eat more and maintain a deficit. My primary reason for exercise though is for health and NOT weight loss as you can’t out exercise a bad diet no matter how hard you try,
Agree. It won't hurt results but IMO it's not the primary reason to do it...2 -
So recently back in the gym, as I have done in the past. For me, the commitment to get up and work out drives my diet. Food goes from being a hobby or main source of enjoyment to a fuel and in a sense, a currency exchange. Simply speaking, since I spent 3 hours in the gym this morning, I am more inclined to eat a healthier meal with a focus on nutrition and calorie content then grabbing a burger and a six pack on the way home knowing it will just cancel out all the work I put in this morning.6
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I'm not posting this as advice about what anybody should do, I'm posting to point out that peoples experiences are broader and more varied than what's available in this thread.
A friend of a friend lost 40 pounds hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. He was in the middle of the healthy weight range for his height when he left, and underweight when he finished. He wasn't trying to lose weight, he was trying not to. This is not an uncommon experience.2 -
NorthCascades wrote: »I'm not posting this as advice about what anybody should do, I'm posting to point out that peoples experiences are broader and more varied than what's available in this thread.
A friend of a friend lost 40 pounds hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. He was in the middle of the healthy weight range for his height when he left, and underweight when he finished. He wasn't trying to lose weight, he was trying not to. This is not an uncommon experience.
Trail hiking with a pack that weighs 40 lbs for an extended period is a lot different than what most of us do for normal work outs. It’s not in the same realm...
I live near the Appalachian trail and thousands of people hike the whole thing (over 1000 miles) each year. Every single one of them loses weight because that is a crazy level of activity for 4-6 months.
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So I don't think either is more important than the other...diet and exercise are 2 different facets of total health.
Let me give you an example. My father is 71...had a horrible diet as long as I have known him (40 years), but had a highly physically active job in construction for many years.
My dad was usually in decent shape, occasionally went through periods of being overweight, but would lose weight. He was generally pretty healthy and not on very many meds UNTIL his bad diet caught up with him last year....when he had to have quadruple bypass.
Diet and exercise both impact health for better or worse.2 -
If I work out a little, I find maintaining weight loss to be easy even if I am not eating exactly how I'd like.
If I pair that with a calorie deficit, I feel good and I see the scale go down.
If I work out like crazy doing a ton of cardio, I tend to overeat like crazy and just maintain.
If I don't work out at all, I tend to maintain until I overeat-- then I gain.
I think they are both important, but it is really relative to how you live what "percentages" will work for your goals.2 -
Over 10 years doing this whole weight loss thing (and nine into maintenance), it's been my observation that you have to do both. Those doing only diet tend not to keep off the weight (and research backs that up, that among the 10% that keep off the weight, on average they workout almost an hour a day).
I've known many that lose all the weight by working out more and not really changing their diet. But most of those folks end up (ironically) upping their calorie counts and putting most of the weight back on.
I think you have to find balance of both.5
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