Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ll be aware that we’re suffering from a national obesity epidemic. Being obese or overweight poses a range of health risks, from diabetes to heart attack, but what’s the best way to fight it?

Put very simply, we gain weight if we consume more calories than we burn off, and lose weight if this is reversed. So the choice is between dieting (consuming fewer calories) and exercising (burning off more calories).

The Benefits of Dieting

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ll be aware that we’re suffering from a national obesity epidemic. Being obese or overweight poses a range of health risks, from diabetes to heart attack, but what’s the best way to fight it?

Put very simply, we gain weight if we consume more calories than we burn off, and lose weight if this is reversed. So the choice is between dieting (consuming fewer calories) and exercising (burning off more calories).

The Benefits of Dieting

The old-fashioned image of dieting is simply to eat less, but this itself can pose health risks. While reducing the total quantity eaten is part of dieting, far more important is the quality of what you eat.

A healthy diet will be vary slightly for each individual, but broadly it involves a shift from red meat (and especially processed meat), starch and saturated fat to vegetables, fruit and lean protein, such as chicken or fish. A small reduction in portion sizes will also help.

Following a planned healthy diet should result in a steady weight-loss, but it shouldn’t be seen as a quick fix. A healthy diet is about a permanent change in lifestyle, not about being able to fit into that dress again for a party next month.

The Benefits of Exercise

Exercise is often promoted as a way to burn off weight. However, while it has plenty of health benefits, it’s not an efficient approach to weight-loss.

The problem is that it takes a lot of exercise to burn off calories. For example, you’d need to run for around 7-8 miles to burn off an average fast-food meal, whereas it’s far easier to eat a healthy meal instead, with a fraction of the calories. More intense training in the gym is quicker, but an overweight or obese person would struggle to keep that up for long enough.

Where exercise does score is in keeping weight off once you’ve lost it. In addition, feeling fitter can also make you more positive, helping you stick to your healthy diet.

So Which Is Better?

It’s been calculated that weight-loss is about 70% diet and 30% exercise. Both are important, and exercise has a great many health benefits, but a healthy diet is key to taking off the excess weight. As Shawn M. Talbott, PhD, nutritional biochemist and former director of the University of Utah Nutrition Clinic, puts it, “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.”

If you want to know more about losing weight through a healthy diet, feel free to contact us.