Which Works Better: Working Out Or Dieting For Weight Loss?

The combination of diet and exercise offers tons of benefits for your mental and physical well being. Staying away from high-calorie, fattening foods in favor of whole foods provides your body the nutrients needed to be healthy. Proper nutrition also gives you energy that is helpful for maintaining an active lifestyle. If you are curious, however, which is more beneficial, the answer depends on what your goals are.

Dieting

For healthy, safe weight loss, you should consume balanced meals that provide a variety of nutrients. Dieting that involves severe restriction or avoiding entire food groups should not be part of your weight loss program. To lose weight, you have to create a calorie deficit, which means you need to consume fewer calories than your body uses throughout the day. Eating less while avoiding high-calorie and high-fat foods containing salt and sugar is key for reaching your goals. A study published in the journal "Obesity" in 2008 found that exercise has less impact than diet for losing weight.

Exercise

That 2008 study seems to go against the conventional wisdom about how to lose weight. It revealed that the difference in the amount of calories burned for energy during physical activity was not significant when comparing women who had different weights. A point to keep in mind, however, is that the study's authors acknowledged that they do not know how different forms of exercise may affect these findings. In addition, including regular exercise along with healthy eating boosts your weight loss. Being active also provides a number of physical and mental benefits.

Maintaining Weight Loss

While reducing your calorie consumption may make more of a difference when trying to lose weight, exercise has the edge when it comes to keeping that weight off. One major issue when it comes to restricting dietary intake is that it is hard to stick to long term. In fact, only about five percent of dieters can maintain their weight loss for the long haul, according to the American Council on Exercise. Keeping active, however, can help keep your weight in check whereas drastic calorie reduction typically ends in failure.

Bottom Line

The takeaway should be that, if choosing between the two, dieting is more effective; however, the two together is ideal especially if you want to maintain the results of your hard work. The combination of diet and exercise is especially effective if you're an older person dealing with obesity. Although dieting slightly edged out exercise for amount of weight loss, the combination of the two was the most beneficial for improving physical ability, according to a 2011 study in "The New England Journal of Medicine. The participants, who were obese people age 65 and up, showed significant improvement in strength, balance and bone density.