Reducing your calorie intake and exercising are both methods used for weight loss, fat loss and healthy weight maintenance. The American Dietetic Association recommends reducing your daily calorie intake by 500 to 1,000 calories per day if you want to lose weight safely and keep the weight off long term. This type of calorie deficit will usually result in a rate of weight loss of 1 to 2 pounds per week. However, the question of whether exercise or calorie restriction is more important for weight loss has been the subject of speculation.
Basics
For many people, reducing calories by 500 to 1,000 per day is easier than burning 500 to 1,000 extra calories each day by exercising. This is simply because it usually takes a long time to burn the amount of calories needed for weight loss, and if you burn additional calories but compensate by eating more, you probably won’t lose the weight.
Calories Burned Exercising
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, if you weigh about 154 pounds, you can burn about 590 calories per hour running at a pace of 5 mph or biking at a pace greater than 10 mph, and you can burn about 510 calories per hour swimming slow freestyle laps. However, if you weigh 155 pounds and want to burn about 1,000 calories per day to lose 2 pounds per week, you’d have to run at a pace of 8 mph for one hour or walk at a pace of 4 mph for three hours, according to Harvard Medical School.
Calories in Foods
Most people find it’s easier to reduce calories than to exercise to create a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 per day. The following foods are equivalent to about 500 calories: three and a half cans of regular soda, two bags of M&Ms or two Snickers bars.
Weight Loss Research
Many studies have examined the effects of weight loss and body fat loss from calorie restriction versus. exercise. One such study published in a 2006 edition of the “International Journal of Obesity” found that for adult men and women, reducing dietary fat intake was more effective than increasing exercise to lose weight. Researchers in this study found that exercising without diet for weight loss was only effective in men and concluded that diet was more effective than exercise for weight loss.
Fat Loss Research
A 2010 study published in “Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise” examined effects of a 25 percent calorie reduction on body fatness with or without aerobic exercise. Researchers found that there was no difference in body weight loss or body fat loss between the group that dieted and exercised and the group that only dieted. However, the group that exercised showed lower LDL, or bad cholesterol levels, lower diastolic blood pressure and improved insulin sensitivity.
References
- American Dietetic Association; Position of the American Dietetic Association: Weight Management; March 2009
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Aim for a Healthy Weight; August 2005
- Harvard Medical School: Calories Burned in 30 Minutes for People of Three Different Weights
- “International Journal of Obesity”; The Comparative and Cumulative Effects of a Dietary Restriction and Exercise on Weight Loss; CL Dunn, et al.; January 2006
- “Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise”; Caloric Restriction With or Without Exercise: the Fitness Versus Fatness Debate; DE Larson-Meyer, et al.; January 2010
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