You cannot eat your steak with a knife only, a fork is a must! Similar is the story with weight loss. If diet is your knife, then the fork (exercise) is also mandatory for effective results. Though dieting is the easier of the two, still diet alone will not produce durational results. So, for healthy, long term weight loss, a combination of diet and exercise is the most optimum consideration.
For weight loss, your daily intake of calories should be less than the number of calories you are burning. So, either burn more or consume lesser. Burning more has proven itself, through experiments and research, to be the more efficient of the two.
So why must you not consume extra calories? It’s simple. Your body needs a particular amount of calories on a daily basis to function optimally and obtain energy to carry out your daily activities. When you start consuming excess of calories, your body converts them into fats and stores them. The storage form of fats is triglycerides; known to have adverse effects on the health of your heart. When triglycerides start to store in your body in large quantities, they end up being deposited in your arteries and vessels, causing them to narrow, stiffen, and eventually lead to hindrance in effective blood flow. When organs do not get their desired amount of oxygen through the blood, they may eventually die. The deposition of fat and cholesterol eventually leads to atherosclerosis; a condition where plaques are formed in the walls of arteries. Atherosclerosis puts your heart at an increased risk of developing heart attacks, angina, and strokes. Your heart cells may eventually start to die and this can be lethal.
Not only is your heart at an increased risk of developing diseases, but obesity is linked with a large variety of other health-related problems. A lot of liver diseases can also be developed as a result of excess fats and calories. Fatty liver diseases are common due to deposition of fat in liver. Also known as a nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, it could lead to the development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, which is characterized by liver scarring and inflammation. If left untreated and not subjected to proper management, this could further lead to cirrhosis and permanent liver damage.
Diabetes is also a common consequence of uncontrolled sugar levels in the blood and excess calories consumed through carbohydrates and sugary foods. For all such people at an increased risk of developing diabetes, they must practice extra care and precaution regarding their diets to ensure that whatever they eat does not predispose them to the disease.
Certain lifestyle changes and making sure you give priority to physical activity can take you a long way. Find the best exercise to lose weight and adopt a diet that assists in the process. Because a combination of diet vs exercise is well established and proves to be the most effective. The best way to lose weight is to make sure your entire lifestyle follows certain rules and abides by them.
Facts – exercise duration vs. calorie count
For people who have to stay at their weight, 2-1/2 hours of moderate exercise per week is recommended. Consume as much as your Daily Calorie Requirement (DCR) calculator says. Exercise enough to burn all calories.
For those who pursue weight loss in absence of reduced calories intake, 1 hour of vigorous exercise is recommended to burn the excess fat layers.
For those who keep a check on their calorie intake, brisk exercise of 30 minutes is enough. Do not starve yourself, the minimum DCR for men is 1500 and for women it is 1200, so make sure your DCR is above this threshold.
For those who want to stay away from the pounds they have burned already, 35-40 minute brisk jog is recommended along with an intake of calories that is slightly less than DCR.
Fact – Role of diet in reducing fat vs. role of exercise in reducing fat
Storing fat has never been a problem but burning those extra fats from your thighs, hips and arms has always been a hurdle. Few have been able to achieve this milestone.
The rule says, to burn 100 calories, an average 160-pound runner should run a mile. To lose 1 pound you need to burn 3500 fat-calories. Do you understand the difference? When you run you are burning fats, proteins and carbohydrates, but only fats are involved in weight loss! This is a very trivial yet vital key point that most people do not take into notice. Find the best workout to lose weight that suits your body, your routine, and your nature and get comfortable in your own skin! You should always start out slow with easy exercise to lose weight, as your body may not be accustomed to the stress and strain initially.
Fact vs. Myth
The arena of weight loss has been contaminated by a group of people who promise weight loss within a month or so with only one magical pill or supplement. The fact is – there exists no such pill which can reduce your weight in 30 days and not cause very serious side effects to your entire body. Why choose an artificial way when natural fruits, veggies, and soup diet can produce similar results, though a bit delayed but for health and for good.
Weight loss has been a game of one or two months, in fact losing weight healthily requires modifications in your entire lifestyle with adapting to healthier and natural foods, brisk daily exercises and mental relaxation.
Therefore, an advice for all the readers is not to opt for the faster yet riskier to health modes of weight loss, go with the facts – go with nature.
