Diet or exercise?

[~hf]

If you could only bare to start with one, which should it be, diet or exercise? I've heard that if you start with movement, it will be easier to begin healthy eating habits. Something about not wanting to ruin your efforts. What do you think, keeping in mind that for diet I mean No S and exercise means urban ranger or 14 minutes of whatever.

Heidi

[milliem]

I'm pretty sure that all the 'literature' out there says that losing weight is largely down to diet rather than exercise. I do believe that exercise helps - it can help motivation, help to burn some calories, help to make sure you have a decent body structure underneath the fat you want to lose! However losing weight really all comes down to calories (speaking in a biological sense) and it's much easier to eat less - even on NoS where you aren't counting - than to exercise enough to burn off any excess if you aren't concentrating on diet at all.

Personally I do much better when I'm focusing on NoS AND doing regular exercise I think it's partly the motivation and feeling better when I exercise, and partly that the exercise helps to counter the days when I don't make great eating decisions!

[wosnes]

I think it depends on what your goal is. If the goal is healthy habits, then either could be started first. If the goal is weight loss, then diet is the place to start.

There's no doubt that exercise is important for many reasons, but for weight loss, cutting calories is what gets the job done -- even without exercise. Also, I think exercise leads to better eating habits for some people; others use it as an excuse to eat more than usual.

[HealthyMommy]

It would be diet for me. One time I went through a phase of just exercising more, instead of watching my eating. I joined curves, did the treadmill and workout tapes. It gave me an "exercise" head the way one gets "diet" head. I started thinking, "oh I'm burning TONS of extra calories now , so that must justify eating more!" well I ended up eating more alright and that habit stuck, but the exercise one didn't. So, I gained about 20 more extra pounds all the while telling myself, I'll just start exercising real hard next week. Next week never came...

So I'm working on food habits first and just learning to move more in my everyday life, that's the only exercise I have time for.

[oolala53]

My eating bothered me more even than my weight so I started with changing my eating three years ago. I'm not a complete slug for my age, but I've never gotten a consistent exercise program going in that three years but have lost weight as my signature shows. I don't recoomend my attitude about exercise because in my opinion (and not just mine) exercise contributes more to good health than weight loss. Go for eating but don't wait as long as I have to get some minimal exercise going!

[ironchef]

If your goal is weight loss, diet is what will give you the most bang for your buck. Sure, some people exercise and then feel inspired to eat better, but I've been known to go the other way and justify overeating because I have exercised.

I find it a lot easier to start with eating, because it doesn't take any extra time to eat less. In fact, not snacking frees up time that would otherwise be spent buying, preparing and eating snacks. On the other hand, exercise, even the most moderate, requires time out of my daily routine.

[Blithe Morning]

Eating, since as Iron Chef points, out you are already doing it.

[Lady Crimson]

Eating, since as Iron Chef points, out you are already doing it.

I agree, whether it s an s day or a N day, unless you are fasting, we eat everyday --even when the weather is bad. So, logically that would be the place to start since a modification of current habits is easier than starting a new habit from scratch. IMHO..

[Mika_Onida]

My vote is focus on food first and I'll tell you why.

My ex was REALLY over weight to the point that he could not go for daily walks around the block without causing joint damage.

When we focused on food he was able to not only loose some of the weight that was bogging him down, but also gain the energy required to feel up to "exercises". I put it in quotes because a 20 minute gentle stroll would be scoffed at by the fit fanatics.

To get healthy it's important to put the proper nutrition in your body. There's no point forcing yourself to run 5 miles when you're going to go home and stuff chips in your face and guzzle a gallon on soda because you're so tired and hungry and can't stand for the 20 minutes it takes to cook dinner. Not only will you undo all the calorie burning of the run, you'll be eating up your body's nutritional reserves of vitamins trying to run on unhealthy food.

Healthy food = fuel to feel good on and happier you when you do get to exercise

Forcing exercise during unhealthy eating = even more unhealthy eating and miserable attitude that will eventually kill the exercise plan

Hope this point of view helps.

[Over43]

Diet, with some exercise thrown in for good measure.

[Flintor]

Healthy diet plays major role in maintaining fitness level of any human. Eat well balance diet and avoid fast foods. Eating disorder causes many serious problems for you. Physical workout is also essential for attaining fitness level. Cardio are best practices for this purpose.

[NoelFigart]

If you could only bare to start with one, which should it be, diet or exercise? I've heard that if you start with movement, it will be easier to begin healthy eating habits. Something about not wanting to ruin your efforts. What do you think, keeping in mind that for diet I mean No S and exercise means urban ranger or 14 minutes of whatever.

Heidi

Depends on your goal. There are enormous health benefits (whether you lose weight or not) to being active. (Weight and health are not the 1:1 correlation 1,000 word articles in women's mags try to imply)

But unless your weight problem is solely from being sedentary (unlikely) you won't lose much weight without the diet component.

[Anoulie]