Diet or Exercise – Which is Your Preferred Weight Loss Choice?

The biggest challenge when you’re trying to lose weight is not in sticking to your exercise routine or following your diet without breaking stride or giving in to binges – the hardest thing you have to do is control what you eat even though you feel like you could eat a horse after you’re done exercising. It’s a vicious cycle – you work out intensely because you want to lose weight, you feel ravenous after your workout, you raid your fridge and satisfy your hunger, and at the end of the month you find that you haven’t lost any weight at all. On the other hand, if you control your hunger and nibble at fruits and vegetables and other foods low in calories, you find that you don’t have the energy to work out intensively. So you’re essentially in a Catch 22 situation – damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

This is why most people prefer to follow a sensible diet alone rather than try to lose weight through both diet and exercise. They know they’re able to control their hunger and prevent going on binges if they eat a normal diet, avoid snacks, sugary drinks, desserts, fried food and junk food. But others are foodies and/or exercise junkies – they love to eat and they don’t mind working out to prevent adding on the pounds. They don’t hesitate to run an extra mile or two if they’ve eaten too much the previous day, and they don’t hold back as well when it comes to food.

However, trying to lose weight and control it through only diet or only exercise offers success only in the short term. The drawbacks of adhering to any one include:

• After a point of time, you find you hit a plateau and that it becomes harder to lose weight, or even maintain it.
• When you eschew exercise altogether, your muscles and bones become weaker and your body is not well toned. Also, you find that you don’t have enough energy to get through your day and because your fitness level is low, even normal activities like climbing stairs becomes a huff-puff affair.
• Too much exercise, or in other words, an intensive exercise program, causes wear and tear on your joints and puts you at risk for both short term and chronic injuries.
• The right kind and the right amount of exercise boosts not just your physical health but also your mental wellbeing as well.
• A healthy diet provides your body with enough nutrition to help it fight disease and lead a life of quality.

So no matter what you’ve been doing until now, from today, if you’ve been working out too much without paying attention to your diet, start according importance to what you eat too; and if you’ve ignored exercise in favor of a low-calorie diet, at least start walking every day for half an hour or so – it boosts your blood circulation, prevents heart disease, and makes you feel younger.

Author Bio
This article is contributed by Susan White, who regularly writes on the subject of surgical technician schools. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: susan.white33@gmail.com.