Exercise or diet, what's better for weight loss?

Seven tips that make weight loss easier

What would the best approach be for someone who is not used to exercising and wants to lose weight?
It depends on what the more important goal is. For someone who doesn't need to lose a lot of weight, it is possible to start exercising first. However, it is recommended to start with diet when you have a substantial amount of weight to lose.

1. Don't start with exercise and diet at the same time.

If you start a diet and exercise program at the same time, you could set yourself up for failure.

When you first start a diet and aren't used to exercise, you should not start them at the same time. Skip the gym for the first few weeks of your weight loss program. Besides, if you want to start on January 1, the gym will be overcrowded anyway!

Apart from avoiding the crowd, there are 2 more reasons why it's better to wait a little bit longer.
Cutting calories can cause fatigue, especially when you first change your diet. You can use natural methods to boost your energy, but you may still be too tired to exercise.
But more importantly, you should focus all of your attention on the diet. Even though both diet and exercise matter when you want to lose weight, diet matters more. If you put all of your energy into eating a healthy slimming diet at the start of your weight loss program, you will see results sooner.
Seeing weight loss results will help to keep you motivated when you add the challenge of exercise in the later weeks. So focus on healthy eating at the beginning of your diet and leave exercise for later.

2. But do increase Non-Exercise Activity (NEA)

Even though you should be cautious about exercising in the gym at the beginning of your diet, it doesn't mean you should not exercise at all. By staying busy all day, you will create what is called non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT).
Non-exercise activity is everything you do throughout the day that isn't vigorous enough to count as exercise.
Walking the dog (or your partner), taking the stairs to your office, carrying groceries home from the store, or take a short walk during your coffee break to burn calories all counts as non-exercise activity which creates NEAT.
Even standing up behind your desk instead of just sitting down burns a substantial amount of calories.

One easy way to measure your NEAT is to count your daily steps with a pedometer or activity monitor. Start by trying to reach 10,000 steps per day. Then increase your goal to 15,000 or even 20,000 as you become more fit.

3. Postpone hard workouts

Once you have a calorie-controlled eating plan in place, your energy levels have adjusted to your new diet, and you've learned to maximize NEAT, it's time to add an exercise program. A healthy exercise program will help you to burn more calories, speed up the weight loss process and improve heart health. But it's best to begin slowly. So postpone the high-intensity workouts and start with an easy exercise program.

Easy exercise provides several important weight loss benefits. First, it helps to boost your confidence - especially if you are new to exercise or if you're starting a program after taking time off. An easy program will also prepare your muscles for more vigorous exercise, help to prevent injury and will enable you to build a workout habit that you'll stick to for life.

4. Stick with it

So what's the best workout for weight loss? It's the one that you do consistently. So you can skip the high-priced, trendy workout fads and do whatever workouts are most convenient for you, as long as you do them on a regular basis.

Of course, there are workouts that burn more fat. You'll find that high-intensity workouts provide the best fat-burning benefits both during and after exercise. But those workouts only provide noticeable benefits when you do them on a regular basis. If you choose to add trendy high-intensity workouts, like spinning, bootcamp, or P90X-style workouts, do so cautiously. Plan recovery workouts on the days after those sessions to give your body and brain a chance to recover and rebuild.

5. Vary workouts for better results

Variety is the spice of life - even at the gym. So when you feel like your body is falling into a rut and you're not getting the weight loss results that you want, it's time to mix things up and try a new program.

Smart exercisers don't do the same workout day after day. They complete workouts that use different body parts on different days. These exercises include aerobic exercise, strength training, and flexibility training workouts in their schedule to keep their bodies active. They also try different styles of workouts to keep their muscles moving.

To make the most of your workout program, try different types of exercise often. If you like to run, give spinning a try. If you usually lift weights or walk, learn how to do a circuit workout. You'll find that when you change your workouts, you change your body.

6. Muscles boost metabolism

Many weight loss workout experts will tell you how to burn calories with cardiovascular - or aerobic workouts. Spinning is an aerobic workout, walking can be an aerobic workout and stair climbing machines provide an aerobic workout. But muscle matters too. So it's important to lift weights at least 2-3 times per week.

So what's so great about muscle? With more muscles, you will burn more calories all day long. So you boost your metabolism when you build muscle. And pound for pound, muscles take in less space than fat, therefore lean muscles shape a tighter body. If you want to look great in your favorite clothes, you'll get there faster if you spend some time building muscle.

You don't need to go to the weight room to build strength. In fact, some of the most effective strength training exercises use body weight only. For example, push-ups pull-ups and single-legged squats.

7. Exercise improves long-term health

Even though diet matters more at the beginning of your weight loss program, exercise matters more for long-term weight maintenance. Experts recommend that you get at least 4 hours per week to keep the weight off for good. Does that sound intimidating? It won't be if you set up your program properly and slowly increase your weekly exercise minutes.

Remember, exercise is important for weight loss, but it's also important for longevity and healthy aging. If you stay active as you age, you'll stay lean and healthy, too. So invest both time and energy into creating a healthy workout habit that you can stick to for life.

A few more tips on how to diet

In conclusion, I'd want to give you a few more tips on your diet w/o referring to the type of diet, though you may want to read our blog articles on intermittent fasting and keto diet if you're interested in a few 'hip' diets.

Always cut out more calories than you think you need to cut. Not just because you would be surprised how many calories BLTs (bites licks and tasts) add up to, but also for psychological and physiological reasons.
Dieting can be HARD! Not just hard on the body but on the mind, too.
By cutting out a little bit more, you can leave space for a few fun foods you eat at a party or that dinner in a fancy restaurant you are invited to. Especially on formal occasions, you don't want to 'stand out' as that 'weirdo' or feel like a martyr for nibbling on nothing more but a simple salad.

The physiological reason is that your body will fight back and try to conserve energy: your thyroid inevitably slows down, no matter whether you cut out very few or a lot of calories! So if your thyroid slows down anyway, you're better off cutting out a LOT of calories and diminish the time you're 'suffering' and even prevent that slowdown if you play smart!
Depending on how much weight you have to lose, you can and MUST build in either 'fun meals' or very science-based 'refeeds'. Essentially a refeed boils down to eating a TON of carbs: NOT sugars but starches. As amazing as it sounds, they need to be as white and refined as possible, because the amount is so big that fiber would give too many digestive problems.
98% of us won't need to eat that many carbs, but very lean athletes and bodybuilders need to.. and as amazing as it sounds, 1-2 days later, after they lose the accompanying water weight (1 gram of carbs pulls in a lot of water!) , there is that famous 'whoosh' and ... tada, there are your magical ABS!
Another benefit is how the thyroid will receive a signal to rev up its metabolism!

In short, people that are told by their doctors or family/friends they should lose weight, can just take 2 fun meals a week to
get out of the dieting rut, and still have a bit of a social life whereas the other end of the spectrum needs to eat very disciplined too on their carb-up/refeeds in order to lose that last tidbit of fat w/o losing muscle and be ready for their show or 'make weight' for their competition.