Eating v Exercise

For those of you who are contemplating whether or not to invest in gym membership this may open your eyes. It may be wise to simple get flexible gym day and monthly passes for now, whilst you weigh up the following.

Let’s consider an aged old question. When it comes to health and fitness, what is more important? Is it the food and drink we consume, or the exercise that we undertake? We will consider the role that each plays in your lifestyle and how to make simple changes to both in order to maximise your prospects of attaining your fitness goals. If you’re still unsure as to which to address first, read on…

Effort

Think of 500 calories in terms of the food that you would have to eat in order to consume that many. Then, think of how much exercise and of what kind you would have to do, in order to burn that same figure. Which is easier?

Obviously, it is easier to eat 500 calories, than it is to run for long enough to burn 500 calories. But flip it around. It is easier to eat 500 calories less every day than it is to burn an extra 500 through exercise. In order to lose weight, you will be looking to become calorie deficient, i.e. eat less than you burn. Your choices are simple, eat less, do more, or a bit of both.

80/20

The Pareto principle is simple, you’ll achieve 80% of your health and fitness gains/goals through 20% of your effort. Put another way, a few of your health and fitness habits, or lifestyle choices, will have the biggest effect on your weight etc.

Food

Even with a service such as that offered by payasugym.com. You spend more time away from the gym, than you do in it. You spend more time eating than you do exercising. Therefore food has to be more important when it comes to weight loss.

Simple changes to your eating habits will have profound effects on your weight. If you start to eat healthier and eat less, then you are more likely to become calorie deficient even without additional exercise. Why? Because you burn calories throughout the day in any event.

The 500 Club

Two slices of a normal pepperoni pizza may be around 500 calories or so. To burn that you’ll have to cycle for an hour, or do a Zumba class – there’s a trade-off clearly, and that exercise is only balancing out the food choice. Think if you still cycled for an hour but had one slice of pizza, you’re up 250 calories.

The figure 500 is interesting because there are about 3500 calories in a pound of body fat. If you become calorie deficient by 500 calories a day, that’s an extra 3500 per week, i.e. a pound of body fat per week. Simple.

Truth

The difficulty is that many people do not burn this 500 calories in a workout, they just think they do, and then think it’s okay to have the pizza…wrong. They become calorie surplus instead, meaning weight gain.

When it comes to working out, you need to properly monitor your workouts and exercise in terms of calories used. Having flexible gym day and monthly passes will mean that the gym equipment will gauge your efforts better. But you have to be honest when inputting data.

Eating is everything, but there are good and bad foods to consume. Instead of fearing food embrace it. As for exercise, it’s definitely needed, it just may have to play second fiddle to your lifestyle away from the gym.