Diet vs Exercise for Weight Loss – The Experts Weigh In

You want to lose weight? Good for you! You may be wondering which you should focus on  more, your workouts or diet??  It’s a common question and depending on how you look at it, there are different  answers. After interviewing a number of nutritionists, fitness professionals  and Dr’s, we all agree that both a healthy “clean” diet and increased activity are important for overall health.   

But after The New York Times recently shared an article titled To Lose  Weight, Eating Less Is Far More Important Than Exercising More, I had  clients questioning why they had to exercise to lose weight.

While I agree with the science behind the research and yes, a person can make a great impact on weight loss by simply tweaking their diet. But as a fitness professional with a good deal of nutrition knowledge, I also know exercise is still extremely important, especially for burning fat and toning muscles and a bunch of other health benefits.

Simply cutting out 300 calories a day vs doing cardio for 30 min a day seems like a smart and easy option. Especially if the 300 calories comes in the form of nutritionally void processed foods, sugary snacks or sodas. Unfortunately, the majority of the population tends to under estimate how many calories eaten in a day and over estimate how many calories burned during exercise.

In the end, most experts I spoke with agreed, you can lose weight with dieting alone, but exercise is important not only for stronger bones, muscle strength, and decreasing body fat but an important component for mental and emotional balance, confidence, energy, better sleep, better moods, productivity…(I could go on)…all of which help motivate you to eat better, stay on track and reach your goals.

So with that, to lose weight, yes, focus on your diet but don’t give up your gym membership just yet. Below are some of the experts who I spoke with. Read on to see how they weigh in on the topic of diet vs exercise for weight loss.