Diet or Exercise: What Is the Best Option to Cut Those Extra Pounds?

It does not require some form of intelligence or a medical degree to conclude diet and exercises are both vital for the well-being and keeping your body in proper shape. The key to weight loss is to consume fewer calories than what your body can burn. Either, you can intake lesser calories or burn few more calories through increased exercises. However, it is observed that most people trying to shed off extra pounds just through exercises can only reduce 2 to 3 percent of their weight over a stretch of 6 to 12 months. The fact is quite disheartening that physical activities alone cannot keep you thin.

diet

Actually, it is much easier to keep yourself away from 500 calories a day- the amount you require to cut a pound in a week- than to reduce that calorie through exercises. However, if you lose weight resorting to a crash dieting, drastically restricting yourself to 400 to 700 calories a day, you will regain weight faster say within six months after you leave dieting. Following a daily exercise routine will help you to keep off the lost weight. Therefore, let’s design a regimen considering both diet and exercise that you keep you healthy and the body in proper shape.

Focus on your diet

When you are trying to restrict the calorie intake, follow three principles:

Limit taking processed foods:

Most of the processed foods contain high sugar, corn syrup and artificial ingredients. Excess consumption of sugar can be related to heart diseases, obesity and diabetes. The artificial chemicals in processed food include:

• Artificial colors
• Preservatives
• Artificial flavors

Though food manufacturers will say artificial additives used in foods are safe, but researches show a different result. So, stay away from the processed foods.

Stick to a plant based diet:

Eating more plants and less meat is becoming more popular than ever. Most of the plant foods have only 10 to 50 calories per cup. If you eat such foods instead of the fatty, processed and sweet foods, you can definitely cut tons of calories.

The classic American meal consists of burger, fries and a drink. In order to stay healthy, switch such a meal for a bowl of salad. The salad should have lots of greens, beans, tomatoes, carrots and a dressing you will love. This eating habit not only helps to curb the weight, but in fact arrests heart diseases, Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

Eat lower calorie dense foods:

For controlling weight your best aid is healthy foods, low on calories but high in volumes. You can eat such foods more without hesitation and yet the calorimeter will not show you a red eye. The calorie content of fresh fruits, cereals and vegetables is sufficiently lower. In order to stay within a certain calorie limit you will always eat lower portions. Instead try to change your eating habits. Replacing a burger you can have soup, sandwich made with lean chicken a fruit and some vegetable. Though, the calorie of both the plate is same, the latter will keep you full for a longer duration.

Physical activities to maintain weight

There is no doubt that dietary changes promote weight loss than the physical activities and exercises. But, if you are exercising long and yet not losing weight, there is no doubt that you are doing it in a wrong way. The detrimental factor that keeps people from getting the results is that they do not go for high intensity training. When the question is about getting a proper shape, there are endless options.

Understand what you need

While some want to exercise for giving their body a proper shape and others want to tone down some of their body parts. Those willing to tone down the bulky arms, will continue to perform leg exercises, they can never have the desired result. Moreover, exercising a particular part of body over and over will lead to wear and tear of the muscles and joints of that body part. We are simply not clear about our vision and so most of the time we cannot achieve it.

Stay focused

There is a habit of talking over cell phone or watching TV, when walking on the treadmill. This will distract your attention from the exercises. If possible, keep these devices silent and concentrate in toning up the muscles.

Perform daily exercises

Anything extreme is not good. This is so true for working out also. You cannot perform excessive exercise a single day and spend the rest of the week doing nothing. Devoting 30 minutes daily and doing proper exercises, will keep you totally fine.

Some helpful tips:

• Take short meals throughout the day. Eat five to six meals a day or once in every three hours.
• Ideal snacks contain lean protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats.
• To boost energy, take foods rich in flavonoids.
• Do some aerobic exercises at least 150 minutes a week. It will increase your cardiac capacity.

So, start dieting and exercising for weight loss and healthy body.

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