Diet or Exercise: Which is More Important for Fat Loss?

Exercise or diet--which is more important in the pursuit of fat loss? This is the eternal question! Some are staunchly one camp or the other, while others--like moi--understand that the careful manipulation of both exercise and nutrition is what yields the most effective results for body composition improvements.

First of all, let's get one thing straight: when people say that they want to lose weight, what they really mean is that they want to lose fat and build lean muscle because that is what results in a more favorable body composition. Body composition is determined by  the percentages of fat, bone, water and muscle in the human body. The greater the amount of lean muscle you have, the leaner you will appear because muscle takes up less space than fat. As far as I am concerned, people should forget all about weight loss and focus on increasing lean muscle. It may take longer to put on muscle than to lose "weight" (mostly water, and in some cases muscle), but the benefits--a leaner physique, faster metabolism, less risk for chronic disease--far exceed the benefits of weight loss.

So we know the what, but what about the how? How do you burn fat and build lean muscle? What should you eat to enhance fat loss, and how should you exercise? Unfortunately, there are a lot of conflicting opinions out there to wade through, and there will always be someone who claims to have discovered the secret to effective fat loss. What's frustrating is that some "unique" and "alternative" strategies DO work for some people, but more often than not, those people are genetic anomalies with freakily-fast metabolisms :-) Their approaches are too specific and unique to be effective for the vast majority of people.



There is sufficient research out there to support the theory that a diet of whole foods and an exercise program that includes moderate-to-intense strength training is the key to effective fat loss. In other words, what you eat and how you train will both effect your results: you cannot disregard either of them and expect to get the best results. At the same time, you have to enjoy the way that you eat and train because otherwise, you won't stick to it. A diet rich in whole foods is not necessarily a boring diet: it does not have to consist of boiled chicken breast and broccoli! There are many ways to clean up your diet that don't involve eating boring or bland foods, but it does require some sacrifice: you have to cut out processed food. I'm not saying that you can never have it again--no food should ever be off limits!--but it can no longer be a major staple of your diet if you want your fat loss efforts to pay off. Generally-speaking, if you can buy it in a bodega/convenience store and it has at least one ingredient that you can't pronounce, get rid of it! These foods are not only loaded with chemicals, but they contain far too much salt and sugar that can easily derail your progress. Try to eat by the 80/20 rule: 80% of what you eat supports your goals, and includes plenty of protein, healthy fats, fiber, non-starchy vegetables, and carbohydrates from mostly plant-based sources. If you stick to this, then 20% of your diet can be made up of the foods that you love and would never--nor should ever!--give up entirely.

When it comes to your training, you can get creative. I've talked about the effectiveness--both in terms of time and fat loss--of metabolic conditioning on the blog before, so incorporating a fair amount of this type of training is the key to any effective fat loss program. I credit programs like Cross Fit for making metabolic conditioning workouts more mainstream: most WODs (Workouts of the Day in Cross Fit speak) are considered met con. Workouts like these, combined with the emphasis on traditional strength (through powerlifting training) and dynamic strength (through Olympic lifting), are highly effective. I certainly have reservations about Cross Fit, but when executed and progressed safely and combined with a clean diet, it yields results.

Cross Fit is by no means the only effective workout to burn fat. I use it as an example in this blog merely to emphasize what makes it effective: the combination of strength and metabolic conditioning.  Some well-respected athletes are staunchly "pro-strength," while others eschew the heavy lifting for lighter loads and faster circuits. This is where the importance of nutrition comes into play because depending on what your sport is and what metabolic stress you are placing on your body, you must eat to support that. For example, many strength athletes follow a low-carb diet that manipulates protein and fat intake depending on their training schedule (i.e. more fat, less carb on non-or-light training days), while those who belong to the met con club frequently experiment with more carbs. Of course, aligning nutrition and training is more nuanced than that, but you can begin to see how it's important to build your nutrition around your training to enhance performance, and not the other way around.

In conclusion, I want you to know that there are tons of resources out there if you're interested in learning more about fat-loss nutrition and training. In fact, many of the fitness professionals that I admire have come out with fat loss programs that are A+: most (if not all) include a nutrition guide/component as well as a training plan. Check out Girls Gone Strong's program The Modern Woman's Guide to Strength Training; Neghar Fonooni's Lean & Lovely; Jen Sinkler's Lift Weights Faster I or II John Romaniello's The Super Hero Workout (also, he and wife Neghar Fonooni co-wrote The Superheroine Workout); and Metabolic Effect's 8-Week Female Fat Loss Formula & 8-Week Male Metabolic Blueprint.

So what're you waiting for?! Check out one of the awesome programs above; join a gym or Cross Fit box; or create your own fat-loss training plan and let me know how it goes in the comment below! I love to hear from you!