The Necessity of Diet and Lifestyle Changes for Effective Weight Loss

Woman meditating on yoga mat

You may work out regularly and always exert your best effort, but if your lifestyle does not match this, you may find yourself losing less weight than you can — if you’re losing weight at all. Research has found the link between working out, diet, and lifestyle changes, and if people do not find a balance between the three, none of their weight loss methods may prove to be effective.

Workouts without Exercise

Coca-Cola launched a 2015 campaign that suggested that cutting down on food intake was unnecessary if people exercised more. However, several studies contradict this, suggesting that dieting played a huge role in effective weight loss. Long-term workouts avoid extra weight and improve physical fitness, but dieting actually shed the extra weight.

In fact, in that same year, researchers published a study in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health that supported the role of dieting. Researchers from the Arizona State University set 81 healthy but sedentary and overweight women on high-active workout routines for thirty minutes a day, thrice a week, for three months. However, they were told not to change their diets or log their food intake.

While their fitness levels improved, 70 percent of the participants gained weight, regardless of the calories burned. It is unclear if they have gained weight by subconsciously compensating more exercise by consuming more food, but one thing is sure: exercise alone is not an effective form of weight loss.

A Fit and Healthy Lifestyle

According to a women’s personal training studio in Georgetown, effective weight loss is the result of both dieting and exercise, and studies support this. A thirty-minute brisk walk on the treadmill is not an excuse to eat more, and this could be why many sees some workout styles as ineffective when, really, it’s all about their diet and lifestyle.

Without proper diet and lifestyle changes, you may not see effective weight loss results you would like to have. Weight loss is not just your daily exercise routine; it is a lifestyle change that requires total commitment and changing your eating habits and lifestyle to match your exercise.