A recent study published in a medical journal says that in losing weight, diet alone can be just as effective as diet plus exercise.
This is really nothing new, but I’m afraid some people will misunderstand it. I don’t think the study is saying “don’t exercise.”
The real point of it is that you can lose weight by improving your diet or increasing exercise, or both. But that is really just common sense, isn’t it? Of course doing either of those things will help, and doing both will give the best results.
I’ve noticed that whenever I’ve gotten good results, regardless of what weight loss plan I was using, most of the results came from diet, not exercise. I think the reason is just simple math- it’s a lot easier to cut your calories by 500 a day (for example) than to do enough additional exercise to burn off 500 more calories.
You might be shocked at how few calories some exercise burns- the average person would have to walk five miles to burn 500 calories. A 5-mile walk would take most of us about two hours, which is a long time. It’s sure a lot easier to eat a small meal instead of a large one, isn’t it? Many of us might not be physically able to walk that far.
Also, keep in mind that people who already do lots of exercise probably aren’t overweight in the first place.
Since this study was in the news, it seemed important to discuss it, but I wouldn’t change your behavior based on it. If your weight loss plan is working for you, keep doing what you’ve been doing. Otherwise find another plan.