Diet or Exercise For Weight Loss?

In today's world obesity is becoming one of the major problems worldwide. While it continues to spread like a pandemic, fighting it is becoming more and more challenging. This is because obesity can only be fought by watching your diet and exercising. And, therein lies the rub "our busy lifestyle". We choose unhealthy foods from fast-food restaurants because it's easier than cooking, and it saves time. This is the same reason why we do not do exercises, No Time! But, what if you only had time for one of these approaches? Which one would you choose? Diet or exercise?

Well, the answer really depends on you. First you should ask yourself, what is it that you're trying to achieve? Are you only interested in losing weight, or you want to live a healthy long life? If your goal is just to lose weight, watching your diet should be sufficient. But, if you want to improve the quality of your life and live longer and healthier life, you should start focusing on exercise, or both.
Diet for Weight Loss

In a twelve-week long study done over a decade ago (year 2000), scientists compared the weight loss progress of people on "diet only"programs to people on "exercise only" programs The overweight women in "diet only" program lost 5.5kg (12.12 lbs) and men lost 8.4kg (18.51 lbs). This was accomplished by reducing the caloric consumption of women by an average of 945 kilocalories per day and men by 1705 kilocalories per day.

On the other hand, in "exercise only" group, women lost 0.6 kg (1.32 lbs) and men lost 0.3 kg (0.66 lbs). This group had performed walking and jogging exercises 5 days a week for 30 minutes a day. On average, a woman burned 190 kcal per session while man burned 255 kcal. Women in this program lost about 2% of their body fat, while women in "diet only" program lost about 6% of their body fat. The men in "diet only" program lost about 5% of their body fat, whereas men in "exercise only" program did not see any significant change. As you can see, that eating diets low in calories is much more efficient method for losing weight.
Exercising for better life:

Do not let the results from the above study destroy your motivation to exercise. The study did not include any weight training exercises, which are essential to muscle building and losing fat. Exercises have several other benefits than weight loss. A recent study shows that every hour you spend doing exercise, you increase your lifespan by 2 hours. It's not just longevity; it’s also the quality of your life. The more exercises you do, the better your chances of being disease free at the old age. Listed below are some of the advantages of doing exercises:

    Reduced risk of premature death.
    Reduced risk of diabetes.
    Builds and maintains healthy muscles, bones, and joints.
    Improves your psychological well being.
    Improves your mood.
    Reduces depression and anxiety.

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Feel good fitness - Sonakshi Sinha

The actress says the journey of her weight loss has been an emotional one.

Her debut film Dabangg opposite Salman Khan set cash registers ringing at the box office, almost immediately making Sonakshi Sinha one of the most sought-after faces of Bollywood. With films like Farah Khan's Joker in her kitty, the now svelte actress shares her story of battling a whopping 30 kilos and says how determination and discipline are key to staying in shape.

As someone who championed the weight-loss cause, what does fitness mean to you?

Before I embarked on my weight-loss mission, fitness to me was only about being thin. However, with time I've realised fitness is actually a combination of physical and mental wellness. It's an entire lifestyle change that combines feeling healthy from within, choosing the right foods, exercising regularly and thinking positive. Till the time I took up fitness seriously, I felt these were only best written about in fancy magazines and something my mom spoke about all the time, but had no practical value. But once I took it up, I realised the truth.

Given that you were far removed from fitness, what motivated you to finally embark on your weight-loss mission?

I had been built on the heavier side right from my childhood. During my growing up years, things got only worse. I hated going to the gym, hated every kind of physical activity and survived on junk. I turned a deaf ear to my mom every time she reminded me about my expanding waistline. In fact, as an act of rebellion, I would gorge all the more those very days. While mom was concerned about the way I looked, dad was more concerned about my physical health. But nothing mattered.

I loved my sedentary lifestyle, I loved my food and made every possible excuse to not exercise. Then suddenly, I found my mom had stopped nagging me completely. While it felt great initially, but I gradually found something missing. My conscience started pricking me. This was around the same time when I was finishing my fashion designing course.

In the meantime, Salman(Khan) too had dropped by a couple of times asking me to lose weight and give films a serious thought. Finally, I woke up one fine morning and decided enough was enough. I just had to shut people up from nagging me about my weight all the time.

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