Personal Best Health Wellness - Exercise over Dieting

Losing weight is a matter of calories: If you burn more in energy than you consume in your diet, you will slim down.

That being the case, the next time you decide to lose some weight, remember the advantages of exercising compared to dieting:

1. If you are often tempted to have seconds at meals, cook only what you can eat. Or refrigerate any extra portions before you eat.
2. Dieting without exercise slows down your metabolism, your body's baseline rate of burning calories. That means that while you're eating less, you're burning calories at a slower than normal rate.
3. By contrast, exercise speeds up your metabolism, creating an "afterburn" — your body burns calories at a higher rate than if you had not exercised.
4. Exercise builds and preserves muscle while it burns body fat; added muscle burns added calories, even when you're sedentary.
5. Weight loss by dieting alone tends to return in the form of fat — and at an accelerated rate.
6. Exercise allows you to eat more and still maintain a weight loss.
7. Dieting can make you irritable but exercise boosts energy and helps control stress.
8. Exercise directly fights the diseases of obesity — high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.  

Your best bet for long-term weight control is a personal food plan that includes exercise — a plan you can live with.