Why Exercise is better than Dieting

How often do you see individuals who are strongly willing to massively cut down on significant chunks of their normal food intake? It is something that I see with many young people, especially the ladies. That is probably because of the high social expectations placed on women to remain slim because it is associated with a sense of beauty. Nevertheless, even a number of males participate in dieting to lose weight. Several research articles have published findings that dieting is one of the most effective ways of losing weight. That makes a lot of sense considering that dieting cuts down on an individual's calorie intake, which ultimately reduces their weight-gains.

However, my concern is not the effectiveness that comes with dieting but how much an individual will have to withstand to make the process successful and some of the disadvantages it has on one. First, the reduction in the daily number of calories will subject one to binge eating behavior. An individual may find dieting quite difficult to maintain and will often suffer the temptation to eat in small quantities several times in the day. Binge eating will often occur with unsuitable foods, such as candy. Dieting makes it hard for an individual to maintain the practice because adapting to the new reduced diet can be quite challenging.

Secondly, the reduced amount of calorie intake per day can make it harder for one to obtain their daily requirements of proteins and vitamins. The declined amounts of these two nutrients results in a biological imbalance in the body because of a reduction of the 'material' required to produce various hormones in the body. Hormonal imbalances can then lead to unhealthy changes in the body's composition by affecting the menstrual cycle, bone density, and other biological processes in the body.

Dieting can also lower the body's metabolic rate significantly to enable one to adapt to living on less food. However, this phenomenon often works to the disadvantage of the individual whereby once he/she returns to normal food intake, the rate of weight gain rises quickly than before, resulting in being heavier than even before the process. Therefore, dieting can be detrimental to you in the long-term if your discipline does not hold forever.

This is why I encourage people to engage in exercising rather than focusing on dieting. If you can manage to do both, well, that is amazing. But, if you have to choose between the two, go for exercise. With exercising, you can maintain your normal diet as long as you keep increasing your exercise intensity such that in the long-term, you can experience a calorie deficit that will enable you to register weight loss. Physical activities, such as running, sprinting, hitting the gym, swimming, or engaging in calisthenics, can help you lose weight. Unlike dieting, these activities are easier to maintain in the long-term because burning calories can be sustainable than cutting down on calories. When individuals exercise, they are less likely to engage in binge eating practices because they have normal meals every day. Besides, physical activities help boost hormonal production, such as testosterone in men and growth hormone in both genders, which help boost various metabolic processes in the body.

It is also notable that exercising comes with several health benefits than dieting regarding the cardiovascular system. It helps maintain a normal and healthy circulatory system that ensures the body tissues receive nutrients and quickly get rid of the metabolic wastes. It also helps prevent conditions such as atherosclerosis that increase one's chances of developing other heart conditions, like hypertension.

Overall, exercising seems to be the better and easier choice of the two because one can sustain it longer than dieting. But again, it all depends on one's commitment. Also, if you can undertake dieting and exercising at the same time, it would be very effective for your weight loss, but only if you can do that in the long-term.