Trying to decide which is more important, diet or fitness, is like trying to decide whether hydrating or breathing is more important. Yes, in the second case, you can last longer without fluid than you can with air, but ultimately, going without either for an extended period will cause death. It’s just a matter of how long you go without either one. I use that analogy when people in Columbia, South Carolina, ask me and then tell them that diet is like breathing and exercise is like hydrating. You’ll see negative results sooner if your diet is bad, but without both, you can’t be truly healthy.
You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.
If you’re eating junk food that’s high in calories and low in nutrients, don’t expect to be healthy or lose weight just by exercising. However, you also will rust out quicker than you will wear out. When you exercise, your body requires the raw material from a healthy diet to rebuild those muscle tissues and stoke the furnaces of the cells. You also need to work your muscles and keep circulation at its best.
Exercise helps protect you at a cellular level.
The body is an amazing machine. The more you work out, the more it prepares itself to workout more. Working out makes small tears in the muscles, so the body builds new cells for repair that are bigger and stronger. Working out regularly, causes the body to create longer telomeres. Telomeres act like aglets, the plastic on the end of shoestrings. They prevent the chromosomes from fraying and unraveling, which can cause cell damage and death. Exercise also increases stem cell production to create new cells where necessary.
Obesity is the number one cause of preventable death.
While exercise is extremely important, no matter what your fitness goal, adopting a healthy diet should be your first priority. Your body needs healthy cells and that requires the raw materials to make them. That comes from a healthy diet. Sugar and highly processed foods actually sabotage your body and can lead to insulin resistance, diabetes, unhealthy cholesterol levels and other health conditions. Your diet affects your weight, your health and how old you look and feel.
- Just as you don’t have to choose between breathing and hydrating, you don’t have to choose between diet and exercise. You can do both and reap the benefits. When you combine them, the benefits are greater than the sum of the two individually.
- What is a healthy diet or good exercise program? The answer varies. While the basics of each is similar for all people, there are changes made to both to accommodate individual differences, such as food intolerance or physical limitations in the case of exercise.
- Eating healthy is not the same as dieting. Dieting means limiting choices and feeling deprived. You have a multitude of choices when you eat healthy, which includes healthy snacks. Most people say they never feel deprived or hungry.
- Exercise doesn’t have to include a formal exercise program at the gym. It can mean being more active, like walking to the store or work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator or riding your bike instead of taking a car.
For more information, contact us today at Sci-Fit Nutrition