Diet and Exercise

You think that the skinny people at the gym are that way because they workout so much? Only partly.

Diet vs Exercise - Exercise is only about 30% of the weight loss equation while proper eating is 70% responsible! Surprised? You shouldn't be. Bodybuilders who are fanatical about their appearance have a motto, "Miss a workout but NEVER a meal" . Since they eat 5-6 small meals a day, missing a meal would slow thier metabolism ( so fat loss would be harder) and it also obstructs the body from being in an environment that promotes being LEAN.

- I imagine you guys are not used to hearing "never miss a meal" in order to lose weight but it's true. Same is true for athletes. It would be very detrimental for your metabolism to go all day without food (skipping lunch for example) and have only 600 calories eaten (total) by the end of the day, than to have eaten 1500 calories in 4 meals spaced evenly apart. There is alot of science to this so either you're gonna have to do some heavy reading or just trust me (and all the 8% bodyfat athletes) on this.

Although exercise is only 30% of the equation, it does have a large weight loss effect. BUT, combined with proper eating it is like throwing gasoline on a fire. Your metabolism increases alot more when you combine the two than the sum of either of them seperately so it would be a VERY good idea to eat right AND exercise.

Want some good news?

Exercise should be EASY and not hard. Most people workout way to hard! When I worked in various fitness centers and gyms I would see the same thing over and over. People join the gym, get all excited, mount the stairclimber and decide they want to climb the equivalent of mount everest in one training session. So there they are going up and down on the machine, all red, huffing and puffing dripping enough sweat to fill a beer keg and they think to themselves, "I burned 4 million calories this session!"

They feel drained, nauseas and about to pass out but hey, "I need to lose alot of weight so I better go hard or go home".

Then after about 3 weeks the couch starts to feel alot more comfortable. The thought of going to the gym to and put out that kind of effort when you just got back from work, are tired....you get the picture. It is not something a person can handle for the long-term AND:

In order for a ANYTHING (exercise) to work in the LONG-RUN it MUST satisfy 2 criteria:

1- It must be a diet/exercise that is healthy for you.

2- It must be a diet/exercise that can be reasonably sustained for the REST of YOUR LIFE! Don't forget this!

Also, exercising Kamikaze-Style is actually LESS beneficial to losing fat-tissue than by taking it alot easier. You will burn more calories exercising really HARD but most of them will be carbohydrate calories and not calories from fat so all that effort will be for nothing. Plus you'll probably stop going to the gym or go alot less often - when you train that hard and "believe" that that is the only way - that you also be wasting your money buy not using your gym membership.

Easy-Easy-Easy ... Make things easy so that you can sustain them for the long-term. Eat for fat loss, exercise for fat loss and you WILL lose fat!