Exercise Plus Diet Equals Weight Loss

Exercise can be a powerful balm for many of the things that ail us, including depression, bone loss, fatigue, heart disease, diabetes and arthritis. But if a goal of exercise is to lose weight, you’ll increase your chances of success bychanging your diet.

Modifying your diet – specifically controlling your portions – makes a bigger difference for weight loss than exercise alone, research shows. In a 2012 study comparing diet and exercise for weight loss, postmenopausal women who changed their diet alone lost an average of 7.2 kilograms (almost 16 pounds) over the course of the 12-month study, while those in the exercise only group lost just 2 kg (just under 4 ½ pounds).

The reason boils down to simple math. It is far easier to not eat 100 than it is to burn them off, which, for most of us, would require walking one mile.

美国运动医学学院(American College of Sports Medicine)和美国心脏协会(American Heart Association)的专家们回顾了有关运动与健康之间联系的所有现有科学证据，并在2007年写道:“尽管体育活动有助于减肥的想法直觉上很有吸引力，但与饮食措施相比，它似乎只起到了适度的减肥效果，而且其效果无疑因人而异。”

Amy Luke, PhD, a nutritional epidemiologist at Loyola University, Stritch School of Medicine, in Chicago, has seen this phenomenon for herself.

Luke compared two populations of black women: One group was from rural Nigeria, while the other was from downtown Chicago. All body size measurements were lower in the Nigerian women, and Luke and her team set out to understand why.

“Our hypothesis going in was not particularly brilliant,” Luke says. “It was that women who were heavier, particularly in the U.S., would have lower calorie expenditure than women who had a lower body mass index (BMI).” In other words, she thought thin women would be more physically active than obese women. That turned out not to be the case. “The differences in physical activity were minimal,” Luke says.

卢克认为，由于饮食的差异，芝加哥的女性比尼日利亚的女性更重。芝加哥人的饮食中含有40-45%的脂肪，加工食品含量高，而尼日利亚人的饮食中纤维和碳水化合物含量高，脂肪和动物蛋白含量低。

“For us, the take-home message is that a lot of public health policy on increasing physical activity for weight control may not be as productive as focusing on the dietary intake side of things,” says Luke, whose study was published in the journal Obesity.

Diet and Exercise Together for Success

大多数专家都认为，一个有效的减肥计划既需要减少热量，又需要增加体育活动。发表在《肥胖》杂志上的一项针对绝经后女性的研究显示，运动与饮食相结合的一组女性减肥效果最好，平均减重8.9公斤(约20磅)。

In the National Weight Control Registry, a group of 5,000 individuals who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least one year, 98% of people enrolled modify their food intake and 94% increase their physical activity.

The trick, experts say, is to carefully monitor how much you’re eating by counting calories, watching portion sizes, keeping a food journal or using a phone app that tracks food consumption, while increasing your physical activity. Although your greatest weapon againstobesityis diet, exercise can boost the weight-loss benefits of diet while providing the additional benefits of relieving joint pain,fatigue, boosting mood and helping to keep your heart and bones strong.

Related Resources:

• Benefits of Weight Loss
• Arthritis & Obesity
• Which Arthritis Diet Plan Should You Try?
• Add These Arthritis-Friendly Foods to Your Diet
• How Exercise Helps Your Joints