You always hear that to lose weight you must consume a healthy diet and exercise regularly. This is not inaccurate as both do lead to weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight. However, one is more effective than the other in helping you to shed the pounds. This information will help you to make the right choices when it comes to shedding those extra pounds.

Diet

The key to a successful diet is not being overly restrictive. For example, some people try to do too much at once and this backfires. Cutting to 800 calories per day is not only unhealthy for most people, but it is just not enough to be satisfied. If you are not satisfied you will not stick to your diet for very long. You need to make sure that you can eat at least two to three meals a day that are satisfying plus a snack or two. This is why most people do not cut below 1,200 calories. 1,200 allows you to still eat a decent amount of food and get your necessary nutrients in so that you feel good as you strive to regain your health.

With a 1,200 calorie diet you can do a 300 calorie breakfast, a 200 calorie lunch and a 500 calorie dinner. This will leave you 200 calories for a snack or two. If you snack smart, this can be as many as three snacks. Or, if you are not really into snacking, you can use this extra 200 calories for something like a glass of wine after a long day.

Exercise

Regardless of whether you need to or not you should exercise for 30 minutes at least three times per week to maintain a strong heart, lungs, bones and muscles. However, if you never exercise, but only eat right, you will maintain a healthy weight. If you restrict calories and never exercise, you can lose weight. However, you want to exercise during weight loss because this helps to build muscle and lean muscle will contribute to burning more calories, thus increasing your weight loss. It also works to tighten and tone which will help to prevent some loose skin as you lose weight.

Exercise should consist of cardiovascular exercise, flexibility training and strength training. This will give you overall benefits that help you to fight disease and age-related issues like osteoporosis, heart disease and reduced lung capacity.

Which Works Better?

You can exercise seven days a week, but if you are consuming twice what you need to lose weight then you are either going to slowly gain or just not lose depending on your activity level and how many calories you burn. Now, with dieting, you are restricting calories to just what you need. Most people cut 500 calories per day and this alone will knock off a pound per week. Of course, the more a person weighs, the faster the weight will come off, but it will come off anyone who is cutting calories every day.

The bottom line is that you should be doing both to maintain overall health, but diet alone can result in weight loss.