Dieting Isn’t The Best Solution To Lose Weight

Stop. Cookie time.

Dieting Isn’t The Best Solution To Lose Weight

It’s been said that you can’t out train a good diet, but today researchers have found proof that it’s actually the opposite. In other words, regular exercise will do you more good than a controlled diet.

The notion of eating clean and staying active as a combination still rings true, but what we do know now is that dieting isn’t the most effective way to get you that ripped summer body you’re after. The surprising new finding comes from the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, a group who claims that exercise doesn’t just help you lose weight but can also help you to keep it off for longer.

Researchers came to this conclusion by studying a group of people who were consistently able to keep weight off. Their findings showed that the most successful weight loss maintainers were the ones who practiced physical activities on a regular basis to maintain energy balance, that is, energy in vs. energy out. What did they conclude? Remaining active is a more effective strategy than consistently reducing your dietary intake.

“This study addresses the difficult question of why so many people struggle to keep weight off over a long period. By providing evidence that a group of successful weight-loss maintainers engages in high levels of physical activity to prevent weight regain – rather than chronically restricting their energy intake – is a step forward to clarifying the relationship between exercise and weight-loss maintenance,” said Danielle Ostendorf, a PhD at the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center said.

The study was one of just a handful which looked at the total daily energy expenditure in weight-reduced individuals through a specific proven method – urine samples. More specifically, the researchers were able to measure a subject’s energy burn through their urine samples. In an adjoining study which looked the Body Mass Index of these weight-loss maintainers in comparison to those who were struggling to lose weight, researchers found something interesting about their eating habits.

“Our findings suggest that this group of successful weight-loss maintainers are consuming a similar number of calories per day as individuals with overweight and obesity but appear to avoid weight regain by compensating for this with high levels of physical activity,” said Victoria A. Catenacci, MD, a weight management physician and researcher at CU Anschutz Medical Campus.

Now we don’t recommend you go out smashing junk food everyday in the hopes that you’ll be okay since you cross fit once a week, but we do recommend a balance. The study didn’t stipulate if their weight-loss maintainers were civilians or athletes so the results may be subjective. Nonetheless it’s good to know that the next time someone tells you that you can’t out train a good diet, you can reply with “well ,actually…”

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