How Exercise Pairs Perfectly With Healthy Eating for Weight Loss
By Lizzie Streit, MS, RDN, LD
If you’ve ever heard the phrase “you can’t outrun a bad diet,” you may already know that diet is the most important factor when it comes to losing weight. However, this sentiment doesn’t look at the whole picture. Some of the best results happen when diet and exercise work together.
While healthy eating creates the calorie deficit needed to drop pounds, exercise protects metabolism and preserves muscle mass. It can make maintaining weight loss easier and improve health in several other ways.
This article highlights why nutrition and exercise shouldn’t be competing strategies and how to reap the most benefits by focusing on both. Here are five ways they work in tandem.
1) Eating kickstarts weight loss, while exercising helps maximize it.
In order to lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn. This is referred to as a calorie deficit, and it’s generally easier to accomplish via food choices than exercise. Cutting a few hundred calories by making conscious substitutions is more efficient than trying to burn the same amount of calories via exercise.
For example, skipping a 500-calorie ice cream sundae after dinner and replacing it with nonfat Greek yogurt with fruit and chocolate chips takes significantly less time and effort than running for an hour to burn that difference. Other simple ways to cut calories include swapping fries for roasted vegetables and replacing a sugary coffee drink with plain coffee.
What’s more, it’s easy to overestimate calories burned during exercise and compensate by eating more than you realize. How much you burn depends on your weight, the type of exercise, and your level of exertion. If you’re interested in getting a better estimate of how much energy you use during exercise, consider using a smart watch or fitness tracker app.
For a more effective approach to calorie deficits, think of how you can use exercise to maximize the results of healthy eating instead of relying on just one. Reducing energy intake via food kickstarts the deficit, while exercise provides some more wiggle room to stay in it.
2) Exercise helps you lose fat and hold onto muscle.
Weight loss often occurs as both fat and muscle loss. In fact, people who take glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist medications are advised to pay close attention to protein intake to prevent losing too much muscle.
This is another area of weight loss that underscores the importance of pairing exercise with dietary changes. If you are successful in achieving a calorie deficit in the kitchen, starting an exercise program to maintain and build muscle should be the next step. At the same time, you’ll want to focus on protein intake at meals to both fuel and recover from your workouts.
In particular, resistance training helps preserve lean muscle and prevent muscle atrophy while also boosting fat loss. Examples include lifting weights, using resistance bands, or doing push-ups, squats, and lunges. While these kinds of exercise may not lead to fast declines in the number on the scale, they contribute to body composition improvements. How you look and feel is also an important metric when measuring your progress.
3) Good nutrition helps you get more out of your workouts.
Properly fueling workouts and recoveries is one of the best ways to maximize the weight loss and body composition benefits you get from exercise. A hard workout can discourage you from returning if the soreness and side effects linger for too long.
Protein-rich foods aid in muscle repair and maintenance, while healthy carbohydrates provide a fuel source and replenish glycogen stores that get depleted during activity. Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables also supplies hydration, minerals (including electrolytes), vitamin C, and other antioxidants your body needs in recovery.
Incorporating foods with these nutrients in your 1200 calorie meal plan can improve workout quality and recovery. When your body is properly fueled, exercise often feels easier. As a result, you’ll probably be more likely to stick with it!
4) Together, they make weight loss easier to maintain.
Many people struggle with maintaining weight loss after an initial drop in pounds. Combining diet and exercise, instead of relying on one or the other, can make maintenance easier.
Healthy eating helps prevent excess calorie intake, while exercise preserves body composition gains. Although not as effective as maintaining calorie deficit via diet, regularly working out also contributes to daily energy expenditure. This can help you avoid creeping into a calorie surplus, especially on days where a few food choices may have thrown your balance off kilter.
Keep in mind that the best form of exercise is the one you enjoy doing! If you’re determined to stick with regular exercise to help you maximize healthy eating and maintain your desired weight, choose activities you like. Consider jogging, pilates, yoga, dancing, swimming, pickleball, tennis, brisk walking with a friend, at-home resistance training, or strength workouts with a trainer. If one doesn’t work out, keep going until you find the option that sticks with you.
5) Healthy habits create more healthy habits.
In life, and nutrition in particular, healthy routines tend to reinforce one another. And once they become your lifestyle, it gets easier to stay consistent.
People who exercise regularly often become more aware of how food affects their energy, performance, and overall wellness. After a good workout, it’s common to gravitate towards nourishing meals instead of foods that make you feel sluggish. At the same time, having a regular workout routine encourages planning meals and snacks ahead of time.
To make both habits easier to maintain, having nutritious, portion-controlled meals ready to go can make a big difference—especially during busy weeks. Healthy For Life Meals takes care of the planning, portioning, and cooking, with nutritionally balanced meals designed to support your weight loss goals and help you stay within your daily calorie target.
You bring the movement. We’ll take care of the meals.