Better Health - Diet vs. Exercise

Better health is simple, right? "Eat less, move more." That's easy to say, but practicality is one of the most important things when it comes to health and fitness. Common sense suggestions like this are inclusive statements that don't address practicality—so the bottom line- which is more important? Diet, or exercise?

    We should all eat healthier. Yes, we should exercise every day. There are lists of things we could do in order to be healthier- sit less, eat more vegetables, eat less processed food, or drink less alcohol. But this lifestyle demands thoughtfulness , if not an outright commitment. We are all constrained by a finite amount of resources such as time, energy, willpower, and money. Recommendations that don't take this into account can easily make us feel like we are failing our fitness and health goals.

To give you a sense of the importance of practicality, consider this recent meta-study (i.e. a study of studies), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which sought to figure out "which diet works best?" by looking at the results of 59 individual studies. These studies included various nutritional recommendations, such as low-fat, low-carb, and so on. Which of these eating plans reigned king? None. There were no major differences between the diets, and success was completely dependent on what the individual could actually stick to and not bail out after a short time. In this case, incrementalism (small steps of positive progress) proved to be very effective.

We'll talk about changing lifestyle habits on an incremental basis in our next installment.