Diet vs. Exercise: Which is more important for fat loss?

“Which is more important for losing fat , exercise or nutrition ?”

If you’ve ever thought about losing weight you’ve probably wondered, nutrition vs exercise, which is better. Well, I’m here today to provide the answer with in home personal training O’Fallon, let’s jump in!

Graphic illustrating that exercise and nutrition are equally important

Fat Loss ≠ Weight Loss

There is a common misconception that weight loss and fat loss are the same. Weight Loss means that you are losing all types of body weight: fat, water, AND, most importantly, muscle. Fat Loss is mainly about losing fat. Therefore, these two things are not the same.

So Which Is Most Important for Fat Loss?

Now that we covered the differences we can answer the above question. The answer is they’re both equally important. The reason for this is because if you only focus on being in a calorie deficit you’ll experience weight loss . If you lose weight you will lose muscle because your body isn’t carrying as much weight. Less weight means less muscle needed. Think like a football player or someone in athletic performance, they have a ton of muscle because they have a higher weight. Nutrition still has many important benefits like:

Can’t lose fat without a healthy diet, we have a saying you can’t out-train a poor diet
Massively helps to reduce the chances of chronic conditions
A proper diet and healthy food will help you feel energized
You’ll eliminate brain fog and think clearer than ever before benefitting overall health

Here’s where exercise kicks in. Whenever you exercise you’ll gain the benefits of hypertrophy, aka muscle building. When you exercise you cause little micro-tears in your muscle that causes them to rebuild so they come back bigger and stronger. So, when you enter a moderate calorie deficit you can maintain your muscle mass while losing weight. This way instead of losing all types of weight you are losing body fat. There’s a ton of other health benefits you’ll get from healthy weight training or couples personal training which includes: