Diet or exercises: what matters more when losing weight?

Staying active is an important part of any weight loss or weight maintenance program. When you are active, your body uses more energy (calories). And when you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight. But what is more effective to lose weight, diet or exercise?

Both are important. However, although diet has a greater effect on weight loss than physical activity, the latter has a greater effect in the prevention of weight recovery after weight loss.

For most healthy adults, the US Department of Health and Human Services. (Department of Health and Human Services) recommends these guidelines about exercises:

► Aerobic activity. Perform a weekly minimum of 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of intense aerobic activity.

However, to lose weight effectively or to maintain it, some people may need up to 300 minutes per week of moderate physical activity. You can do a combination of moderate and intense activity. The guidelines suggest dividing these exercises during the course of the week, and the activity sessions should be at least 10 minutes.

Examples of moderate activity:

Light walk, dance, housework, take the pet for a walk, ride a bike, swim, etc.

Examples of vigorous activity:

Jogging, climbing at a rapid pace or climbing a slope,

fast commuting by bicycle, fast swimming;

sports, competitive games, etc.

► Strength training. Do strength training exercises at least twice a week. The guidelines do not establish the specific amount of time for each strength training session.

Strength training may include the use of weight machines or activities such as loading grocery items or working intensely in the garden.

As a general goal, try to do at least a total of 30 minutes of physical activity every day.

How many calories am I burning?

Since 3500 calories equals about 450 grams of fat, you need to burn 3500 calories more than you eat to lose 450 grams. So if you reduce your daily diet by 500 calories, you would lose about 450 g per week (500 calories x 7 days = 3500 calories).

There are other factors that can affect this equation. Due to the changes that occur in the body over time, you may have to reduce even more calories to keep losing weight.

3 Forms of Creatine

Few people are aware of this simple fact but you should know that there are three forms of creatine available for buying: monohydrate, citrate and phosphate. 

What you also need to understand is that phosphate creatine is not easy to absorb by one's body and is not so effective in bodybuilding, so there is a big chance you will not get the expected results. 

With citrate creatine research is not conclusive although it does become more popular each day. Monohydrate creatine has been used in research in most cases and is the one that has the most proven results. 

This is why, until further news, you should try and look for monohydrate creatine in my view!

Low Fat Diets - Are they Good?

The answer to this question is very simple: NO! Low fat diets are very bad for an individual's general well-being, not to mention his health. This is because healthy fat is very important in keeping your skin looking good, lubricated joints and a key factor in hormone production. If you want to eliminate something from your diet you need to start with sugar and not fat! By doing this you will actually get your glucoze level to be in a healthy range and this induces fat loss. Just do this! Eliminate sugar all together from your diet for a week or two and keep on doing what you do! You will see something change!

If you chose to go for a low fat diet your testosterone level will drop together with progesterone production. In case you did not know, both are important for men and women in order to loose weight. It's simple, if you do not have enough fat in your diet you won't have enough levels of testosterone to aid you in loosing weight because you can not develop muscle. Building muscle is the best way to get rid of fat and keeping it off.

People Still Don't Get Fat Loss

There are some things that never change and one of them is individuals that are fat and want to lose weight but simply do not understand how to do it properly. You surely saw one of them on the treadmil, walking for half an hour with his cell phone at his hear talking in the same time for half an hour. That is no workout! Leaving that aside let us talk about the subject at hand. The facts are simple: you need to burn more than you eat in order to lose weight. How hard is that to understand? People start eliminating fat from their diets thinking that will make them immediately lose weight, without even thinking about what specialists say: some fats are good for you! Others start eating more times per day, in smaller quantities because this is how you should eat to help out your body. Again, they do not understand that you need to eat properly not less. If I eat a box full of chocolates instead of a stake then I do not gain anything here. Loosing weight is 80% a proper diet, 10% workout and 10% motivation and will to learn.

A cardio workout is not effective unless combined with a diet. You can not loose weight if you consume 300 calories and drink a protein shake after your workout that brings in 500 calories. Loosing fat is easy but you can not do it by exercise alone! How long will it take till people understand this?

Use a Balanced Fat Burning Diet for Abs

By now you have to know that you can not get those sexy abs you are looking for this summer by doing hundreds of crunches and that you have to work hard in the kitchen as well. A bodybuilding diet is a must have if training and wanting to loose weight together with getting sexy, hot abs. If you do not burn that extra fat you have there over your muscles there is no way you can achieve your goal.

Here is another news flash if you need it! Everybody out there has great abs. Human anatomy can prove this. You have great abs there but they are covered with a layer of fat and water. The only thing you need to get to see your abs is reducing the body fat covering it and making it low enough for the muscles to show. In most cases this will happen when body fat falls below 10% for men and 13% for women. If you want those abs to show even better you need to lower it even more to get a defined aspect until around 6% for men and 11% for women. Yes, for women it is a lot easier but men usually throw more motivation behind it. We all love a woman with a flat stomach, those defined "six packs" are not really necessary. For a man we must agree that he looks better if the abs look better.

The basics for a fat burning diet stands in 40% proteins, 40% carbs and 20% good fats. This means that fruits and dairy products need to be eliminates because they have simple carbs that can slow down fat loss. Talking about carbs now you have to know that they must come from complex slow releasing ingredients like brown rice, sweat potatoes, oatmeal in a combination with sources full of fibres like broccoli (yes I know most people hate broccoli I do too) or green beans. Your proteins must come from lean red meat, tuna, chicken or turkey. The main sources of fat should be extra virgin olive oil or flax seed oil. There is no great philosophy to have a good balanced fat burning diet for abs. You just have to be motivated and stick in there!