Why Nutrition Is So Important - Diet vs Exercise Facts

With media outlets so widespread in today's age, we're able to access information and entertainment at every turn it seems. With that brings the opportunity to advertise and market products to consumers by companies that really are only interested in making money. The general population has now been trained to think that a cover model's body is the ultimate goal of fitness, so every little gadget that has to do with improving your fitness is being offered to you everywhere you look.

So many fitness and exercise products have gained access to the airwaves. Exercise machines, as well as weight loss products, can be purchased at every store you can imagine. But what our population must get under control, in order to achieve positive results, is the way we eat.

Our diets are so essential to not only our fitness levels, but our overall health in general. The foods we consume provides us with the nutrients we need to perform regular exercise, as well as help our worn out muscles recover and grow. I've read in a number of fitness and nutrition outlets that diet can contribute to as much as 90% of your overall fitness results.

That's right, your training contributes roughly 10% of your fitness results. Now, this may seem a little hard to believe and I'm telling you what I've read in order to make a point. In my own experiences I would say that 70% of my results were due to the food that I put in my mouth.

Now, I would not consider myself an expert on diet but I know enough to be confident in its overall importance to fitness goals. Think about how long it takes you to get through a workout. Generally, you're looking at about an hour out of your day to get some sort of physical activity in. Now, what are you doing for the other 23 hours of the day?

And how are you using those 23 hours to contribute to the hour of exercise that you've just performed? An hour of exercise, especially intense exercise, can take a lot out of us. More specifically, we expend a lot of energy to perform exercises, and our bodies need nutrients in order to recover and grow stronger. So during those next 23 hours, we need to find the time to prepare nutritious meals in order to make the most of our fitness efforts.

So what we put into our mouths on a daily basis should never be taken for granted. Think about how much time and money you invest in your other daily activities and none of those are as important as your own personal health. With that in mind, all sorts of fitness and diet professionals have created programs and diet methods in order to improve and build on our exercising efforts.

There's been the massive low carb craze that started taking off around a decade ago as well as the low fat craze that came before it. There's also been diets that focus on consuming high amounts of carbs and diets that focus on high amounts of fats. But which is better? High carb diets are utilized for glycogen stored in the liver and muscles. Glycogen is a glucose complex that provides large amounts of energy for use in anaerobic exercises.

On the other hand, fats are well known to be the richest source of calories among the nutrients we consume. Fats contain 2.5 times more calories than carbohydrates and proteins alike. Studies also show that it takes the body 24 calories to metabolize carbohydrates while it only takes 3 calories to burn fat.

So Which Diet Should You Follow?
So anyone can follow a high carb and low fat diet or the other way around. But it is not recommended to follow both at the same time because you're more than likely to pack on the fat.

Another important factor to consider is not just getting rid of fat on your body but actually keeping it away in the first place. So if we really want to succeed, we should look into what the research tells us, which is that succeeding at keeping up a certain way of eating and losing weight while doing it comes down to one that suits the individual's food preferences, medical profile and lifestyle.

If you really want to lose some pounds, you can find diets all over the place that can help you. But if you want to keep those pounds off, then you need to find the healthiest way of eating that you can stick to and one that satisfies you.

So no matter what type of diet you try, you must make sure that you're getting the nutrients that your body needs and one that you can stick to. And just because you find a way of eating that works for you doesn't mean that you have to stick to it for life either.

Eating food should be something that we can do with constant tweaks. I come across different foods all the time that I want to try. Just because I'm eating a certain way doesn't turn me away from trying something new. It should be the same way with you as well.

To finish on my original thought, fitness results aren't just about the exercise you do. The food you consume contributes so much to your results. So make sure you find a healthy and satisfying way to eat and enjoy all the success you deserve!

By Conor Doherty