Dr. Chetna Bakshi & Sameera Khan
Are you one of those people who believe that exercise alone will help you lose weight?
Who thinks that diet does not make any difference if you complete your required gym time?
Well, maybe you did it before!
Maybe you lost weight just by doing exercise, maybe you ate so much but you still lost weight.
Yes, it’s possible. Especially if you are a gym freak!
However, let me tell you why this will not always work especially for normal people with sedentary lifestyles.
Maybe you’ve heard before that to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than what you’re taking in. You can achieve this by increasing your physical activity or by lowering the amount of food calories you eat/drink.
Either way, this can result in a daily negative calorie total that equals to weight loss.
Take for example: Let’s say you religiously eat around 2,000 calories a day. To lose weight, you increase your physical activity by exercising to burn a total of 3,000 calories a day, then that means you have burned 1,000 calories more than what you ate.
If you keep this up continuously, that means you can burn 3,500 calories and lose one pound in 3.5 days. In that scenario, it is then true that exercise alone is the change you need to lose weight.
However, don’t take for granted that in this scenario, you stuck to your 2,000-calorie diet and did not eat any more. The problem is not a lot of people do that.
For many, they also think that just because they exercise, then they are entitled to eating more.
To give you an idea about how hard it is to burn calories versus how fast it is to consume those calories, here is an example:
Depending on your pace, it takes approximately 45 to 60 minutes of running on a treadmill to burn 500 calories.
Do you know how fast you can eat 500 calories?
A few minutes!
That’s because 500 calories is approximately equal to:
- 1 cupcake with frosting
- 2 pizza slices
- 1 Big Mac
- 1 venti caramel Frappuccino
- A pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream
- 1 large McDonald’s French fries
Notice that I mentioned indulgent food items that people normally eat outside their regular meals.
These are food items that you would not normally have, but because you ran for an hour, you start thinking that maybe yes, you deserve a cupcake!
Most people eat these as a sort of “reward” for working out hard, not realizing that if the goal is to lose weight – they are not going to gain any results.
Of course, you can always double up on your exercise and increase your activity level more.
However, don’t discount the role of diet.
As the saying goes “abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym”
That means that to achieve the body that you want and deserve, you must fill up your body with nutrient-dense food that will benefit you from the inside and out!
We specialize in weight loss – if you feel like you need help with nutrition, weight loss medications, or even surgery, call to make an appointment with Dr. Chetna Bakshi & Sameera Khan 516-496-2752.
