(New Study) Diet VS Exercise for Weight Loss and Maintaining Weight

I have discussed quite a bit about diet vs exercise for weight loss.

What about MAINTAINING weight?

Obviously you don’t have to one or the other.

I recommend following a solid diet plan while staying active.

A study which was published in March finds that exercise is more crucial when it comes to maintaining weight.

Here’s a link to a summary.

I’ll put some highlights here:

The group of people who lost weight and kept it off in this study, wound up eating the SAME amount of calories as the people who regained their weight.

The difference was they were more active.

This is supported by the fact that the weight-loss maintainer group also demonstrated significantly higher levels of steps per day (12,000 steps per day) compared to participants at a normal body weight (9,000 steps per day) and participants with overweight/obesity (6,500 steps per day).

It makes sense to me to exercise and follow a diet that puts you in a deficit.

Once you hit your ideal weight?

Loosen up and allow for more calories in your diet, but keep your exercise and activity level high.

I like pushing hard in the gym in Spring…

…and maintaining peak condition in summer with few official gym workouts, but much more time being active outside.

I also like the idea of a less strict diet in Summer.

This happens naturally with social events, BBQ’s, etc.

In the past, I’ve written about how boosting VO2 Max with cardio allows you to burn more calories with any activity.

I’d work on improving VO2 Max (and get lean) in the Spring using my cardio course

Visual Impact Cardio

Then once summer hits, follow an easier cardio workout to maintain that VO2 Max.

Just make sure you are active outside of the gym too.

Works well!

My cardio course isn’t meant to be done year-round.

It’s an intense 8-week focused push for fat loss while greatly improving VO2 Max.

Once you reach peak cardio fitness, you can back off and maintain this level of fitness with much less effort.

I do two 8-week rounds per year.

It’s not easy but will make you a fit calorie-burning machine.

Visual Impact Cardio