While the title of this article was written with tongue planted firmly in cheek, it does contain an element of truth. How so? Because when it comes to losing weight, your diet is far more important than the amount of exercise you do. Not only that, but when it comes to your weight loss efforts, exercise can be a complete waste of time if you overcompensate with your diet.
Don’t get me wrong – enjoyable exercise should be a part of your life, but it is not the panacea for healthy living. Growing evidence from scientific studies show that if you attempt to lose weight only by exercising more, you’re likely to fail. Meanwhile, attempting to lose weight with dieting alone has a far greater success rate.
So remember this: exercising more is not an excuse to eat more. If you treat it as such, you’ll probably find that you lose no weight (or even put weight on as you eat more additional calories than you burned off). Increasing the amount of exercise you do should be seen as a boost to your weight loss/management efforts, not an excuse to binge.