If you are aiming to lose weight, then a lot of people think you can do this through just exercising and without doing any dieting, however, this is unfortunately not the case.
If you solely focus on exercising without paying any attention to your diet, this will not work well as a weight loss strategy.
If you want to lose weight, you will need to start burning more calories than you are eating, or instead eating fewer calories than you are using every day.
If you are not achieving a calorie deficit, it will be difficult to lose weight, so this is why you will need to focus on your diet as well.
If you maintain your eating habits, there is a chance that you can lose weight from just exercising, however, this will be a lot easier if you are adjusting your diet as well.
However, it is worth considering that the types of exercise that you are doing greatly impact this balance as well.
For example, if you are doing cardiovascular exercises, like walking, running, or biking, these can be useful, but to help with weight loss, you will also want to mix this type of exercise with some resistance training to help with the weight loss.
So, if you want to know how to balance your exercise and your diet to stay healthy, then we have some good advice here.
If you have struggled with balancing weight loss with your diet and your exercise before, then this article should give you some invaluable information, so read on!
Track Your Calorie Intake
While it can be a massive chore for some people, if you keep track of your calorie intake, or are just aware of how the calories you are eating affect your body, this can be massively helpful.
If you are aware of where you are getting most of your calories, you can understand what you might want to change for a diet if you are looking to achieve a calorie deficit.
However, this is not us saying that you should become obsessed with your calories, as this can lead to disordered eating, however, if you are aware of what you are intaking, you can make a lot of progress.
However, if you have had trouble related to your health due to calorie counting in the past, then do not attempt this.
However, if you do choose to count your calories, there are plenty of apps and tools that you can take advantage of to help see where calories are coming from, and to add up the calories you are consuming.
It is worth noting that you can get the best results from these apps by seeing which are best for the food products in your country.
For example, if one app is amazing for users in the USA, it does not mean it will have all the information for someone who is using the same app in the UK.
Do Not Obsess Over The Scale
Another piece of advice that some people find counterintuitive is to not focus on the scale, but there is a reason for this!
While not keeping track of progress on the scale can be anxiety inducing for some people, this will also ensure that you are instead focusing on aspects that are just as important to weight loss like tracking your mood and your energy levels, and seeing what effects this.
You will not gain more or less weight based on how closely you are tracking it, and a lot of people do not notice this.
You can also get discouraged by checking your weight, like you could gain some lean muscle mass by exercising, however, you will just see the scale and see how it has gone up.
However, this lean muscle mass should be encouraged as it likely makes you feel better!
Try To Get Around 150 Minutes Of Cardiovascular Exercise Every week
This is a direct recommendation from the American Heart Association, but an adult should be trying to get at least 150 minutes (2 and a half hours) of moderate intensity activity every week as a minimum.
This is 30 minutes every day for 5 days, or a little over 20 minutes over 7 days. If you are not reaching this minimum, then getting up to this minimum is a great goal to aim for.
However, if you are reaching this goal, then try to increase the intensity of your exercise.
If you are struggling to get properly motivated when doing this, try to focus on getting around 10 minutes of consecutive exercise every session at least.
Try Exercising With Weights
People often assume that if you are working out using weights that this will increase bulk, however, using weights is a great method of losing weights as they will help you with burning calories, and will also increase your metabolic rate when you are resting.
If you have never used weight before, you can try going to your local gym when it is quiet and seeing if you can get a trainer to show you around the weights so you can try out whatever might work for you!
Try Using A Heart Rate Monitor
One tool that you can take advantage of to help you reach weight loss goals is to try using a heart rate monitor.
These are great as they will show you just how intense specific workouts are, and will help you reach the area where you will burn the most calories.
You will be burning more if you are doing cardiovascular activities at the correct intensity!
Summary
Hopefully this article has given you some advice on how you can balance your exercise and your dieting, and how you can use this to reach your goals.
People often throw themselves completely into exercising or dieting, and while this occasionally gets results, it can often be a lot more difficult.
Instead, try balancing these two while following the advice in the article, and this can get you results a lot more easily!