Can You Lose Weight with Diet Alone: Research and Tips – Greatist
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Is exercise necessary for weight loss? Or can you just cut cals to drop lbs? Is there really any need to get super sweaty and worked up?
We lift the lid on how diet, exercise, and weight loss work in tandem.
Yep. You can lose weight without exercising or increasing the amount of physical activity you do — as long as you burn more calories than you take in.
Plenty of factors contribute to weight gain. But the main causes typically involve consuming too many calories and not getting enough physical activity.
Creating a calorie deficit encourages weight loss. You can create a calorie deficit by reducing your calorie intake, increasing your activity level to burn more calories, or both.
However, physical activity and exercise — which are two different things, BTW — do so much more for your health than help you maintain body weight changes. A balanced, healthy lifestyle is the one.
Let’s compare the research on losing weight through calorie restriction only with the studies on a calorie restriction and exercise combo and see who wins. Rapper to our left, introduce yourself…
Diet alone
It is possible to lose weight through dietary changes alone. To do this, you need to create a calorie deficit, meaning taking in fewer calories than you burn each day.
For example:
- You usually consume 2,500 calories per day and stay in a calorie surplus (you take in more calories than you burn).
- You reduce your calorie intake by a few hundred calories per day, creating a calorie deficit.
- Voila! Weight loss (probably).
The more calories you cut from your intake, the faster you’re likely to lose weight. But cutting calories too drastically is not healthy and won’t help you in your quest to maintain and manage your weight long-term.
Low and very low calorie diets can cause compensatory changes in your body, including:
This makes it harder to maintain weight loss over time.
That’s why experts recommend making smaller cuts in calorie intake that minimize these side effects while encouraging a more sustainable form of weight loss.
Diet plus exercise
Sure, you can lose weight without changing your activity …….
Source: https://greatist.com/health/can-you-lose-weight-with-diet-alone
