The Best Weight-loss Diet or Exercise Routines

Is “The Best” Really Best?

If you get the same results as I did Googling “best workout” or “best exercise,” you’ll get between 263 and 512 million results. Similarly, Google “best diet” or “best diet for weight loss” and you’ll also be in the hundreds of millions.

For most people in the US, if not the world, running a lifetime best, lifting your own body weight, or nailing splits at the track are not on the radar. Unfortunately, for many, just walking from the closest parking place to the mall entrance is challenging enough.

So, when considering changing from a sedentary lifestyle to a more active one that includes exercise, the decision of what to do can be daunting…half a billion search results daunting.

What’s the Best Exercise Routine?

What’s the best exercise routine? Is cardio more important than strength training? Is there a combination of cardio, stretching and strength training that is best? If you go all out in short bursts, is that as good as prolonged, less intense effort? What’s the best equipment? Are certain exercises better for men than women, and vice versa? How do you account for body type, or do you even have to? What about “problem” areas, such as muffin top abs, love handles, and saddlebag thighs?

All of these questions are important…in a certain context.

The bottom line is that all exercise is far better than none, yet none is what almost 25% of adults in America get on a daily basis. And only 20% achieve the government’s recommendation of 150 minutes of weekly exercise.

Sure, you can count meal preparation and cleaning the house as activity, at least more activity than sitting on the couch. But packaged snacks, and instant, ready-to-eat and take-out meals are supplanting home-cooked meals. How many calories do you really burn when all you have to do is press “start” on the microwave?

There’s no question that there are tangible differences among the rich array of exercise options you can consider.

However, by far, the most important action you can take is not figuring out what’s best to do, but doing something…regardless of the kind of exercise, intensity, or duration.

In other words, any exercise is better than none.

Unfortunately, we sometimes get so caught up with the decision making, analysis, media hype, marketing messages, overwhelming shopping choices, advice from others, and debate that it’s easy to stay put on the couch.

The same goes for diets. Like exercise, they work only if you do them, and do them consistently.

Choosing the Best Diet: How Dieting Is Like Exercise

Which diet is best? DASH? Weight Watchers? Atkins? Vegan? Biggest Loser? Paleo? Flexitarian? Jenny Craig? Ketogenic? Mediterranean?

You could get lost trying to figure out what diet is best; but, what if that actually misses the point?

Recent research suggests that the best possible predictor of weight loss is not which diet you go with, but simply sticking with it.

In a study of 200 obese adults over a 48-week period conducted by Dr. William S. Yancy, Jr. of the Durham VA Medical Center in North Carolina, one group of study participants was allowed to choose between a low-carb and low-fat diet. If you’re looking for low carb meal ideas why not try air fryer chicken wings. The other group of participants was assigned one of the two diets, regardless of personal preference.

At the end of a year, the group who chose their diets lost an average or 12.5 pounds, while the group to whom one of the two diets was assigned, lost 15 pounds. The difference was not statistically significant.

Yancy stated that the results of the study were “definitely…counterintuitive to what a lot of people think.”

When considering why people who were allowed to choose their diet lost less than people who were assigned a diet, Yancy stated, “Intuitively it makes sense, if people chose to eat the foods they like they might eat more of them. Those foods might be the reason they gained weight in the first place.”

The results reinforce an earlier metaanalysis demonstrating that low-carb and low-fat diets were equally effective in promoting weight loss, particularly when combined with behavioral support and exercise.

Consistency and Healthy Habits Are Key

At IWE, we believe that the secret to sustainable change is to start small, accrue a track record of micro-successes, and make sure that your strategies work to bring you the results you want, and fit your values, interests, abilities, preferences, and lifestyle.

The idea of starting small, so small that it seems absurd (take one sip of water, eat one baby carrot, floss one tooth, do 2 jumping jacks, read one sentence), and triggering these new behaviors by something you already do, has been thoroughly tested by Stanford Professor, BJ Fogg and is part of his Tiny Habits strategy.

In this context, it makes sense that once you are able to create a habit around an exercise routine or a diet…any exercise and any diet…that habit will carry you toward success. In other words, the habit and consistent adherence is what we should be working on instead of agonizing about how to choose the best exercise or best diet.

As Professor Fogg has suggested, get really tiny and specific about the behavior you want to cultivate as a habit, make it easy and simple to do, design and find triggers that can spur you toward behavioral change, and celebrate every small success.

The Bottom Line

There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to find the perfect exercise or diet for yourself, but at the heart of the matter is your desire for change. The point is that you want something better for yourself. You want to feel better, live longer, have more energy, have better sleep. You want change. And that’s what drives your search for the best.

The bottom line is: get started. It doesn’t have to be with “the best.” Good enough is, well, good enough. Pick any exercise routine or diet that is on your list of acceptable options. Then, set yourself up for success by applying insights from the science of behavior change. Ultimately, it’s all about taking that first small step…and then the next and the next.

What has been your experience with choosing an exercise routine or diet? What have you done to help yourself succeed in making change? We would love to hear your opinion, so, feel free to leave a comment!