Diet Or Exercise: 5 Reasons Why Exercise Is More Important Than Diet
Nov 26th, 2010 | By Todd Bowman | Category: Diet And Nutrition
Diet or exercise which is more important? Here’s 5 reasons why fitness is more important than your food.
As we’ve discussed, the type of food you eat can account for 80% of your success with your body. If you do all the right exerciess and fitness programs but eat pasta, rice, complex carbohydrates at every meal, you will never see results. You will never gain muscle and lose weight. Not only that but you’ll drastically diminish your longevity.
I disagree with Jack Lalanne who said diet is queen, fitness is king. I believe it’s the other way around.
So what’s this article all about then? Well there are ways that the body reacts to fitness and bodybuilding that can’t be duplicated no matter what food you eat.
If you’re interested in my diet, protein shake recipes or the fact that I eat raw meat, you can checkout those pages if you’d like.
You can’t consume Hostess Twinkies every day and expect to be healthy and have a properly functioning digestive system.
If you’re interested in living a long, healthy disease free life, then you must eat high quality foods. It’s that simple. Want to end up in a hospital bed when you’re 70 and get sucked into that dead end street? Then continue eating your cupcakes and pies.
Just wanted to make that clear.
Okay back to why fitness, exercise and bodybuilding are more important than food.
1. Body Strength
It’s a common fact. The more you age the weaker your muscles get. I don’t know of one food on the planet that will gain muscle without lifting weights.
Also as you get older your flexibility, dexterity and balance all diminish. This drastically increases your risk of falling and getting injured.
Again, food won’t help increase your balance to the same extent that being on the right fitness program will.
In order to maintain your body strength, flexibility and lower the chances of falls or injury from falls, exercises, fitness and bodybuilding definitely trumps food.
Doing the proper exercises will help you improve posture and keep you from slouching over and condensing your internal organs which can restrict blood flow to those key organs as well as diminish digestion and organ function.
2. Your Lymph System Has No Pump
Your body has 5 major detoxification channels, your colon, kidneys, liver, skin and lymph. The lymph system is huge for detoxification.
Your lymph system helps to move toxins out of major organ centers in your body but it has no “pump” to help toxins move out. The lympatic system relies on movement to work.
Moving your body in the form of exercise is the number one way to get your lympatic system to operate correctly and remove toxins from your body. Food cannot improve the performace of the lymph system as much as good old fashioned movement can.
When your muscle contract as well as relaease especially when you bounce, run, or walk, the entire lymphatic system regulates and pumps lymph fluid to and from your lympn nodes where white blood cells work together as a filter.
So when you’re not pumping your muscles in the form of walking, running, jumping, bouncing or weightlifting, your system isn’t as clean as it should be.
The great thing is the all exercise helps to pump the lymph system. I personally do high intensity weight training, jui jitsu, surfing, walking and yoga.
Rebounding (jumping up and down on a mini trampoline) is one of the best for pumping your lymph system. But you have to actually break a sweat.
Being fit and being healthy are two different things. Not everybody who is healthy internally has a tight fit body. But people who are strong lean and very muscular aren’t always healthy. You can’t have poor diet and eat ice cream all day and be healthy. Life doesn’t work like that.
Your dietary intake needs to be extremely clean.
But back to exercise and the importance of a workout plan and why it’s more important than your diet.
3. Increased Oxygen To Your Cells
As you lift weights, and get on a good workout routine, you dramatically increase the amount of oxygen that is delivered to your red blood cells.
Information is now coming out showing that a lack of oxygen in the cellular matrix of the body can be a major cause of many diseases we are seeing today.
If you do not have a good amount of oxygenation to your blood cells coming from good cardiovascular exercise, your health will eventually fail you.
Nothing brings more oxygen to your blood cells quicker than high intensity exercise.
Having a good exercise program will help bring oxygen to otherwise stagnant areas of your body that do not get good circulation. This will help you stay healthier and stronger much longer.
4. Your Heart Is A Muscle Also
I was talking to a friend once about all this.
I was and still am heavily into bodybuilding and intense weight training and my friend was really into long distance running and cardiovascular training at the time.
My friend asked me how come I don’t do any cardio training (back then I did none, I do today) and I told him that I was too lazy for it and didn’t really believe in it.
(I can’t believe I told him that!)
He then gave me a strange look and kind of laughed at me.
We were in the gym at the time of this conversation and then he said “dude you’re heart is a muscle just like your biceps or chest muscle, don’t you get it?” and hopped on the treadmill for a 5 mile run.
My friend was absolutely correct, you need to “strength train” your heart as well as your other muscles. Food can’t do that as well as a well run can.
That was 1998 and ever since then I began adding running and different types of cardio training to my existing muscle gaining program. Man am I glad I did.
As you “strenght train” your heart by running, your entire cardiovascular system works much better. This makes your heart stronger, lowers blood pressure and also lowers your resting heart rate.
By lowering your blood pressure and resting heart rate, you’ll dramtically increase your chances of living much longer and healthier. You’ll also burn fat which will give you that lean sculpted look many bodybuilders are looking for. Food without exercise just can’t do these things as effectively.
Think about it, if your heart rate and blood pressure are higher than they should be, your heart will be forced to not only work harder but work longer too.
Let’s use this analogy. A car engine that idles really high is bound to have engine problems at some point right?
It’s the exact same with your heart. There are many foods that are great for the heart but nothing is better for the heart than long term, daily exercise in the form of weightlifting and cardiovascular training.
5. Look Better Faster
By weight training and gaining muscle you will look much more healthy and attractive to your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife. Working out can help you look better much faster than food can.
Eating food will not add muscle to your body. Eating food is great and it’s the best long term approach to health, longevity and energy but it won’t help you gain muscle. Exercising is the only way to get that lean muscular body that both men and women are attracted to.
As you workout and start lifting weights, you’ll notice that you look better which increases your self esteem and that gives you more confidence which is an attractive quality to the opposite sex (assuming you don’t have too much confidence and act cocky). It’s an endless cycle that you can get addicted to.
All of us want to feel good. How the heck are you going to feel good about yourself if your constantly unhappy with the shape of your body?
Click Here To Investigate The Ultimate Workout Program Online.
I guarantee you if you put yourself on a workout program for 6 weeks you’ll be blown away at how much better you can make your body look. You’ll be attracting hotter guys or girls, you’ll make the person you’re with be more attracted to you and feel amazing. Gaining just a little bit of muscle can do all these things for you and more.
If you’re lacking muscle tone and definition, have bad balance and poor overal fitness levels and need a fresh new program to stick to visit the link below.
I personally guarantee you will love the workout program contained in this bodybuilding ebook. It comes with audio, video, manuals and a step by step workout program that gets results fast.
You can achieve big changes with diet. Read my diet page for more info but nothing makes physical changes to the human body faster than working out.
Do you choose diet or exercise? I hope you understand now why exercise is more important than your diet.
"If you've enjoyed this article please sign up for my 6 part muscle building mini course where I share some of my most powerful muscle building secrets. You'll love it. Plus you get free workout software. To get access to all this simply enter your name and eamil below and I'll send it right out to you!"
| |||||||
PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ALSO READ:
Are you a skinny guy? Can't put on weight? 
