Exercise Vs. Eating Better

You know eating a healthy diet and exercising is a way to lose weight and bolster your health, but when life gets in the way, you find one of these virtuous goals has to give. Each strategy offers benefits such as disease prevention, life extension, energy enhancement and mood elevation. Ideally, every day will involve exercise and better eating -- but if you have to choose only one, eat better.

The Strategies

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise and two full-body strength-training sessions per week to maintain good health. If you want to lose weight, you'll need to kick that exercise amount up to 60 to 90 minutes per day, five times per week, notes the American College of Sports Medicine. Examples of appropriate intensity exercise include fast walking, cycling at a 10 mph pace or playing a sport like basketball. Eating better involves choosing proper portion sizes -- such as 3 ounces of lean meat and 1 to 1 1/2 cups of whole grains; including at least five servings of vegetables and fruits daily; skipping processed foods with added sugar and refined flours; and limiting intake of saturated and trans fats.

Weight Loss

• If your goal is to lose weight, focusing on diet seems to have the biggest benefit. Among the more than 10,000 members of the National Weight Control Registry, a study group of people who have successfully lost an average of 66 pounds and kept it off for five years, only 2 percent were able to lose weight without modifying their diet in some way. To lose a pound of weight, you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you consume. You may find it simpler to cut out 500 calories per day to achieve this deficit in a week than to exercise it off. For example, you could skip a pat of butter at breakfast, a large cafe mocha on the way to work and the extra piece of pizza at dinner and easily reduce your calorie intake by 500 calories. To exercise off 500 calories, a 155-pound person would have to spend an hour on a stationary bike or walk at a 4 mph pace for 90 minutes. To maintain lost weight, however, being active is key.

Health

• If you long for more energy, better mood and less chance of disease, exercise is paramount. Just a 20-minute aerobic session can boost your mood for up to 12 hours afterward, found a study presented at the May 2009 annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine. MayoClinic.com points out that exercise can also help you reduce your risk of stroke, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, depression, certain types of cancer and arthritis. Even if you already have one of these conditions, exercise helps you manage the symptoms and may slow its progression.

Eating Approach

• Eating better doesn't have to be a chore. Instead of faithfully weighing your servings and forgoing every treat, think moderation. Make most of your choices ones that involve colorful, fresh fruits and veggies, lean proteins -- such as skinless chicken, flank steak, beans and fish -- and whole grains -- including brown rice, quinoa and barley. Let sugary treats or processed foods be an exception, not the norm.

Informal Activity

• If you simply can't fit in a focused exercise session, try moving more all day long. Get up from your desk hourly to walk around the office, choose the stairs over the escalator, get off the bus or train a stop early and walk to your destination, play catch with your kids in the backyard and take on all your own household chores. Adding these small activities throughout the day boosts your calorie burn by as much as 1,000 calories daily. You could even try wearing a pedometer and aiming for a high number of steps per day -- say 5,000 to 10,000. A study published in the Australian version of the "Journal of Science and Medicine in Sports" in May 2013 found that even if you don't formally exercise, accumulating a high number of steps correlates with fewer health problems.