Exercise to burn fat or nutrition: which has a greater impact on burning fat?

Understanding fat burning exercise and nutrition are vital to achieving and maintaining permanent weight loss and fat reduction. But which one has more impact on fat burning? Scientific studies have been conducted to determine the answer.

weight loss studies

Only a few studies have been done to establish whether exercise to burn fat or nutrition have a greater impact on fat burning. The studies were particularly interesting.

They compared weight loss results between people moving from big cities to suburbs and vice versa. Subjects in cities and suburbs had similar dietary intakes. The results were expected, but fascinating.

Results of Weight Loss Studies

• within the first year of moving from a city to the suburbs, study participants gained, on average, 15 pounds
• within the first six to eight months of moving to a city from the suburbs, study subjects lost an average of 15 pounds

The main conclusion of the studies was the following: Subjects who lived in a city walked more than subjects who lived in the suburbs. While subjects living in the suburbs would travel by car to get where they wanted to go (grocery or school, etc.), subjects in the city often walked there. This was responsible for the weight change.

An expert in the field of Applied Physiology and Nutrition has said that exercise to burn fat has a greater impact on fat loss and permanent weight loss than nutrition. He said that exercise represents 65% and nutrition 35%.

Most experts agree that in a perfect world, you would do a recommended fat-burning exercise routine in addition to addressing your nutrition if you want to burn fat and achieve permanent weight loss. But we don’t live in a perfect world and none of us are perfect.