I track everything I eat 99% of the time in DailyBurn. Not everyday because I travel a lot and it can be hard on the road, but most days. I am very diligent to measure, keep track, and most importantly write down everything I eat so that I know as close as humanly possible about the number of calories that are going into my body. It was a lot of work at first, but over time it has become much easier and I now have routines and even specific meals that I eat to (more on that in another post) keep the calorie tracking as easy as possible. I have found that it is all about routines 99% of the time and the results will come.

Can I show you some of the evidence of the results? Sure. Here are two pictures – one from February 2008 and one from this past weekend (November 7, 2009). As you can see I am proud to show that I am down significantly in weight and my primary focus has been on eating a much lower number of calories.

Don’t get me wrong, the exercise has been important – especially the body weight exercises I have been doing. I have definitely noticed that I am much more muscular than I have ever been. I am in phase 3 of the 6-month Turbulence Training by Craig Ballantyne. This bodyweight-only exercise program has been kicking my ass.

That being said, I spend most of my energy keeping my calories low. I am not a tall guy (5′ 6) and with my current weight of 148 pounds I have found that keeping my caloric intake to about 1200 – 1500 calories has been working to continue to lose weight. The important thing I have learned is that I do not need as much food as I thought I did. I am still putting on muscle with much less food. I also have been eating less carbs, although that has not been the focus of the diet. I do attribute that habit to helping me not feel hungry very often as I strongly believe from personal experience that the more carbs (breads, etc) I eat the hungrier I get.

As I reflect on it, like many others I believe that losing weight was a complex thing of managing proteins, carbs, and fats and then killing myself in the gym. I thought that was the only way to get results. It is much more simple than that – just keep the calories lower and the results will come.

There is a good podcast available now over at the Adonis Lifestyle Blog about how many calories you need if you want to learn more about watching what you eat.

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The Best “One Two” Weight Loss Combo is Both Diet and Exercise

Everyone knows that exercise along with a good diet is a great approach to losing weight. The challenge with exercising is that often times life gets busy. There isn’t always time to exercise, but you always have time for a proper diet. My suggestion is to keep your diet clean at all times, and exercise when time allows.

“You Can’t Out-Exercise a Big Mac”

A Big Mac has 540 calories. Do you realize how much exercising it takes to burn those calories? Well about an hour on the elliptical trainer at a moderate pace would do the trick! So after an hour of boring cardio, you are back to square one. You probably won’t lose weight at all especially if you added the fries and soft drink. Large fries would be an extra 570 calories and a large non-diet soft drink would be an extra 310 calories. So how much exercise would you have to do to burn 1,400+ calories? Let’s not even go there!

It Is Much Easier to Create A Large Calorie Deficit With a Clean Diet

A simple approach to losing weight is to create a daily calorie deficit. Basically, the idea is for your body to use more calories each day than what you consume in food calories. So, there are two ways to create this deficit; either consume less calories or burn more through exercising. Each pound of fat on your body is 3,500 calories. So to lose 2 pounds per week, you need to create a weekly calorie deficit of 7,000or a daily calorie deficit of 1,000. In my opinion it is much easier to create this calorie deficit by not eating those calories in the first place. You would have to spend two hours at a moderate pace on a stationary bike EVERY day to accomplish this!

Fat Loss Is A Bit More Complicated

The body is actually much more complex than simply responding precisely to a calorie deficit. There are WAY more variables that come into play when it comes to fat loss; the type of food you eat, the timing of your meals, the metabolic effect of exercise, the muscle sparing effect of resistance training, etc. There are a lot of things that come into the fat loss picture that I’m not addressing here.

Diet Play a Bigger Role in Fat Loss Than Most People Realize

If you are eating a bunch of calories, a large part of your time spent in the gym is a waste. What is crazy is that over 80% of all articles in fitness magazines focus on exercise, while diet is the key to getting a great looking body. I am a HUGE believer in regular exercise, I just think that diet is what is holding most people back from hitting their goals.

Diet is What Makes Your Cardio Much More Effective

If you eat junk food or just an excessive amount of calories each day, you are sabotaging your efforts in the gym. A hard cardio workout can be tough. It should drive you nuts to know that a bad diet will negate any positive benefits you could have had from cardio. If you did that same workout on a low calorie diet, you would actually reach your goals and not struggle so hard with weight loss.

Bonus: Here is a Way to Increase Your Self-Discipline

Want to make sure you eat well as well as exercise? Plan to exercise later in the day and make yourself eat well to “prepare your body” to get the most out of your cardio workout. When you eat lower calories leading up to your workout, your body will burn fat for energy. If you eat strictly all day that workout will do wonders for you. So what happens if you don’t “feel like” exercising once the evening rolls around? Well, you just spent all day preparing your body to get the most out of exercising. It would be foolish to miss this great window of opportunity when it comes to burning off unwanted body fat. You will find that you will naturally find the self-discipline to exercise more, the stricter you are with your diet. This is how to truly transform your body!

About The Author: Rusty Moore is the author of the controversial fitness blog…The Fitness Black Book. Learn Fitness Tips that give you a Sexy Lean body instead of a Bulky one! Too much muscle is “cheesy”…find out how to look attractive instead! Visit his site today—> Fitness Black Book

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