Diet, Exercise and Weight Loss

A couple of year's ago there was a video doing the rounds on YouTube called, "Diet versus Exercise". In the video, one guy was eating a pizza while another guy was running on a treadmill. In less than 10 minutes he had consumed over 1200 calories, while the 'runner' had burned around 100 calories!

So what's my point I hear you ask?

My point is this: Diet is far more important to your fat loss program than exercise, and that You can't out-train a bad diet, unless you're seventeen years old or a genetic freak!

So, I want to try to highlight this fact with some more simple experiments......!!!


A few weeks ago I went out for a friends birthday and consumed a fair few pints of lager. Each pint was roughly 300kcals and I had about 6 or 7 (plus some vodka's!).......so that's about 1800-2100kcal (not including the vodka) plus food etc, etc.


A few days later whilst teaching a Spin class I wore my heart rate monitor which also monitors the amount of calories I burn during exercise. Now, I wasn't hanging about and after 34 mins of pain, sweat and a maximum heart rate of 184bpm, I had managed to burn something in the region of 470-48okcals!! But I'd consumed 1800-2100kcal two nights previous from alcohol alone......so what happened to the excess calories from all that alcohol?? You got, most of them would have been converted into fat and stored in my fat cells!


Food will do the same. Lets say you have a 'unhealthy snack' every day, say, a packet of crisps that contains 184kcals and 11.6 grams of fat (per 35 gram bag)
That's 184 x 7 = 1288kcals a week.

Multiply that by 4 = 5152kcals a month.

3500kcals is equal to 1 pound of body fat.......


So, just with the packet of crisps every day, you are taking in over 5000 empty calories a month!

Need I say anymore?


To conclude, if you are trying to loose weight, EVERYTHING you consume is important and you'd have to exercise for hours a day to out-train a bad diet.


Keep a look out for my fat loss nutrition program coming soon.


If you have any questions about this blog or any other questions you would like to ask me, please feel free to contact me at:


tony@markefitness.co.uk