“Isn’t there just a diet that will make me lose the weight I want? I don’t and want to do exercise and diet at the same time.”
Sadly, there is no magic diet, no magic exercise. The only thing that is magical is the combination of diet and exercise (and the proper amount of sleep). Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of assuming that they can just diet the weight off and look great. Well, that just isn’t so. Simply dieting without exercise causes us to lose weight, yes, but the weight we lose ends up being muscle. When we do this, we may very well achieve our goal weight but our body composition will have changed dramatically. Imagine, if you will, two women. Both women are 5’8″. One weighs 120 and one weighs 140.
You might assume that the 120 pound woman would have the better body. But what if the 140 pound woman exercised and weight trained regularly and had only 20% bodyfat while the 120 pound woman got to that weight by dieting and has 40% bodyfat? That means the 140 pound woman has 112 pounds of lean body mass and only 28 pounds of fat while the 120 pound woman has only 72 pounds of lean body mass and carries a whopping 48 pounds of fat on her frame. That twelve pound difference between the two of them will make a big difference on the beach.
The 120 pound woman will look OK, but she’ll be smooth and not have much shape. She’ll have those batwings we all hate and despite her low body weight, she’ll jiggle when she jogs.
The 140 pound woman will be shapely, curvy, firm and nothing will jiggle!
No matter what a diet promises, I’m going to give it to you straight – there is no magic diet that will make you look like the superstar you want to be. Unless you plan on giving up food altogether for the rest of your very short life, you’ll need to exercise too.