Weight Loss is All About Diet (And Intermittent Dry Fasting)…Not Exercise

Here’s a not so secret truth about losing weight: You don’t even really need to work out to lose weight. Sure, exercise is good for you. It will benefit your health greatly. It will even have a very small effect on your ability to lose weight if you are doing it at the right time and doing the right types of exercise. But intermittent dry fasting by itself would be much more powerful.

Now, I exercise daily, and I do recommend formal daily workouts for everyone, unless you want to get some physical activity in each day by doing less formal types of exercise such as walking, dancing, playing a sport, etc. I would never shy anyone away from working out. However, please don’t do it with the intention of losing weight, because it won’t work, and you will be sorely disappointed.

They say you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. That’s pretty much the whole point of this blog post, and it is 99% true. The only exception would be if you were an Olympic-level athlete like Michael Phelps, or a professional athlete like an NBA player or soccer player, in sports where conditioning is crucial and your whole existence is basically running, jumping, cutting, and moving around constantly, and that’s not even counting lifting weights and doing formal workouts when you’re not practicing or playing your sport. And sure, even if you’re not one of these types of people, and you are just a workout warrior that somehow has four or five hours a day to do intense exercise, then you could theoretically out-exercise a bad diet. But what percentage of people have the time or willpower to do this, and also not injure themselves eventually in the process? The answer is WAY less than 1% of people in the world.

Intermittent Dry Fasting and Your Diet are the Keys

No, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, and even get shredded in the process without doing a whole ton of exercise, then your diet is pretty much everything. Actually, I wouldn’t say your diet makes up 100% of the reason you are whatever weight and body fat percentage you’re currently at, but it’s more like 85%. Here’s how I’d break it down when it comes to your ability to lose weight and keep it off:

Getting enough sleep: 5%

Keeping stress levels low: 5%

Exercise: 5%

Diet: 85%

Of course, the most important thing you can do in terms of your diet is to not eat for prolonged periods of the day. Intermittent fasting, combined with occasional intermittent dry fasting and extended fasting, will be the greatest catalyst for your weight loss success. As I’ve said in earlier posts, even if you screw up your one meal a day or two meals a day with foods that are not ideal, the intermittent fasting will carry you through towards your weight loss goals and negate a lot of the wrong that you’re doing, along with giving you the benefits of autophagy.

Now, I’d definitely recommend that you cut out sugar, grains, and seed oils, keep your carbs low, base your diet around meat and more specifically red meat, and limit things like nuts, seeds, legumes, and alcohol. But in reality, the power of intermittent dry fasting can wipe out even the negative effects of these things and make you healthier and more fit than someone who is eating “clean” all the time, but eating three meals a day and snacking.

A Fasting-Focused Lifestyle WILL Help You Lose Weight and Keep it Off

So in conclusion, do not work out with the goal of losing weight. If you’re not practicing a fasting-focused lifestyle, and keeping your carbs relatively low, with no sugar and grains in your diet, then all those workouts will be wasted, at least in terms of losing weight and body fat. I’d still absolutely recommend working out for your health, and to build muscle and stay fit, but to actually be ripped and cut, and to lose weight and body fat, your diet is basically everything. I’d even challenge you to try the following experiment, especially if you hate exercise and currently aren’t doing it. Forget about working out. Forget about formal exercise and just live your life as you currently are, assuming you’re at least walking around a little bit each day and not lying on the couch all day every day.

The only changes you need to make for this experiment are to cut out sugar and grains for 30 days, and practice intermittent dry fasting for 18 hours a day, OR do the OMAD (one meal a day) lifestyle with 23-24 hour fasts each day and drink water (with salt) throughout the day leading up to the meal. I guarantee you that after one month of doing this, even without any exercise, you will lose significant weight and body fat if you have significant weight and body fat to lose. If you are already in decent shape, you will go from decent to spectacular.

Compare this to someone who eats three meals a day with a couple of snacks and works out for an hour a day, and the low-carb intermittent faster who isn’t even exercising will blow away the workout warrior with fat loss results every single time. So try out intermittent dry fasting, or even just intermittent fasting with water and salt, eat much less carbs, and watch your body fat melt away.