It's the calories, stupid!

Craig Ballantyne writes about fitness and training for Men’s Health magazine. Though MH for the most part aims at younger readers than I do, I find that a lot of their advice is valid across the board, and for both men and women.

Recently, Ballantyne wrote about dietary habits and weight loss. He explained something that is important for any overweight person to understand. He said that to take off weight your workouts can be imperfect, but your dietary practices must be sound. Conversely, your workouts can be executed to perfection, but if you eat too much you will fail.

Does this mean that a well thought out exercise program is unimportant? Of course not. What it means is that if you are training and the fat is not coming off, you are simply eating too much. And all the exercise in the world will not trim you down until you regularly take in fewer calories than you need to sustain your present weight.