You want what millions of other people do—to lose weight. Whether you want to trim off extra pounds so you’ll feel better, look better, or be better prepared to tackle whatever demands come your way, you probably want to find the most efficient way to do it.

Well, with this email, you can figure out if you should put your emphasis on diet or exercise to get the results you want. Without further ado, I present the contenders for your weight-loss attention…

In the Left Corner: Diet

While fad diets have tried their darndest to malign the fine name of dieting, proper diet continues to be a vital way to lose weight. In fact, research has shown that if you’re only going to do one thing in your journey to weight loss, it should be dieting.

What does dieting mean exactly? It means taking very careful note of every bite you put in your mouth. But you can’t stop there. Because paying attention to what you eat isn’t going to make you lose an ounce of weight. You’ve got to take note of it and then reduce the number of calories you consume. If you want to lose even more faster, you’ll even want to make sure your calories are good calories. In other words, you can’t eat just Twinkies and Big Macs every day. You’ll want to go with fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein sources, and lots and lots of water.

In the Right Corner: Exercise

Like diet, there have been all sorts of fad exercise programs that have spanned from dangerous to ridiculously funny. But exercise hasn’t lost its place in the race for weight loss. Why? Because savvy people realize you’ve got to hit the gym if you’re going to maximize your weight loss. The best technique for weight loss is to burn more calories than you take in, and exercise is your golden ticket for shredding calories. 

There are other reasons exercise rocks in the world of weight loss. It is the best way to ensure your weight you drop is fat and not muscle. Also, when you exercise, your muscles tone up and grow stronger. With more muscle, your body’s ability to shave off calories increases, making it easier to burn calories even when you’re doing nothing at all. Diet can’t do that!

Who Wins the Battle?

More than likely, you read this hoping that exercise alone would help you lose weight because you hate the idea of watching what you eat. Or maybe you’re just the opposite, and you prefer to watch your diet but absolutely loathe exercise. Well, there’s bad news for you either way. This battle that has been waging on for decades (okay, make that centuries) is ultimately a draw.

If you’re not willing to eat right and exercise, the success you see today will be gone tomorrow. Try as you might, one of these ingredients alone is not enough to help you lose weight, keep it off, and have an overall healthy lifestyle. In fact, you will find that once you become serious about losing weight, you will be careful about what you eat because you don’t want to put all that exercise to waste. At the same time, you’ll push yourself harder in the gym because you realize you could burn even more calories and get closer to your weight goal today.

So stop pitting diet against exercise and do both. Your good health and thinner self await!