Where Do I Start? Good Nutrition or Exercise? The Chicken or the Egg?

You want to get in shape you say? But what is the best way to start that process? Do you want to be the chicken and run around the yard all day? Or do you just want to eat eggs and watch the chicken run around?  Trick question!  The correct answer is both and neither at the same time.  Exercise and nutrition in combination will show you more results and get you healthier than one or the other. And, you want to be something that can both catch the chicken, and then eat the eggs.

You can exercise and eat like garbage, and not see results (believe me, people know how to do this…)

You can eat better and not exercise, and while you may lose weight there is a good chance you may still feel…flabby.  no exercise = no muscle mass = skinny fat.  Go lift some weights, you’ll thank me later when you finish reading this.)

According to a study (you can read about it here) completed by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine, The people who implemented both improved nutrition and an exercise routine had greater success with sticking to it consistently.  As the article says, the participants weren’t necessarily shooting to lose weight, but to improve healthy habits.  Which is the exact way to go about getting in shape. Do it consistently.

Consistently making strides to improve your health and your healthy habits is the only way you will ever get to your goals.  If you start in January, and you have quit by March…you missed the boat. But, If you continued through the summer you made progress. Maybe you haven’t lost as much weight, or gained as much muscle, as you would have liked but you still made progress because you have developed a habit of improving yourself. If you keep going, you WILL get there. Don’t quit.

Another reason I believe that starting both at the same time is a great idea is because they help you stay accountable.  I can’t even tell you how many times I have heard someone say “I can’t eat that, I don’t want to ruin my workout from earlier.”  Or how often do you see things like “that piece of pizza is a million burpees to burn it off”  which is a whole other leaf I won’t turn over. But, you get my point. They help to keep each other accountable because they work in unison.  Exercise reveals your nutrition progress, and good nutrition improves your workouts. That’s a win-win in my book!

But, say you can’t do both (which is a bunch of…bad words…another issue I’ll address later on). If you really think it is impossible to do both at the same time, then exercise should be your first choice. The researchers found that, though not as successful as doing both, people who started exercise before improving nutrition were better off than people who started with nutrition.  The people who just tried to improve nutrition had a hard time ever getting to the exercise, and in order to get in shape you will need both nutrition and exercise. Leaving one out won’t get you there.

So, with that information I hope you can see the benefits of starting them together.  You don’t want to be the chicken and just run around the yard, and you don’t want to just eat the eggs and not run around the yard.  We want you to be the Fox.  You’ll get your exercise chasing that chicken around the yard, and then after you catch it you can start your recovery with a complete food source of the egg. The Fox won’t stop after catching the chicken, it wants both. The combination of the two will get you to that fox-y self you are looking for. Don’t pick just one, because chances are you won’t then get to the second half. Pick both and start getting foxy today, because if you don’t start you’ll find yourself being chased by the fox…and that doesn’t end well for anyone but the fox.

I’ll see you at the chicken coop,