Exercise v. Diet

[Satya]

Maybe it is an individual thing.  Perhaps it even changes with age, but I have always felt that regular exercise was at least as important to health as good food. 

[Raw Kyle]

I used to feel that way but after seeing so many athletes and people in great shape dying of cancer, heart disease and all the other modern ailments I've realized that exercise doesn't do a darn thing to prevent those kinds of diseases. I'm pretty sure if you ate an RAF diet but did no exercise you'd be better off than someone who ate a SAD diet and exercised regularly.

[Sully]

I don't know about them equal. But thats what I voted for.

You'll never reach your full potential with one without the other.

You can eat unhealthy and train like crazy, but health problems will still become more of a risk.

You can eat very healthy and train not at all and have healthy organs and low chance of illness. But your body will still be fairly weak and unconditioned compared too if you exercised more often.


Combine them both and reach your own unique potential.

[igibike]

Maybe diet is a bit more important re ealth.
But exercise is a bit more important re shape.

I believe that mixing both is the best strategy.

[JustAnotherExplorer]

I'm not sure which option to vote for, but I think that they are both very important to different aspects of health.

[coconinoz]

could 1 say they feed each other?

[Sully]

could 1 say they feed each other?

In a way, I believe they do.

[JaX]

I have to say diet might be slightly more important but exercise is really also a must and can often keep people in good health even though their diet is crappy. Think about Michael phelps, he supposedly eats 12000 calories per day, most of them coming from white enriched flour (pasta, pizza) and other grains. He eats one pound of pasta and an entire pizza plus some energy drinks at a single meal (out of his 3 daily meals). Yet his physical shape and performance in swimming are at the top level, no doubt about it.

[Raw Kyle]

I have to say diet might be slightly more important but exercise is really also a must and can often keep people in good health even though their diet is crappy. Think about Michael phelps, he supposedly eats 12000 calories per day, most of them coming from white enriched flour (pasta, pizza) and other grains. He eats one pound of pasta and an entire pizza plus some energy drinks at a single meal (out of his 3 daily meals). Yet his physical shape and performance in swimming are at the top level, no doubt about it.

What does physical shape and swimming performance show about health? There have been plenty of world class athletes just up and die from heart attacks, get cancer (Lance Armstrong) etc.

I don't believe you guys that voted they are equal truly believe that. If you do then you're saying someone who eats candy all day every day but works out hard will be equally healthy to someone who eats RPD and doesn't exercise at all? That's ridiculous. In fact diet can be considered eating at all, and obviously that is more important than exercise, which is use of the body above and beyond your needs in order to produce fitness results. Clearly eating, and eating foods digestible and healthy for humans, is more important than the use of the body above your needs in order to produce fitness results.

Michael Phelps will pay the price just like all other athletes that have crappy diets. Either he'll die young like a lot do, or when he stops training (or hormone levels drop off) he'll get really fat and *all of a sudden* just *become* unhealthy. I put those terms in between *'s because I'm saying in reality he is already unhealthy, setting the grounds for future terrible health, and you just cannot see it like you cannot see a smokers black lungs and only know they have cancer when the doctor diagnoses it.

Furthermore I think diet is more important for shape (looks of the body) than exercise as well. We all should know that exercise doesn't really cause weight loss in any significant manner, definitely not compared to cutting out carbs and other non paleo foods. About the only thing exercise can do that diet cannot is build muscle and aerobic endurance, although natural hormone levels in some take care of the former. A woman, for example, will have a more pleasing body if she was raised on RPD and allowed to develop the proper bone structure and shape than if she was raised on crap and just sweats it out in the gym every day for a flat stomach that she can hardly keep flat because of her diet. A lot of tribal people do very little of what we consider exercise and have pleasing and fit bodies.

That is not to say I am against exercise, I love exercise, but to say it's anywhere near equal to diet in health is absurd imo. Anyone who challenges would perhaps be willing to eat McDonald's every day for 5 years while working out every day and I'll eat RPD every day for 5 years and do no exercise and we'll see what happens. And giving McDonald's is a gift, I could have said just lettuce or something that would result in your death within a month.

[JaX]

Wow never looked at it that way, thanks. I guess you are right, diet is the basis for everything, while exercise is a supplementation. I think I forgot the meaning of the word diet and took it to mean eating in a specific way but actually no matter what you eat is your diet as you mention. And if you eat nothing you die, while if you don't exercise doesn't mean you are going to die. So yes looking at it that way diet is much more important.

I think the people who said exercise/diet were equally important, were looking at diet in smaller variations. Diet like being on a specific, strict diet. For example a diet with some grains vs. strict paleo diet.
Most people today "watch" to some extent what they eat. Not that it's very intelligent according to our standards. But most rational people restrict their intake of what they know is really bad, such as fast food. I don't know anyone who eats only McDonalds like the guy from the supersize me movie did. People know that fast food is unhealthy but they either don't know HOW unhealthy it really is or they just don't care.

About Michael Phelps I don't agree with you completely. It's easy for you to sit and condemn his diet and say that his health is terrible, but you haven't won olympic gold medals.    You just have a theory. Nobody has a guarantee for lifelong health, no matter how perfect their diet is.

And, the rate of cancer in people considered athletes is something like 1 in 7, while it in the general population is 1 in 3. It might be because athletes are more conscious about what they eat, but I also think exercise is a factor for good health. Obviously not many athletes today eat low carb/no grain.
If you put two people on the same diets, the one that exercises will be healthier and feel much better.
Sure Michael Phelps diet might not be perfect for health according to our standards, but he sure has made some results in his sport and is very physically fit - those things count for something too.
And Lance Armstrong supposedly cured himself of his cancers by exercising as much as he could.

[TheWayCreatesTheWarrior]

i used to preach about the 3 pillars of health being; 33% Diet/33% exercise/33%Rest&Recovery.
All Equal.

but i find that Diet reigns supreme, at least as the foundation.

so now i find a 40%/30%/30% approach may be more accrurate.

ive been extremely blessed with excellent physical genetics, i can literally eat like crap for a month straight with no exercise and stay in (actualy, more like just "appear to be in") really good shape. but i find if my diet is dialed in tight, then exercise is more "extra" than nessecary, albeit over the long run maybe nessecary. i do really love exercising and i feel it brings me above and beyond "healthy" to "optimal being".

and on rest, ask me now and id say that its very important, ask me 4 hours into a deep sleep and ill probably punch you in the face. 

 

[Raw Kyle]

Seeker, my reply to the Phelps thing would be to google "world class athlete" or "runner" and "heart disease" or "death." There are plenty of people who could, up to the time of their death via heart attack, finish a marathon with a respectable time.

Athletes get a lot of performance out of their body, but do not confuse that with health. The way I would put it would be that their bodies work very well until they don't. That is to say that their bodies appear in perfect form and they get the performance they want out of them, but they have no guarantee to not drop dead of heart disease like a normal sedentary person, even though it would appear that their heart is giving them such spectacular performance and therefore must be healthy. I'm not much of a car guy, but maybe a sports car fed very poor grade gasoline for years would run faster than a sedan given premium over the same length of time, until the engine just blew up or something.

There are more reasons to not equate physical performance with health, most in the form of drugs that give temporary or even permanent (until they die or are hobbled by them) physical performance enhancement. Steroids, amphetamines, etc...I don't know about the athlete cancer rate but isn't the athletic average life span somewhere in the late 50's of years compared to the average lifespan of 70's of years for the entire USA population?

[Furion]

This is interesting because just this week I saw on the news that dual Commonwealth Games marathon gold medalist Kerryn McCann died of breast cancer at 41.

Marathon runners have very low body fat and it made me think about how Aajonus Vonderplanitz said that when body fat is low, toxins do not have a place to go so they get stored in other areas.

Some people also have a predisposition to being able to handle high carbohydrate diets better than others.  Elite athletes use drugs too, making diet less important.

[wodgina]

I was sorry to hear she died. Elite athletes are not always healthy. Strenuous activity like marathon running is very tough on the body and can be as bad as eating chips and coke. Professional sport is littered with fine athletes battling cancers/diabetes etc.

I myself am involved with endurance sport so I'm not writing off people who spend their free time involved in these types of sports.

I agree with Aajonus on the fat issue although you maybe able to get fat on the Primal Diet it's impossible to be fat on raw paleo. People store their toxins in different areas, some people get bags under their eyes, some get fat, some store them in their organs. Storing them in fat seems the best place.

Mine go to my liver because sine raw paleo it shrunk.

[Raw Kyle]

How do you know that your liver shrunk?

[wodgina]

All my stomach organs shrank when I first went 95% rvaf. I could just feel them.

[Raw Kyle]

Hmm that's interesting. Something I noticed was when I first started with raw foods as a vegan my stomach seemed to stick out more when I ate than when I ate SAD or cooked vegetarian. I always had a very flat stomach even after eating a lot, and with raw vegan foods it stuck out a little after eating, which I attributed to either the huge fiber content or bad food combinations that I sometimes ate. With RAF I seem to not get that anymore, but I think bad combinations can still do it. So maybe it has something to do with the organs in my stomach area.

[wodgina]

I used to get serious bloating on SAD, I swear I looked pregnant sometimes. It was definitley organs shrinking not bloated stomach. It was one of the first improvements I noticed after my skin going soft and healthy.

[Guittarman03]

It could have been a backed up digestive system in general.  SADers tend to eat alot of carbs in combo with meats, which is bad news for digestion.  The stomach never fully breaks down both before they pass into the intestines, where they will often sit for a rather long time, I think anywhere from 48-72 hours before passing through completely.  You can often see this in men that have very round and protruding bellies looking almost pregnant.  I have read that it's possible for them to lose 3-5 pounds and an inch or two off the waist in a few days solely from clearing a clogged digestive system (that is, if they move to a propoer diet).  But only you know your body best, so it's entirely possible that your organs did shrink.  If that's the case, I wonder what is the mechanism behind it. 

[Satya]

It could have been a backed up digestive system in general.  SADers tend to eat alot of carbs in combo with meats, which is bad news for digestion.  The stomach never fully breaks down both before they pass into the intestines, where they will often sit for a rather long time, I think anywhere from 48-72 hours before passing through completely.  You can often see this in men that have very round and protruding bellies looking almost pregnant.  I have read that it's possible for them to lose 3-5 pounds and an inch or two off the waist in a few days solely from clearing a clogged digestive system (that is, if they move to a proper diet).  But only you know your body best, so it's entirely possible that your organs did shrink.  If that's the case, I wonder what is the mechanism behind it. 

The mixing of meat and starchy carbs is really bad news.  And really, mixed with chemically-unstable vegetable oils (as is common in most sad meals too), this type of eating will not only cause poor digestion like Jason says, but it could well cause inflammation of various organs.  When I was a vegan, I noticed that my liver was large - I could feel it, but I never had issues per se.  Once I began eating animal foods again and giving up grains, it shrunk.  Now that I am limiting plant foods, it again feels smaller still.  Perhaps it is the plant toxins/antinutrients.  In my case, I always loved big salads, lots of vegetables.  So even limiting vegetables and fruits to the role of condiments in my diet has been a huge switch.  Maybe all this fibrous plant matter was just too much for my system.

I still say that exercise is important for health.  Not steady state cardio to excess.  It could be that it is similar in diet in that individuals have different needs within the scope of a basic rpd.  But bones, muscles and reflexes do not improve that much with diet alone.  Use it or lose it.

[Sully]

I have something to say...It was probably mentioned already or now off topic as far as what people are mentioning currently in the post.

Exercise vs diet doesn't make sense....In order for paleo people to have a diet at all they had to exercise

[raw]

if you think that you're on hunters' diet, than you should consider some level of physical movement that hunters used to do in old days (climbing, jumping and running after a dear all day long...etc.) . the bottom line is, we should work hard for our food to get it. we should depend on our own instead of buying those products from internet web or going to the whole food or farmers. go back to simple life, go back to the nature.

[PaleoPhil]

I don't believe you guys that voted they are equal truly believe that. If you do then you're saying someone who eats candy all day every day but works out hard will be equally healthy to someone who eats RPD and doesn't exercise at all? That's ridiculous....

Correct. The nonexercising RPDer will generally be healthier than the candy-eating exerciser. I enjoy exercise and I used to think exercise was more important than diet. Now I think that if exercise worked just as well as or better than RPD, why would we bother with such a restrictive diet? We could eat whatever we want and just burn it off, which is the dream that the exercise gizmo companies sell to people. It would be fun to be able to reverse digestive problems, sinusitis, MS, Parkinson's, poor vision, arthritis, diabetes, skin cancer, etc., just by playing tennis, canoeing or jogging in a park.

If you're eating RPD it's probably a moot point anyway, because the diet tends to give people enough energy that they want to get moving (with some exceptions, like Lex ). Lex is a good example of someone who's health improved dramatically with just dietary change and no exercise. The reverse is also possible, but seems to be much rarer, especially in the long run (such as with the athletes whose poor diets eventually catch up with them, as was mentioned).

I only do a modest amount of exercise, but I have the blood pressure, heart rate, lipid profile, body fat %, etc. of an amateur athlete. All these numbers became more athletic-like when I went VLC Paleo (and then more so when I went RPD) despite the fact that I decreased the amount of exercise I do. Plus, we can have the best of both worlds and maintain both healthy eating and exercise.

Maybe the problem some people are having is with the word "diet" (which has gathered some negative baggage over the years)? Would more people recognize that exercise is not equal or more important if the word "nutrition" was used instead?

[Raw Kyle]

I have something to say...It was probably mentioned already or now off topic as far as what people are mentioning currently in the post.

Exercise vs diet doesn't make sense....In order for paleo people to have a diet at all they had to exercise

Good point, also from Paleophil. The modern connotations of the words diet and exercise sometimes obscure this kind of discussion. Exercise in the healthy, paleo sense could be as simple as long walks, gardening, building something etc. And of course diet to us does not mean a temporary thing to lose weight but rather a lifestyle. Indeed both rpd and moderate exercise would be the two main pillars of a paleo lifestyle in modern times.

[aladamapee]

A balancing diet with exercise are essential for good health. I care of both item, to keep me healthy.