Discussion Board

Diet is more important than exercise. You can be a lifelong runner and still have serious problems with your heart.

Here is something I just finished reading a few minutes ago.

So much for the idea that a vigorous exercise program makes unhealthy eating a non-problem.

The problem is when someone who eats right dies people say “he must have been cheating and eating bad”. They never say” I’ll bet he wasn’t exercising”.
I think they are both important. Maybe diet more that exercise but you have to have both. If you don’t think you need to keep your cardio up, maintain you muscles and stretch you are kidding yourself.
You will age and not be able to anything physical like climbing stairs or doing something with the grand kids. You build capillaries when you do cardio and strengthen you heart at the same time. Who doesn’t want that? Do you know you loose 1% of muscle per year after age 40? So at 70 you have lost 30% of your muscle mass.
I have seen people in the grocery store who are well up there in age and they can’t even push a cart. Can you imagine them trying to play catch, ride a bike windsurf with their grand kids. Or they reach for a can of beans in their cabinets and pull a muscle because they don’t stretch.
The time to start on a comprehensive exercise plan is now. Otherwise if you eat the way most do on this site you hopefully live cancer free and have no heart issues but will sitting around watching TV because you won’t have the means to do anything else at age 70-90, or 100!

I beg to differ.

I was on a terrible diet of junk food vegan foods, pop, beer, chips, high-salt food, but I moved a lot and felt fine.

Fast forward to now, where I eat amazingly well, but don't move around at all (because of crohn's disease) and I don't feel good at all. Sure, it could be the disease, but I think it has more to do with the lack of movement.

If I walk around now, my chest hurts, my legs swell up, Ive lost a lot of strength and my heart races all the time.

To me, a lack of exercise causes short term and long term problems, where poor diet seems to only cause major problems in the long run.

That's just my opinion, which is based on my own experience.

Most people my age remember vividly when Jim Fixx died. It was one world famous example where exercise was not enough to stay healthy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx

I was a runner in the seventies and remember Jim Fixx very well. That's when Runner magazine was new and there wasn't a decent running shoe on the planet. I read an interview with him and he'd been a heavy smoker and very obese, there was a lot of previous damage he did to his body. Had he never done those things to himself, he would have lived much longer. With every bad habit we have, it shortens our life considerably, especially the cigarettes. I also remember hearing people say how bad running was for you after he died, they didn't get the whole story.

I think it can be very misleading to point to an example here and there and draw meaningful conclusions without knowing all the facts. Both good diet and exercise are important, it's not 'either/or'. They work together and for optimum health and most people benefit even more from doing both.

I am fortunate and am able to both exercise and eat well. I can't say the same for many previous years however. If I was forced to make a choice and only keep doing one, with great reluctance I'd pick better eating.... and know I'd suffer significant physical repercussions for not exercising into 'old age'.

I agree with your subject line, I've been McDougalling for 6 months and following the MWL plan for the past 3. I wasn't obese before, and most people would have said I had a great figure but I still lost 10 pounds and did no organized exercise whatsoever (if you don't count housework ) so it was all down to the food.

I should say that I have no medical conditions, my husband is a type 2 diabetic and exercise plays an important role in controlling his blood sugar. I'm not saying exercise isn't' beneficial, but still, what goes into your mouth is the most important thing. My husband has an overweight friend eating a terrible SAD, and every day after lunch he can be seen walking around a track to lose weight. Good luck...

I think they are both important and any plan to return to good health should be called "dietandexercise". However, having said that, you can, with no trouble at all, start immediately on diet and have a multitude of benefits before you can physically be able to get your body moving enough for exercise to be beneficial. So many people have back and joint problems because of their weight and a good diet will get them to a point where they can, through exercise, address other problems.

It is so hard to get up off the couch to engage in exercise and so easy to walk to the fridge or cupboard to get some healthful food.

Didi

I would agree with what you're saying based upon personal experience.

Around November 2010 I decided that I needed to lose some weight so began swimming on a regular basis. At the time I weighed around 235lbs (I'm 6'5"). When the weather got nice, I continued swimming plus I went kayaking and also biked.

During the course of about a year I lost about 30lbs. But I remained stuck at about 205lbs. Even though I have been vegetarian for 28 years, I ate lots of fried foods and used oils in cooking all the time, snacked on nuts, and occassionally ate dairy.

It wasn't until I began this WOE over a month ago that the final pounds started coming off. I've lost an additional 10lbs in that time.

I love exercising and wouldn't go without it, but if I had to choose one as being more important than the other I'd say it's diet. But I also don't think you can be totally healthy without some form of exercise.

I have the greatest doctor . His mantra is "diet and exercise, diet and exercise."

Before eating this way I hated to hear it. Now I love it and it's become my mantra as well.

What you will hear from Dr. McDougall, based on his personal experience, is that both are important but to start with your diet as that will have the greatest, fastest impact on your health. His early plantation patients were not huge exercise buffs. But they were physically active. His experience taught him it was their way of eating that was primary to their good health. It really isn't either/or in this discussion as this forum is about adopting this way of eating but Dr. McDougalls early patients didn't spend lot's of time on the treadmill or lifting weights. He say their diet as instrumental to their health and longevity. He teaches us that today. A healthy, trim body is better than an overweight body and easier to move with. Much of the reluctance to exercise comes from trying to move such a large amount of weight. When you are trim it is much easier to participate in a sport or activity that promotes movement. Diet facilitates all.
It's a bit ironic this topic was posted because at the gym today my wife said to me.....Do you notice that many of the regulars we see here over time look the same. It's because they are trying to outwork their diet. That is near impossible. I watch how many calories I burn in an hour(around 400) and I think how easily that can be erased by a single small piece of garbage food. There are donuts that have more calories than that. You would have to spend your life at the gym and even that wouldn't erase the toxic effect of the garbage food unless all you looked at were the calories involved.
But being active makes the whole thing a blending of synergy. Good food helps active movement an active movement makes the best of good food.
A lousy diet is like putting diesel in your gasoline automobile. Don't expect much. But a good diet makes the most of any exercise you get. If you are lean and trim not being active enough can be felt but it doesn't cripple you. Being very heavy and not active can render you near helpless. Exercise wont stop the damage to your arteries and many other chronic issues. Diet will.
Start with your diet. Work out from there.
f1jim

"It's a bit ironic this topic was posted because at the gym today my wife said to me.....Do you notice that many of the regulars we see here over time look the same. It's because they are trying to outwork their diet. That is near impossible."

Exactly! I remember when I first started trying to improve my healthy (at 315 lbs.) in 1998 I began with exercise. I biked and I walked and I hiked constantly and at the end of 3 months I managed to drop 10 lbs. When I began focusing on the diet (still SAD) and preparing my own food, the weight dropped much more quickly. It takes very little eating off-plan to halt weight loss. I've dropped about 5 lbs. over the past couple weeks by cutting out almost all off-plan eating.

Michael

I am happy to concede to anyone that, between diet and exercise, diet produces the most dramatic and important effect on physical health, but I can't help but feel sorry for people who never find an aerobic exercise that they can adopt as their own, the same way I feel sorry for people who never find someone to love or never have a child. My own life would have been so much emptier if I had missed out on any of those life experiences. Running has been a friend I could always count on. It kept me sane at times when life seemed out of control. And, at times, such as when I completed my first marathon, it brought me to tears. The decline in my running is precisely the illness that I adopted this lifestyle to cure. So, perhaps it can also be considered responsible for whatever health benefits I have aquired here.

To me the obit in the original post in this thread does not seem tragic. I think about how much more tragic it would have been if he had died without having completed the marathons in the Bahamas and Arizona. People who cannot understand that are exactly the people that I can't help but feel sorry for. They may live longer lives, but they will not live fuller lives.

Mark

What I have found out in the course of my weight-loss journey is that I can't exercise my way out of bad diet choices, but exercise as an adjunct to a good diet can work wonders. By paying attention to both the calorie-density of my foods AND exercising in moderation I have been resculpting my body over the last six months from a size 12 at 155 pounds (initial goal weight BMI 22.5) to a size 8 at 139 (BMI 21) pounds with an ultimate goal of a size 6 at 130 pounds (BMI 20). Without exercise (primarily walking and weight lifting) I would still be lingering in the 150s - not an unhealthy weight for my height and age, but not where I want to be.

Kate

Hazelrah,

I am a relatively new runner, with only about a year and one half of running under my belt. But I "get" what you are saying here. When I was much younger, I used to spend time reviewing statistics of professional basketball and baseball players. Now, I spend time reviewing my own running performance either on training runs or in 5k, 8k or 10k road races. Running has provided a new dimension to my life.



I understand this comment as well. I remember a comic strip in which a guy was jogging saying, "I am doing my best to extend my life for as long as possible." The next sentence contained the line, ".... hoping someday I will find out what my life is for."

As Dr. Dean Ornish wrote in his book "Program for Reversing Heart Disease," what's the point of living longer if you aren't enjoying life? Ornish wrote this in the context of discussing his feelings of depression while he was in his early 20s.

But, yes. Adopting the McDougall diet will help us live longer, with fewer aches and pains. With that we can enjoy our lives. For me, that means enjoying the challenge of trying to shave another few seconds off of the time it takes to complete my next road race.