If You Had To Put A "Number" On It....

[Amy]

This is kind of a spin-off of the nutrition or diet first thread-

If you had to put say percentages on what you think contributes to someone losing weight, where would those percentages be?

Keep in mind this is for a beginner-

Nutrition:

Training:


My opinion would be for a beginner starting up it would be 65% nutrition and 35% training.

I would love to hear your opinion!

[Erik]

Obviously we can't say concretely what the number would be. I was actually just asked this question (or something similar) in an interview Craig Ballantyne just did with me a couple weeks ago.

My answer was ....

When it’s fat loss you can’t really put a concrete number on it but I would say it’s all nutrition. I think the training components make a bigger difference when it comes to gaining muscle. But when it comes to fat loss the training is really, if it’s set up properly, it’s simply there to at the very least maintain your muscle.

I think for fat loss, 90 plus percent of it is nutrition. You can’t out exercise a bad diet.

[Erik]

I'll had that the exercise portion will obviously offer a number of health benefits but in the context of weight/fat loss, it's really all about nutrition.

We all see lots and lots of people in the gym doing a lot of exercise day in and day out. Yet, they don't look any different month in and month out.

Why? It's what they're doing the other 23 hours of the day.

[Ali]

To lose weight. But folks here...want to do much more than that. Strength, muscle. :flex:

But true...to gain muscle and get in shape...i had to work out. To get ripped, i had to diet.

[Erik]

Basically, for fat loss - nutrition is far more important. How you train is less important. (not saying it's not important mind you as there's still a lot of training that falls in the category of Retarded).

For muscle gain, how you train is more important. Just training isn't necessarily going to generate the muscle you want. Provided you're eating enough (which is where most miss out), muscle gain will be more influenced by what you do in the gym. (again, recognizing the simple need to eat enough).

[synergyb3]

Nutrition is way up there when it comes to fat loss. I agree that it is about 90%. Good training habits are what add the "icing" to our fitness cake, so to speak.