> it's very difficult to burn calories over the base metabolic rate
You can run _flat out_ for an hour, or you can just skip the french fries with lunch. I found the latter to be orders of magnitude easier to accomplish on a day-to-day basis.
You can run _flat out_ for an hour, or you can just skip the french fries with lunch. I found the latter to be orders of magnitude easier to accomplish on a day-to-day basis.
But cardiovascular exercise, muscle strengthening, etc do confer other whole-body benefits that going for the french fries won't convey.
It was both important to control portion size as well as content though.
So for me, the key point was adjusting my meals to make me feel fuller, so I could reduce portion sizes without feeling hungry.
I primarily did this by increasing the relative amount of protein and fiber, and trying to reduce fat or carbs.
For my saturday steak I swapped french fries with peas, and cut the butter for the bearnaise in half.
For my "tacos" I limited the number of tortillas, increasing the amount of salad and also swapping out regular iceberg lettuce with romaine (more fiber). I also stopped using additional oil or fat for cooking the mince meat.
For breakfast I swapped butter for mustard or similar, and tricks like using more mature cheeses so I could use less cheese while still enjoying a lot of flavor.
I think the important thing is being honest with yourself about your goals and limitations, and use that to find something you can live with.
I just had to have that saturday steak, but I identified what about it that was important and as such managed to tweak the dish. I knew I couldn't cut chocolate entirely so instead I found ways to get the chocolate I needed while having far less of it in total.
At the same time I've noticed I'm much hungrier if I don't exercise. And exercise displaces time I could be eating. So, at least for me, it seems to have an indirect impact on weight loss.
Our bodies seem to be good at calibrating hunger and calorie intake to maintain balance between calories in and calories out, but there is something about being completely sedentary which causes that mechanism to malfunction.
If you go only diet route, you may or may not become healthier.