An ‘Exercise’ in Healthy Eating

As people are becoming more health conscious, it is difficult to decide whether we should focus our energy on changing our diet or boosting physical activity. This study out of Stanford University School of Medicine found that participants who engaged in both exercise and diet were able to achieve the nationally recommended goals of 150 minutes of exercise per week, eating five to nine servings of fruits and vegetable daily, and keeping saturated fat intake at less than 10 percent. So how can exercising make you eat better and eating better make you exercise more? When we change our diet and exercise one after the other, we may place more emphasis on the behavior that we changed first and feel less obligated to change the second behavior. When dieting and fitness habits are changed simultaneously, people are more likely to maintain their healthy behaviors over longer periods because dieting and exercise are of equal priority. Making healthy lifestyle choices does not have to be one or the other, and in this case, they should go hand-in-hand!