This concludes our look at the ONLY 3 ways to lose weight. In Part I we looked at diet alone as a weight loss option.

Part II explored the idea of sweating off the pounds through exercise only, with no changes to your diet.

Weight loss method #3 is combining exercise with a calorie-reduced diet.

If I had to choose one word to describe this method, it would be…

BALANCE.

While you still have to eat fewer calories than your body needs, you don’t have to eat a lot less. Just a little less.

While you will be exercising, you don’t need to exercise nearly as much as method #2. You don’t even have to exercise every single day.

Remember that to lose one pound of fat - not just weight - you need to create a deficit of 500 calories between what your body needs and what you consume. Up until now, you had to either eat 500 fewer calories or exercise long enough to burn 500 calories.

By combining the two methods, you make it much easier to create the 500 calorie deficit. Now you only have to eat 250 fewer calories - the equivalent of about 2 slices of whole grain bread. And you only have to exercise long enough to burn 250 calories - cutting your exercise time in half.

By only having to cut your calorie consumption by 250 calories you avoid the risk of going below your BMR and losing precious lean tissue.

As a matter of fact, method three addresses all of the negative points uncovered in the previous two methods plus a few not mentioned earlier:

• Exercise - specifically weight training exercise - protects you from losing precious lean tissue. Actually, people who are new to weight training or strength training can even add a few pounds of muscle despite eating fewer calories than their body needs. This addition of muscle creates a slight increase in the metabolic rate or rate at which you burn calories.
• Combining weight training exercise with a healthy diet allows you to reshape your body, creating a more symmetrical physique.
• Proper diet with exercise improves digestion and circulation, helps reduce blood pressure and does a better job of controlling blood sugar levels which plays a major role in preventing the onset of type II diabetes.

So if combining exercise with a reduced calorie diet yields the best weight loss results, you’re probably asking yourself…

Which Type Of Exercise Is Best?

The answer to this question may surprise you. When I used to speak in front of groups of people, I’d ask this very question and without a doubt, “walking” was the first choice.

Well, a study performed by Kraemer et al in 1999 set out to demonstrate the differences in weight loss using three different methods. One group used diet only. Another group used diet and aerobic exercise while the third group used a combination of strength training and diet.

While each group lost about the same amount of weight, what’s interesting is the type of weight they lost. Here’s what the study revealed:

• The diet only group lost about 22 pounds, of which 6 pounds was lean tissue.
• The diet plus aerobic exercise group lost just under 4 pounds of lean tissue for every 22 pounds of weight lost.
• And finally, the strength training plus diet group maintained their lean tissue.

Contrary to very popular thinking, it would seem that if you had to choose just one type of exercise to do, resistance training would give you the best bang for your workout buck. Not walking, running, riding a bike or any other type of aerobic exercise.

That’s not to say, however, that you should neglect aerobic or cardiovascular exercise. Doing some cardio exercise each week will help keep your heart strong, blood flowing smoothly and help burn even more calories.

To me, it seems the best way to lose weight…and keep it off…is to combine exercise with a slightly reduced-calorie diet. But I want to know what you think. Drop me a line or leave a comment telling me about your experiences.