Quick announcement before we dive in:

I'm switching to Saturday mornings for this newsletter! Mondays have become too hectic with work and everything else. I've noticed that the newsletters I actually sit down and enjoy reading—the ones from my favorite creators—tend to land in my inbox on weekends when I can give them the focus they deserve.

Saturday mornings feel like the perfect time for us to connect over health topics without the Monday rush.

Alright, here we go:

You may be thinking: what if instead of changing the foods you eat, you'll just exercise to lose weight?

If exercising is your only approach, your gonna be disappointed.

I hear this all the time from people I work with: "I'll just hit the gym harder instead of changing my diet."

If that's your plan for weight loss, I need to share some tough love based on what the research actually shows.

Studies show that exercise is ineffective for weight loss in the short-term. This is because the calories you burn exercising will only have a small impact on your weight in the near future.

One major analysis of exercise-only programs found that people lost an average of just 3.5-4 pounds after 6-12 months of regular aerobic exercise. To put that in perspective, that's less than what many people lose during a few weeks of focused nutrition changes.

Even more eye-opening: The American College of Sports Medicine states that those standard recommendations you hear everywhere (150 minutes of exercise per week) are basically useless for major weight loss - although, it this amount of exercise does very good for overall health. They suggest you'd need up to 60 minutes of exercise daily to see meaningful results when exercise is your only strategy.

That's a serious time investment for minimal returns.

As a busy person, do you really have 7+ hours per week to dedicate to exercise just to maybe lose 5-6 pounds over an entire year?

Your body has built-in mechanisms that work against exercise-only weight loss.

In 30 minutes of jogging, for example depending on your weight and pace, you’ll burn around 300 calories which only amounts to a single cheeseburger at McDonald’s.

When you increase your workout intensity, your appetite typically ramps up to match. You might also unconsciously move less throughout the rest of your day to compensate for that intense gym session.

This is exactly what happened to me when I attempted to lose weight multiple times in my 20s.

Don't cancel your gym membership just yet. This research reveals something unexpected: this limitation is actually liberating.

Research consistently shows that when people combine smart nutrition changes with exercise, they lose an additional 6+ pounds compared to exercise alone. That means the same amount of exercise effort, but paired with nutrition focus, nearly doubles your results.

Instead of spending 2 hours at the gym trying to "burn off" last night's dinner, you can focus your energy where it actually moves the needle - your plate.

Exercise becomes crucial for the long game: consistent physical activity is one of the strongest predictors of maintaining a healthy weight long-term. There are more important benefits of exercising than just calories and losing weight.

For weight loss, exercising alone is not enough. But combining exercise with a healthy diet is much more effective.

You’ve heard this a million times before, but I’ll say it again anyway:

When it comes to our weight, you cannot outrun a bad diet.

Stay healthy,

Grazelle 🌱

PS: I’m hanging out at my husband’s university library writing this letter - while waiting for him to finish class. Isn’t it weird how I suddenly thought about how much I miss being in school? I’m not talking about exams and projects. But just being in school, learning for sake of learning. It’s been such a long time.

Whenever you’re ready, here are some other (free) resources you can check out: