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Alex Falcon
ENC 1102
Blythe Nobleman
18 November 2015
Eat Your Weight Out: The Superior Role of Dieting in Maintaining Healthy Weight
When asking Americans if they pay for membership to a gym or health club, more times
than not, the response will be yes. However, the sad truth is that although fifty-eight million
Americans make an effort to stay fit and maintain a healthy weight by joining these exercise
facilities (spending over twenty-one billion dollars annually), more than two-thirds of the adult
population in the United States is considered to be overweight or obese (Seidell and Halberstadt).
In order to maintain a healthy weight, it is critical to regularly eat less calories than the amount
your body will consume (Andreou et al.). To find a solution to this problem, American adults
have consistently relied, and been indecisive, on whether to follow an exercise routine, adhere to
a strict diet, or do both. In other words, is it better to go for a run every morning or be more
aware of monitoring what one eats? When considering which of these options to invest the most
time, energy, and money in order to not just reach one’s desired weight goal, but also maintain it,
the verdict is clear: dieting is the superior route to take. After much research and first-hand
experience, it is evident that diet, not exercise, has, by far, the greatest influence on maintaining
a healthy weight in the long run because of its ability to maintain the body in a caloric deficit,
adjust the body’s ratio of fat to muscle mass, and regulate one’s metabolic rate throughout a
lifetime.
When in a caloric deficit, the human body is in a fat-burning state, allowing it to reach
one’s weight goals regardless of whether it is to lose or just maintain one’s weight (Andreou et
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al.). Even if someone does not exercise, he or she can still maintain their weight by simply eating
at their maintenance calorie level. Although anyone can go on their daily run with weight loss as
their goal, their effort would have a negligible impact on their weight loss if they decide to eat
whatever they want throughout the day. Usually, 400 calories are burnt in a thirty-minute run,
but if proper nutrition is lacking, an individual will remain in a caloric surplus. Furthermore,
maintenance calories can be calculated by multiplying one’s current weight by fifteen if male, or
by fourteen if female. For example, a 200-pound man has a maintenance calorie amount of 3,000
and exercises everyday for an hour, burning 500 calories, on average, per session. In order to
maintain his weight, this individual is now allowed to eat 3,500 calories (the sum of maintenance
calories and calories burnt). However, if he eats more than 3,500 calories in a day he would still
be gaining weight, and to make things worse, accelerate his fat gain. This goes on to show how
