Nutrition vs Exercise- Which Comes First
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Ever heard the saying "abs are made in the kitchen" and wondered if it’s true? Can what you eat really outweigh your exercise routine when it comes to reaching your fitness goals?
In this episode, I dive into this age-old debate and reveal why prioritizing nutrition is key to achieving lasting results, even if your workout routine isn’t always consistent.
We explore the transformative power of macro counting as a game-changer for body composition, muscle growth, fat loss and more!
We also discuss:
(01:05) Navigating Life's Priorities
(03:50) The Importance of Nutrition in Fitness
(07:42) Understanding Caloric Balance for Weight Management
(14:34) Nutrition Program for Self-Improvement
and more!
If you want more from me, be sure to check out...
Follow me on Instagram: @juliealedbetter | @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
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Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy: https://www.macrocountingmadesimple.com/
Website: www.juliealedbetter.com
Get my eBook: FREE Macro Counting Ebook
Amazon Storefront: Julie Ledbetter's Amazon Page
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey there, beautiful human you're listening to Embrace Your Real With Me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it. Let's go. [00:00:21]
[00:00:27] Know. And welcome back to another episode on the Embrace Trail podcast. The ultimate question that I get asked all of the time is which is most important? Is it nutrition? Is it exercise? To be honest, have you been tuning in for any length of time? You probably already know what I'm about to say, but if you want to see optimal results, you're eventually going to need to nail down both nutrition and exercise. Truly do go hand in hand, but I understand when you're first starting out, it can be extremely overwhelming. Making too many changes too fast often results in none of the changes actually sticking, and I'm a firm believer in creating small changes one step at a time. This is truly the best way to build these lifelong habits. I also get that your life is chaotic, and maybe right now you just don't have time for both of them, and so you're unsure of which one to prioritize more. How do you kind of navigate this, and which one should I put more of an emphasis on for the best results? That's exactly what I'm going to be sharing in today's episode of Embrace Your Real. And I really, really think that it's going to help you just kind of if you are in that season of life where you're like, I cannot prioritize both, but tell me what I need to do and I will do it, that this episode is directly going to answer that for you. So before we dive in, though, I want to share this review. She. A five star view comes from Spot of Wisdom and she says authentic and inspirational. This podcast is for everyone, especially every girl and woman. I believe they need to hear it. Julie gets real with her story and you can truly feel like she wants to help. It's almost like she's your big sister best friend coming alongside of you, cheering you on and telling you how it is. I love that so much. That's exactly how I feel when I record these episodes. I feel like I am that sister and I'm just coming alongside of you saying, hey, I'm going to give you some real talk or, hey, I want to educate you on something, or, hey, I just want to encourage you with some sort of piece of advice or something to ponder on. And so thank you so much for tuning in, and thank you so much for taking time out of your day to leave that rating interview. If you could scooch over to Apple Podcasts and liberating interview, it would mean the absolute world to me and our team. Just kind of know how these podcasts are helping you at a specific episode, or just in general. We would love to hear it. Okay, so which one? Nutrition or exercise? Which one comes first? Which one is more important? Drumroll it is nutrition. If you've been following for any length of time, you know that I will always talk about how important nutrition is, and I kind of want to dive into why. Well, in an ideal world, everyone would have the time and the resources to equally focus on nutrition and exercise. But that's just not real life, right? Life happens and gets in the way of prioritizing one over the other. For example, you have a busy schedule that limits the amount of time that you can dedicate to exercising or, you know, being able to honor your body with movement, focusing on a balanced and control diet. This is going to help you maintain or even improve your body composition, even when you're not working out, even when you're skipping workouts. Or maybe you have an injury or chronic condition that restricts your ability to exercise. Again, in this case, proper nutrition becomes critical in managing your body composition and it. Plus, if you're just getting started on building the body that you want, adjusting your nutrition, this will have an immediate impact more than just starting workouts, if that makes sense. And let me kind of dive into why nutrition is more important in this scenario. If you just had to choose one. Well, I first kind of want to start out by asking you this. I'm sure you've probably heard the saying, abs are made in the kitchen or you can't outrun a bad diet. These yes, they're very cliche. They're very overused sayings, but they actually hold a lot of truth. And without nutrition nailed down, it will be difficult to see results from your workouts. In fact, many health and fitness experts say that 80% of your results from working out depend on your nutrition, and some even argue that 90% of your results are dependent solely on your nutrition. Whatever that exact percentage rate is, it plays an integral role regardless. So why is nutrition more important? Well, let me kind of dive into this in a few multiple points. Number one, you eat more than you workout, which means that there's more opportunities to sabotage your results if you don't focus on your nutrition. I kind of want you to look at it like this. Like you won't always have the time to work out, but you always make the time to eat. No matter how your day unfolds, eating will always be a part of it. So right now, you may not be consistent with moving your body, but are you consistent with eating? So why not refine the thing they're already consistent with? If that makes sense. If you begin working out, you might exercise 3 or 4 times a week. But let's say you eat three meals, two snacks a day, which is a conservative estimate. You're eating 35 times per week. This means you have over 30 more opportunities to make a better choice for your body than if you just focused on exercise and these choices. Will drastically change the results that you see. So think about it. Each meal and each snack is an opportunity. It's a chance to nourish your body with the nutrients that it needs to function optimally. When you make consistent, you know, macro friendly choices, you are setting yourself up for a solid foundation for your overall well-being. Point number two is that you can work out as hard as you want, but if you're not nourishing your body correctly, you will not see the results that you're looking for. A common misconception is that you can simply exercise away poor dietary habits aka, you can train a bad diet. But the reality is there is no amount of exercise that can compensate for a consistently poor diet. Let me repeat that again. No amount of exercise can compensate for a consistently poor diet. First, I need you to consider the caloric burn of exercise versus caloric intake from foods. So let's just say a single slice of pizza, like a normal, bigger slice of pizza, contains around 3 to 400 calories. To burn those calories, you might need to run for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on your weight and running intensity. Now, think of how quickly you can consume an extra slice of pizza, versus how long it takes to run those calories off, right? That's 30 to 40 minutes of running to burn off one piece of pizza. So it's easy to see that indulging in high calorie foods regularly can quickly outpace the calories you burn through exercise, right? In fact, studies have shown that diet plays a much larger role in weight management, and one reason for this is because exercise increases appetite. When you workout, your body requires more fuel, and this often leads to increased hunger. And if you're not careful, you might end up eating more calories than you burn during your workout negatively, which kind of negates your efforts, right? Plus, the quality of your daily food greatly does impact your body's ability to perform in the workouts and recover after your workouts. Poor nutrition obviously, you likely know this leads to decreased energy levels, which makes it harder to stay motivated and perform well during workouts. This can also lead to impair recovery and leads to longer periods of soreness and fatigue, right? It can prevent your muscles from repairing and growing, and it can also prevent you from burning fat as fuel. Point number three is that caloric balance plays a huge role in maintaining or losing body fat. There are so many factors that play into losing and gaining weight, but the overarching principle is calories in versus calories out. The more calories you consume and the fewer calories that you burn, the more weight that you'll gain, and vice versa. So obviously it's more complex than this, but but at the end of the day, if you consume more calories than your body needs, it will store extra energy as fat. And this is why really understanding caloric balance is crucial for building the body that you want. Your body needs a certain amount of energy, which is just calories, to perform basic functions like breathing, digestion, and maintaining body temperature, which is also known as your BMR. If you ever see that, or you hear me talking about BMR, that's talking about basal metabolic rate. So capital B, capital M, capital R, and when you consume more calories in your body needs the excess is stored as fat. On the flip side though, if you consume fewer calories in your body needs, it will start to use stored fat for energy, leading to weight loss. Of course, though, if you've tuned in for any length of time, you know that I will encourage you to prioritize a balanced approach when it comes to eating the proper amount of protein, the proper amount of carbs, and the proper amount of fat. And that is through oftentimes utilizing the tool of macro counting. But again, this is kind of just a general overview. So let me kind of dive into macro counting now which is point number four. Macro counting does play a key role in maintaining or changing your body composition, right. Tracking the amount of protein, carbs and fat to maintain or change your body composition is absolutely 100% key to your body composition, aka how much muscle you have versus how much fat you're carrying is primarily influenced by what you eat. You need to think of your body as a mesh, as a machine, right? The fuel that you put in determines how it runs. Eating the proper balance of macronutrients, which is just protein, carbs, and fats. This will provide your body with the essential building blocks that it needs for muscle growth, fat loss, and overall health. Plus, when you are able to tailor your macro overall macro goals to your body composition goals, you're able to ensure that you are providing your body with the proper and right amount of nutrients in the proper and right amount, based on your activity levels, right? The macros that you consume will look a whole lot different if you're working out five days a week, versus you working out 1 or 2 days a week, or even zero days a week. Whatever your activity level is, your macros will be calculated based on that in order to give you the optimal results. And so while working out is undeniably important, yes. For overall health, strength, fitness. Macro, counting itself and learning how to properly fuel your body. This will take precedence when it comes to directly influencing your body composition. So basically, you know it gives you the exact control that you need to achieve and maintain your desired body composition. If so, if you are forced to pick one or the other, I need you to focus on prioritizing macro counting so that you can lay a super strong foundation so you can incorporate, you know, exercise as a powerful supplement when you can and can do that consistently. If you are totally in the dark in terms of how to properly nourish your body through utilizing the 12 macro counting, I do have a program. I will link it in the show notes called Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy. Or you can just go to macro counting, meet simple.com and learn more. But that is going to be crucial again in terms of you learning how to properly fuel your body and educate yourself. And point number five is compensate for exercise. So oftentimes after a rigorous workout, we feel justified in indulging in these high calorie treats. Right. We think we quote unquote earned it. However, this thing again like I mentioned earlier with the pizza, this can quickly override the calorie burn from our workout, leading to frustration when we don't see the results that we want. I mean, let's be real. It's so easy to overestimate the calories burned during exercise and underestimate the number of calories in food. So, for example, a 30 minute run might burn around 300 calories, but a slice of chocolate cake can easily contain 400 to 500 calories. So if you're not mindful of your food choices, you can quickly consume more calories than you burned, which is, you know, negating the benefits of your workout. And again, this is why it is so important to get your macros calculated to stick to those macros and learn how to dial in your nutrition. Because when you are able to see results, it's oftentimes coming from you being consistent in your day to day nutrition. One other thing that I will note is that when you have your nutrition nailed down, this is one of the biggest pieces of feedback that I get from the girls inside the macro cutting meat simple online academy. When they start properly feeling their body, they come to me and they say, Julie, I two things. Number one, I learned that I can still eat X, Y and Z and still reach my goals, which is amazing. But number two, most importantly, I have so much more energy. Like I didn't even know that this energy was possible, right? I have energy that I had in my 20s or in my 30s, and it is so fun for me to hear these things, because this is exactly what fueling your body optimally should look like for you. It should give you more energy. It should show you that you can, yes, still have a slice of cake, or you can still have the cookie and still reach your goals. It's possible to have both, but most importantly, when you are doing so in moderation, you are not depriving your body of foods, but you are eating all things in moderation. You realize how much energy you have and as a result, so many times when people go into this and they say, you know, I can only pick one. And so I always recommend nutrition. They go all in on nutrition, they learn how to properly fuel their body. They get consistent in that. Oftentimes the thing that I hear the most is I now have the energy to do a workout, which I didn't have that before. And because they're feeling confident in nourishing their body, they're then wanting to take that next step because, number one, they have the energy. And number two, they're feeling the confidence from sticking through something, and they want to just feel even better. And they know that a workout is going to help them. And so it is so fun for me to see when people start to prioritize their nutrition and actually stay consistent with it. It is so fun for me to see people, for lack of a better term, get their life back, because that's exactly what it should feel like. It should feel like you're getting your energy back, you're getting your drive back. And as a result, likely the next step that's going to follow is you starting to prioritize movement and workouts because you want to take it to the next level. So if you want to again learn more about how to properly fuel your body. Macro counting of simple.com, I will link it in the show notes. We really try to help you lay a solid foundation and look. This is a program. Yes, it's a self-paced program. It is not a one on one program. So we give you the tools and we say, hey, we're going to equip you with all the tools that you need. Yes, it's going to take a little bit of work on your end, but I can tell you, investing in yourself, investing in something like eating something that you are doing on a consistent basis, is going to give you a return on investment, like not nothing else you have in your life, right? Like tenfold. It is going to enhance your life because when you feel comfortable and confident around food, it is a total, total game changer. There is nothing that can nothing can take. You can take away that confidence. And I'm telling you, when you are at a party or when you have unexpected life events happen, if you still feel empowered and educated about how to. Properly fuel your body. There's nothing that can take that away from you, and you will still be able to either maintain or even improve your body composition through nutrition alone. So macro counting made simple.com. I will also link it in the show notes so that you can learn more about it. But I hope that this answered your question in a very clear way. Now, don't get me wrong, movement is still very, very important. I will forever be a fan of honoring your body with movement, but I totally get it. Life gets hectic. Life gets hard. There are times where we can only prioritize one thing, and if that's the case, if that's the season of life that you are in, nutrition is going to be absolute queen for you. All right. That is all that I have for today's episode. I hope that you found this helpful. I hope that you got a piece or pieces of advice that you can take and move forward, because I want you to see the results that you are looking for in your health and fitness goals. And trust me when I say that's going to happen. If you could only prioritize one of these two things, it's going to happen when you prioritize nourishing your body with what it needs. I love you so dang much. I made it and I'll talk to you in the next one. [00:16:29]
[00:16:37] All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie Ledbetter. Yes, it's with the name The Middle for that Daily Post workout. Real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with. [00:17:07]
[00:17:07] One last thought. [00:17:08]
[00:17:08] The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace it real because you're worth it. [00:17:08]