100/30 rule of weight loss

Exercise actually doesn’t burn THAT many calories.

If you’re primarily relying on exercise to lose weight, or utilizing it as a way to “cancel” out your binge eating habits, then you’re likely frustrated with your results.

If weight loss or improving body composition is a goal, you’re better served focusing on nutrition first and foremost.

Consider the 100/30 rule of weight loss. You can control 100% of your nutrition intake (easier said than done, but nevertheless still true). You can likely only work off 30% of your calories through exercise (and that would be doing A LOT of exercise). With that said, even if you are very active, the amount of calories you consume will be disproportionately greater than what you expend through exercise.

While it’s true that exercise is a useful method for burning calories, it’s more beneficial for improving mobility, cardiovascular health, joint integrity, muscular power, sleep, stress, etc. Although it’s not bad to use exercise as a means to support weight loss, it’s important to avoid an unhealthy relationship between food, exercise, and weight loss.

By understanding the 100/30 rule, it can help you gain a better perspective of the importance of input compared to output.