Fitness is 80% Kitchen and 20% Exercise ... NOT

What does it mean to "improve one's fitness"?

Certainly, weight loss or weight control generally is recognized as an element of fitness. Improving one's cardio-vascular health is a NECESSARY element of a fitness plan also. Improvement in measures such as blood pressure, triglyceride levels, resting heart rate, body fat percentage are also indicators of improved fitness.

There has been a growing level of attention paid to the role of "what goes on in the kitchen" as it relates to health. We often hear sayings that state "80% (or some other percentage) of our health efforts should be focused in the kitchen. And this attention is a very good trend. However, there have been some growing misunderstandings, I believe, as it relates to food, "clean eating" and, for example, calorie ingestion.

Calorie reduction alone, can be counterproductive, when addressed in isolation of all other factors. A key element in obtaining better physical health is an increased metabolism. An increased metabolism basically means that your body, among other things, is burning more calories. Being overly attentive to calorie reduction however as a method of losing weight and thus improving health can actually be counterproductive.

Reducing calorie intake "too much" will actually slow down one's metabolism. It can also rob your body from rebuilding itself from exercise. Being overly focused on doing hours and hours of cardio with little or no attention to weight training, can and does result in a condition called "skinny fat". This basically means that you may well be losing weight, but you can also be losing critical muscle mass in addition to fat, which fires your metabolism. (Do you see the vicious circle you can get into?)

Getting the kitchen "right" involves attention to calories, portion control and feeding the body with what it really needs, nutrition.

So what is more important then; what goes on in the kitchen or exercise?

You can NOT exercise your way out of bad eating habits. Bad eating habits refer to a combination of one or more of:  poor nutrition intake, too high of calorie intake (lack of portion control), poor mix of calorie categories (carbohydrate, protein, fats and including a poor mix of carbohydrate sources).

However, it is EQUALLY TRUE that you can NOT attain overall fitness without attention to exercise.  In fact, without an appropriate mix of cardio-vascular based exercise and weight training, your exercise programs may be offering very little benefit to you. (Do you feel like you are not making the progress you think you should based on the exercise you are getting?) Without weight training, your bones are not stimulated to grow or maintain. Without adequate nutrition, your body will steal nutrients from your muscles and bones in order to simply function. Likewise, without cardio-vascular exercise (defined generally as periods of high-intensity exercise at or near 85% of your maximum heart rate), you will NOT develop cardio-vascular fitness at any appreciable level.

So while it is true that you can not exercise your way out of poor eating, likewise, you can not eat (no matter how clean you eat) your way to overall good physical fitness without strenuous exercise. There simply are no shortcuts. (As a side note, what most people view as clean eating is far from it. Additionally, you can eat much of good food; thus the importance of portion control.)

Nutrition, portion control, calorie awareness (which also means fueling the engine), weight training and cardio-vascular exercise are ALL necessary to good overall fitness. Attempting to assign a percentage of importance to any or all of these masks the priority of ALL of these elements of a good health and fitness plan.

As with all things in life, a healthy balance usually leads to optimal results.