Healthy Diet Matters More Than Exercise

Here's good news for those of you who hate to exercise: a new review of more than 45 weight loss studies finds that changing your nutritional habits offers greater results, in shorter time, when you are first trying to lose weight. Exercise is better for keeping the weight off in the long term.

Diet was found to have more of an impact on weight loss than exercise. Dietary changes, alone, could produce weight loss of about 20 pounds in about six months. Exercising without dietary changes produced about a 4-5 pound weight loss in the same time frame.

Being overweight has serious implications for your heart, metabolism, and your skin. A poor diet can lead to skin which is dull, prone to breakouts, and dry. It can also lead to reduced capacity to fight off infections, and accelerated aging. Excess body weight can lead to breakdown of the skin's underlying layer, resulting in stretch marks.

If you are considering losing weight, look first to your diet. Make some changes there, and then add in the exercise.

Your health, and skin, will both improve.