There is a popular concept: Fitness is 20% exercise and 80% diet, popularly known as the 80/20 rule. However, it is impossible to give percentages to such factors. Depending on the goals of an individual, the importance of these factors changes accordingly. This article will look at the two major goals people have: Muscle building and fat loss.

Watch the video version of this article here:

1: Fat Loss

Creating a calorie deficit is a must for fat loss. No matter how much one person works out, there will not be any fat loss without decreasing calorie intake. However, this does not mean that working out is useless for fat loss. There are two ways to create a calorie deficit, first one is to reduce the calorie intake by decreasing food consumption, and the second one is to exercise and burn more calories while controlling food consumption. If a person does not have the time to work out, eating less food is the better option. But for most people, working out and burning more calories is better because the human body is not meant to be sedentary and eat less food. Instead, it is made for eating enough food and being active. So, both training and diet are important for fat loss but the calorie deficit always comes first.

2: Muscle Building

The training creates a stimulus for muscle growth after which the food consumed is used to increase muscle mass. But, without the training stimulus itself, the food cannot do anything on its own. If diet was 80%, then almost everyone on earth would be buff. Those who trained would have looked only 20% better than those who did not. But, this is not the case. You can take the diet of a natural bodybuilder and give it to an average person, it will not make any difference in muscle mass. Instead, the person might get fat if he does not burn those extra calories. Looking at the whole population, the average man from a rich family is getting an excellent, healthy diet but he/she is not muscular. It is not that 99% of people who are not muscular are getting a bad diet, they are just not working out. If you give these people a good workout plan, they will start building muscle without making any change to their diet in the beginning. After some time, they will have to eat more food to pack on muscle mass. But, this always comes after training.

Think of driving a car, the driver has to first put the key in the ignition, steps on the accelerator, and the car moves forward. Stepping on the accelerator, rotating the steering wheel is important but without the ignition, the car will stay in one place. Training or exercising is the ignition for muscle growth. However, if the diet is garbage filled with junk food, low in protein and micronutrients, then muscle growth will be slow. Diet is equally important but it will always come second to training, for bodybuilding.

Now talking about general health, diet is more important. It is possible to live without dedicated exercise but hard to survive without a good diet. Most people never work out and still live their life to the fullest.

Depending on the goal, diet or exercise can come before and after one another. However, both are equally important. It is not 80% or 20%. It is 100% diet, 100% training, and 100% rest. If you ask a fitness trainer, he will say that working out is more important. If you ask a dietician he will say that diet is more important. These percentages are just a way of marketing. Practically speaking, all are equally important.

To learn how to build muscle, burn fat, get healthy with or without gym equipment, subscribe to Brawny King Fitness. Never miss out on any of the future videos.