Diet Versus Exersize

The debate rages on. What is better--diet or exersize? I advocate both, however, what if you had to choose only one. I got in a arguement with a co-worker about this, and while he suggested exersize is more important for loosing fat, i suggested you could eat 1 3000 cal meal easily, but then you would have to run 20 miles to burn it off.

Discuss.

Diet for me. I'd rather be thin and healthy than fat, unhealthy and muscular.

exercise, you could always just be more active to burn off the extra calories you are eating plus you put on muscle and keep your cardiac system healthy.

If I had to choose, then I'd say exercise. I'd rather eat what I want (enjoy the foods I love) and exercise then diet my entire life. But will say, as far as body recomp then diet is probably more important. I've always believed diet plays a bigger role regarding losing weight/fat. So I guess what I'm saying is I would do the exact opposite of what I believe

If you are trying to lose weight, diet is 100 x more important. You can exercise till you are blue in the face, but unless you have reasonable eating habits, most people will not change how they look.

If you have other goals eg: strength, then exercise becomes more important.

I think they need to go hand-in-hand... Especially if you want to get the best out of both.

If you had asked me last year which I thought was more important, I would have said exercise hands down. But after going "clean," I think diet is more important. You really need a combo of both; you won't get anywhere in terms of huge gains (or weight loss) without proper diet, it just makes everything easier and more efficient. However, if I had to give up one, I'd probably keep exercising (because you can still eat healthy without sticking to a diet), plus I don't think I could just stop working out.

IMO, diet is the thing for everything.... with the right diet you can get pretty big with having an active lifestyle (just doing everyday things and playing sports outside, or just that sort of everyday thing). and with the right diet you can cut down any kind of extra fat you have on you.... no matter how hard you try, if all you eat every day is sugary foods, candy's, pizza, mcdonalds and all that crap, you could exercise 7 days a week with cardio every day and you wouldnt be able to burn off all the extra stuff you didnt need, not to mention not getting essential nutrients which would keep you from actually being healthy enough to keep on exercising if you ate like crap.