Illustration and inspiration from Paula Owen's "Power of 4"

Today there’s a lot of controversy about what it actually takes to get healthy and to loose fat. Some say exercise, some say diet, and some say “take this pill.” But what is the truth? Can you really lose weight only through diet? Do supplements really work?

The truth is that it takes all three and one more. Therefore components of fat loss: diet/nutrition, exercise, supplementation, and lifestyle. Health and fat loss can be found to some degree in any of these individual pieces but ultimately work best together.  If you want to loose that and get healthy it can be done through exercise or diet and even supplements can help, but if you truly want to be healthy and really want to permanently lose fat you’re going to need all four.

Exercise

Some say that exercise is not important, and others say that exercises everything.  Exercise is an essential part of being healthy. Health is about more than just weight. What good does it do you to be adequate “healthy weight” and not be able to walk of a flight of stairs? Exercise is important for a few reasons: Quality exercise will elevate the metabolism and accelerate fat loss for up to two days; it will increase muscle mass which elevates resting metabolism; it will also teach you how to move properly which could save your life and in an emergency; and far more.

Diet/Nutrition 

“You can’t out run a doughnut.” While it is true that exercise burns calories it is far easier to not eat them then to  burn them. The average glazed doughnut has 260 cal you would have to run 2.6 miles to burn that many calories. It would be much easier to just not eat the doughnut. Proper nutrition will also enhance recovery and enable you to train better in the gym. It’s estimated that 80% of fat loss happens on the plate and not in the gym, and that’s because it’s far too easy to undo what you did in the gym by what you put on your plate and in your mouth.

Supplementation

Many today view supplements is bad or completely unnecessary, and nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that our food supply is not where it should be today. Due to decades of poor farming methods are soil is drastically depleted. Therefore today it is nearly impossible to get all the nutrients you need from diet alone. And even if you could it would be even harder to deal with any deficiencies that you may have from poor dieting up to this point. That’s were supplements come in. Supplements help seal up the cracks and deal with any deficiencies we may have. Additionally, proper supplementation can help speed up fat loss by helping you replenish much-needed nutrients faster. This does not mean that all supplements are good or that everyone needs every type of supplement. Supplementation should be specific to the individual, therefore it’s recommended that you seek out a qualified practitioner.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle habits are probably the most overlooked part of any help in fat loss program. It doesn’t matter how much you exercise or how well you be if you’re not sleeping, for example. For many people stress is a major culprit in their fat loss blunders. People who are unable or unwilling to sleep enough, or manage their stress better almost always fail a fat loss attempt.

Conclusion

For optimal health all four pillars of needed. Anyone can get some results with one pillar or couple pillars, but if any pillar is neglected results are often minimal or short-lived.