Is diet 80%?

There’s a lot of talk and debate about diet being 80% of health/fitness. Is it true?

Bottom Line:

I don’t know, but I think it is and I think the logic makes sense.

Details:

Calories – it’s easier to eat fewer calories than burn calories

Nutrients – I don’t know how you’ll get the nutrients your body needs without eating them in some form

I don’t really want to turn this into a debate, but I think it’s good to focus on diet over most other things. If you get your diet right, you’ll do well and be motivated to get other things going also.

Along those lines, I’m trying to not only “eat good” (veg, lean protein, fruit, whole grains, etc.), but my current experiment is to eat a LOT of protein (compared to a normal diet) – around 1 gram of protein per pound of my body weight.

From my experience, diet produces the most change/improvement. Exercise is largely for conditioning (diet won’t get you running that 5k or to 100 push ups) and agility/flexibility/strength.