Hi, Don. I’ll quote Alan Aragon:

“It’s very common for people to dismiss the importance of exercise/physical activity while propping diet up on an almighty pedestal. Of course, it’s ideal to have a combination of sound diet and training habits. However, a crappy diet with regular exercise is still superior to a crappy diet without exercise. Exercise has shared benefits as well as inherent benefits to the integrated musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems that are impossible to achieve with diet alone. Keep in mind that this is in the context of the general public, even those with lifestyle-mediated comorbidities, who indeed tend to have a crappy diet, yet the benefits of exercise are consistently demonstrated in the literature.

On a practical note, if you personally would rather focus on exercise than diet as a step in the right direction, then great - multiple benefits will occur (including cardiovascular benefits) in the face of an imperfect, suboptimal, or yes even a “poor” diet.

From a weight loss perspective, it’s true that you can’t out-train a crappy diet, and of course a crappy diet is not conducive to optimizing heart health. However, dismissing the independent cardiovascular/cardiometabolic benefits of exercise is simply false — even if a famous doctor makes the claim.”

Personally, I tell me clients to not focus on exercise as a tool to lose weight but rather, a tool to build muscle and strength. Diet should take care of the fat burning process.