Earlier this year, we spoke about the importance of nutrition in achieving your fitness goals. So if abs are made in the kitchen and weight gain/loss is more about diet/nutrition than exercise, why should we still exercise? The reality is that exercise still holds a myriad of benefits that can’t be simply achieved through diet alone. Let’s take a look at some of the top ones now.

5) Diet makes you look good in clothes; exercise makes you look good naked — Sounds catchy, right? All it means is that if you want to lose/gain weight, you can do so through the right nutritional habits alone. However, if you want to lose weight while still having that great butt or superb arms, exercise is the way to do it. You can choose where you want to develop the most muscle and shape your body how you desire through a well-developed exercise plan that may include various types of cardiovascular exercise as well as weight-training.

4) Exercise is a natural antidepressant — During exercise, your body produces more than its usual amount of endorphins (the “feel good” hormones). In fact, there is a well documented phenomenon known as “runner’s high”. This is a natural high that runners experience after a long distance run. Weight lifters can also bare testament to feeling a lift in their mood after an intense weight-training session.

3) Exercise is an anti-aging elixir — Weight training results in an increase in bone density. This is a natural way to fight osteoporosis. General muscular development combined with flexibility training increases mobility. This can result in a greater ability to guard against falls (both in preventing and reacting better to them). Exercise increases blood flow to the brain. This can help to stave off Alzheimer’s and general senility. Exercise has been shown to be a natural way to improve quality of life as you get older and it can even increase the length of your life.

2) Exercise aids in weight management — If you want to lose weight, you need to create a caloric deficit. In addition to eating less (oversimplification, here), you can actually increase the number of calories burnt through exercise. If you want to gain weight, you need a caloric surplus. However, if you don’t want to end up just storing excess subcutaneous and visceral fat, you would want to build muscle instead. This can be done by a combination of the right nutrition (a diet high in protein and healthy fats) and muscular development training (high-intensity calisthenics and/or weight-training). Either way, you can manage your weight in a manner that suits your overall goals.

1) Exercise makes you an overall healthier person — From decreasing the risk of developing non-communicable diseases (chronic heart disease, diabetes, etc.) to the aforementioned improvement in mood to making your more mobile and more energetic in general, exercise has so many health benefits that once you settle into a routine, you may wonder how you survived before.

Overall, the benefits of exercise are too many to list in one article, but you should definitely incorporate a smart exercise regimen into your lifestyle in addition to adopting a healthy, goal-oriented diet. The combination of diet and exercise is a winner for all.