If you just diet as soon as you break that diet you'll start putting that weight back on over time anyway. I suggest doing both.

Both. People would love to pick one or the other but if you really want to make a difference you have to take care of your whole entire body.

But if I had to choose I would exercise to work off whatever I ate.

That being said when it comes to the issue of gaining it all back, changes have to be for good. This is why when you "diet"(I'll get to that in a minute) or make an exercise plan you have to be realistic. Are you really going to not eat bread or cheese or run 3 miles a day forever? If you're going to stick to it great but what if you don't?

So what is a diet? This is a huge pet peve of mine. A diet is basically what you eat. Therefore it doesn't make sense to say "I'm dieting" or "I'm going on a diet".

That's like if I were to make it a goal to stop using bad language and say "I'm going on a vocabulary".

Everyone has a diet it's just a choice of how you alter it. And if you do it's best to alter it for good. Unless you have some specific reason to stop eating food for a short period of time.

In conclusion the best way to be healthy(weight control is a small part of this) is to ask yourself throughout the day "what does my body need". The food we eat should usually give us energy and make us feel good.

I hate to say it but yes exercise is the best way to lose weight. Exercise is the only way to lose weight. Unless you can afford lyposuction.

This is a long one, but read it if you're serious about weight loss

Both are imperative, the problem with dieting is that diets especially fad diets don't work or have long term implications.

If you want to lose weight the only way to do it and make sure it is both healthy and long term is to change how you think about food and exercise.

Your body's metabolism is the ultimate arbiter of getting and maintaining a healthy weight, so adjusting this is key, things like cutting out food groups is a one way trip to crashing, unless you've an allergy you'll need to include all of them.

If you don't do it already, you should switch to six or seven meals (albeit smaller) per day.

Eating complex carbohydrates at the same as Protein will slow your system right down, think about steak and baked potato or a burger in a bread bun, so many of the foods we eat are paired like this, if you can separate the carb part from the protein part (like having your steak with some veg or salad and having your baked potato as a meal later) you'll give your metabolism time to break the food down properly and take what it needs from them without confusing the matter.

This is harder to do than it sounds, breaking up these pairings is frustrating.

But teaching your body that it will constantly have the nutrients it needs will stop it storing energy as fat and stop your blood sugar levels from yo-yoing which in turn will stop your body sequestering more fat into your adipose tissues. Not eating enough food or serious dieting causes your body to enter a "starvation mode" which gears it up as an evolutionary mechanism for survival in harsh times, so everything you eat is stored, that or you don't eat anything, drop a shit load of weight and end up piling it back on when you do eat because (A) you are now actually digesting yourself and your body will try to counter-act that, and (B) it will not know when it will get nutrition again.

Drinking water and I mean copious amounts of it, is also key your body stores water with salt under your skin, diluting your body's salt concentration will help to alleviate this retention, some people carry so much water weight it's ridiculous.

Finally, exercise, it's so important to obtain and maintain a healthy physique that you exercise regularly, at least an hour three times a week, and resistance is key, tons of cardio is good, but it will not affect your metabolism the way that using free weights will, my advise would be a strength training core program, especially at the start, causing your body to constantly burn it's energy stores, even while resting, which cardio won't do to any great extent.

Building muscle tissue consumes a lot of energy, and you build muscle while you rest, so therefore, your workout is still working 24 hour after you've finished.

All you are doing here is sharpening your metabolism as any other body function, if it's in good shape, you will be too.

I think that the best way would be to make a choice and to consistently stick to it, no matter what hardships you may face.

I suggest exercise at least every single day and eat food that won't affect your weight, I would prefer both exercise and dieting to lose weight.

In my opinion the best way to lose weight is doing exersices and reduce the amount of calories we usually eat. There are a lot of videos and useful information how to lose weight without any diets. People shouldn't stop eating at once, because their body are not ready for it. that's why people should just drink a lot of water(1-1.5litr a day), replace sweets to fruits and vegetables and of course move a lot, for example running, walking and jumping. by the way jumping is the best way to lose some weight. if people have desire, they need to control themselves, in order to reach their aim.