I think so. I also wonder whether we work too hard to come down on one side or the other of an issue.

I think a number of things can help or hinder weight loss, depending on the person. If you look at depression or stress--these days, we're more likely to associate these with weight gain than with weight loss. Older studies are more likely to look at these as causes of weight loss. There, I think it's likely a "comfort food" effect. Scientists call a mouse depressed when its preference for water at a certain sweetness decreases, the mouse is less able to enjoy the sweetness, the sense of taste for sweet is diminished. But you can cheat--double the sweetness, taste buds are less sensitive, so hit them with a stronger signal. So depressed or stressed mice will lose weight if given bland food--give them oreos, and they gain weight. So the same basal physical state results in both weight loss and weight gain, depending on the food.

Add exercise. Exercise can either increase stress, or relieve it. In that mouse model, either one might cause weight loss, or even gain--depending on the diet being fed. Increased stress might cause weight gain on a cafeteria-style, comfort food type diet. Decreased stress might make the animal less susceptible to this same diet--and cause weight loss.

Atkins advice was to do something you enjoy. This makes sense, and just plain enjoying life might give some defense vs. some of those trouble foods.

in my wellness business, we use the ratio: 80% nutrition, 20% exercise.

Also, "You can't outrun a bad diet." And really, for most people, that is good enough. I'm one of them. I probably could quote a few studies on the relative effectiveness of exercise, especially when one is eating foods that burn quickly, as do all high carb foods.

But there are enough of us out here who've exercised religiously, ate what we though was a healthy diet, and stayed the same, or nearly the same.

If you exercise enough, and do NOT eat one calorie more of the exact same diet you ate before, (yeah. Try doing that. It's nearly impossible) you will eventually build more muscle. And muscle burns more calories than fat, while also being more dense. Hence, it leads to a small amount of weight loss, as well as inch loss.

But, because exercise burns calories, you'll be hungrier if your energy source is carbs: as we all know, insulin keeps the carbs we've stored in the fat cells safe and sound, and our glycogen stores aren't that great. Deplete them, and we're hungry.

Use fat for energy, and you have a much more significant store of ready energy, especially if, like most of us, we're burning fat not only as a more healthy way to live, but to use up some of our extra plentiful supplies!

Given all that, it just makes sense to do what Jean, and Barb and so many others suggest: find something that you like to do. Do it regularly. Not because it will make you svelte, but because muscles need to be used to keep working.

I'm a big fan of exercise for clearing the brain, using the muscles, for instilling a general feeling of well-being. But I don't rely on it for weight loss.

As far as what Gary Taubes says, he is talking about people eating ad libitum, to appetite. If you exercise and follow it with enough food to satisfy your hunger, you will likely eat more (maybe today, maybe tomorrow) to compensate for the additional output of energy.

However, if you are watching your food intake and do NOT increase it following exercise, you will likely lose weight compared to the same diet with no exercise.

I think we do overthink things and also miss opportunities. There is a great scene in the book White Noise by Dom Delillo (a scathing indictment of US society) where the female lead character drives to the university stadium so she can walk or jog up the steps. Dom Delillo is asking in the book "Why doesn't she just jog to the stadium?". Last year I wanted to work on my upper body fitness so I started doing all of our laundry by hand instead of going to the laundromat. I still go to the Y to lift weights but I also work fitness into what i am trying to be fit for. I walk to the Y, incidentally, too. If you want to be able to lift your vacuum and carry it to another floor, practice lifting your vacuum and carrying it to another floor. That kind of thing.

Liz, you're right. But it's nearly impossible for most people to maintain an exact diet. They are not going to weigh and measure everything they eat, and the increase in appetite means that they WILL eat more.

I absolutely agree. However, if one is highly motivated, counting and tracking every morsel of food that enters the mouth, ignoring hunger, it is possible to lose more by exercising. Will you maintain that loss? Probably not. (Ask me how I know.)

its all very interesting to hear the different opinions. It sounds like the bottom line is that it is possible for cardio to help certain people with weight loss to an extent, but it's not nearly as highly correlated as popular culture makes it out to be.

however I still find it interesting that humans have been studying weight loss and cardio for so long, yet when you look at the research it feels like we havent learned a damn thing. Even within university level studies, the results between different studies are often wildly different.

I think it was the Taubs book that showed a lot of studies showing that it didnt positively affect cardio, but since then I have seen studies that do make this connection.

I think thats my main confusion. Finding out how effective cardio is in weight loss seems like a relatively simple experiment for modern science, yet there still really doesnt seem like there is a consensus on it.

I wonder if the problem isn't that people do know but it's rarely carried out the correct way. I know that when I run or swim my heart rate is way above the target rate for weight loss and it probably will always be know matter what kind of shape I'm in. How many people are really exercising according to the science of it. My guess is hardly any.