Exercise, regardless of type, consistently shows a positive dose-response effect to overall health and improves quality of life (QOL).

This positive relationship is defined for any baseline condition or disease state.

Basically, regardless of your condition today, exercise will improve your overall physical well-being. Additionally, numerous studies demonstrate the importance exercise plays in a successful weight loss plan. Dieting without exercise is a waste of your time. I agree.


Conclusion: EXERCISE!

There are three questions currently debated:

1) What type of exercise (Aerobic Exercise vs. Resistance Training)
2) How intense (Mild vs. Moderate vs. Strenuous)?
3) How long (Short vs. Long)?

There is no evidence in support of one weight loss exercise type over another. So pick one, aerobic or resistance training (or of course do what seems logical and combine them) and start exercising.

How long? Longer is better. However, depending on age and health, too long a duration can show less benefit than short durations but remains better than no exercise.

Short<45mins
Long>45mins

How intense? Mild shows improvement in health at all ages and all conditions, moderate is far greater at improving health than mild, and strenuous only benefits younger and healthy people.

Definitions of intensity vary greatly study to study and from person to person. A good rule of thumb, if you can't talk while exercising that's strenuous.

Weight Loss Exercise Studies
There are only a handful of well designed randomized controlled trials exercise show definitive results. And all of them are measuring the effects of walking. Of more interest, is the findings of a dose-relationship between exercise and weight loss. According to the results of a randomized trial published in the Jan. 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Even low amounts of moderate exercise, or about 30 minutes of walking per day, may be sufficient to prevent weight gain in sedentary adults.

"From the perspective of prevention, it appears that the 30 minutes per day of weight loss exercises will keep most people from gaining the additional weight associated with inactivity," lead author Cris Slentz, PhD, from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, says in a news release. "Given the increase in obesity in the U.S., it would seem likely that many in our society may have fallen below this minimal level of physical activity required to maintain body weight."

Of 302 adults screened for the Studies of Targeted Risk Reduction Interventions through Defined Exercise (STRRIDE) trial, 182 met entrance criteria of being sedentary and overweight with mild to moderate dyslipidemia.

Age range was 40 to 65 years. These subjects were randomized to one of four groups:

1) No exercise
2) Supervised low-dose/moderate-intensity exercise equivalent to walking 12 miles per week
3) Low-dose/vigorous-intensity exercise equivalent to jogging 12 miles per week
4) High-dose/vigorous-intensity exercise equivalent to jogging 20 miles per week.



"This finding suggests that while the amount of exercise determines total body weight change and fat mass loss, exercise intensity would appear to be the primary determinant of gain in lean body mass."



"This study revealed a clear dose-response effect between the amount of exercise and decreases in measurements of central obesity and total body fat mass, reversing the effects seen in the inactive group. The close relationship between central body fat and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension lends further importance to this finding."

"We found that the two low-exercise groups lost both weight and fat, while those in the more intensive group lost more of each in a 'dose-response' manner. Simply put, the more you exercise, the more you benefit. Just as importantly, the control group of participants who performed no exercise gained weight over the period of the trial."

source: weight-loss-professional.com

Good read
Its so true... diet without exercise is nothing!

How fat you are is a result of how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. Diet is 80% of the fat loss equation. If you don't control your diet you will remain overweight. You cannot compensate for a poor diet with exercise. The numbers don't add up.

Actually somewhat it should be the other way around, exercise without diet is extremly hard to do. You need to eat healthy.

I would assume that if you went on an all out healthy diet, you would lose weight, correct? Because the reason why we are ... overweight, in the first place is because we eat all the bad foods. Conclusion? Eat heatlhy.

Only if you need to... If you're at an ideal weight and eating properly, you should stay the same weight if you're getting enough calories..

I agree that diet is the largest component, easily 80%, but the article is good for people that may not know much, or anything, about diet and exercise as a place to start.

My contention with the information is that it suggests you can do any sort of moving around and it will be helpful, which is not the case. Resistance training is necessary, not an option, and more intense exercise for shorter periods of time is the best option, unless you're an endurance athlete.

Hey Dave, I linked to the Resistance training term you mentioned because I wasn't sure what it meant -- and more than likely, there are some other newbies who didn't know either.