[Marseille]

I think 80% makes sense, but for most of us good eating goes hand and hand with exercising. I gotta have both! I think one major problem with relying on exercise is that (many) people tend to grossly overestimate the amount of calories they burn with exercise, while at the same time grossly underestimating the amount of calories they are consuming. The calorie intake is pretty easy to monitor if you read labels and measure which is why I think it's a more important metric. Caloric expenditure for activities is nearly impossible for the average dieter to calculate accurately so I just exercise for heart rate and fitness and try not to focus on the calories I am burning. I certainly don't attempt to figure them into my caloric allowance.

[lola06]

Thanks for the excellent advice everyone! I really do appreciate it. The part about needing to lower my calorie intake really sticks out to me. In terms of exercise, do you know of any good rowing machine brands I should look into? I've never used them at the gym, do they work the whole body? It looks like just upper body to me.

Nelie, In terms of weights, how heavy should I go? I currently have 3's, 5's, 8's, 10's, and resistance bands. Do you know of any good guides or videos to follow?

[judojediworm]

Funny you should mention that! I JUST read that 70% comes from diet, 25% from exercise and 5% genetics...lol not the same but close. I don't know though...If I diet and DON'T exercise nothing really happens...but if I exercise REGULARLY (lol that's the problem, regularly) and don't diet, I tend to lose weight rather quickly. Of course in the past when I have done both I become a one woman fat burning machine...too bad I am only really good at not dieting and not exercising! ;-)

[Steelslady]

Then we have the opposite end of the spectrum- both my sister and niece can consume around 3000 calories a day easily, do no exercise at all (unless you consider shopping exercise) and they are both underweight.

I truly think genetics and metabolism play a huge role in all of this. More than 10 percent for some people. Both of my grandmothers were obese women. Both had hard lives living during the depression years and food was scarce- they didn't have processed foods back then, everything was homemade.

They ate the same foods and same amounts as their siblings/husbands/children, burned off a heck of a lot more calories than we do today due to having to do everything by hand and foot (washing clothes by hand, stacking coal/wood into stoves, walking back and forth to stores carrying heavy groceries as there were no cars or buses back then for them to ride, etc).

Their lives were constant motion from sunset to sundown, and one of my grandmothers worked the overnight shift in a factory while raising 8 children during the day. Still, they were obese compared to their siblings and other family members, who were thinner. We don't have many obese people in our family, the majority of them are thin, but those that are obese all had/have a hard time losing weight and keeping it off, in spite of low calorie diets and exercise. I refuse to believe that in my case, it is just 10 percent. It doesn't make sense, seeing that I am 100 times more active/athletic than my sister, eat far less than she does everyday, yet the results are extremely different.

Now, that doesn't mean I am excusing my weight- I'm doing everything I can to lose this weight and keep it off for good. However, sometimes it would just be nice to have a break for a couple of years and not have to watch every morsal I put in my mouth, count it, and make sure I burn it off.