From the research Ive done and the doctors I have talked to about it (VA) if we continue to eat like we do without a diet and pick up weight lifting 30 min to an hour a day more then likely you will not lose fat just gain muscle under the fat.....

On the body builders subject they workout a couple hours a day if not more....they burn those calories right off.... most ppl do not workout that much......

This is mainly comeing from our military health provider....sadly I have been put on a "fat-boy diet" and had the concern of not looking smaller or losing weight on excersise alone...when I was introduced to this concept..... unless I can devote ours to the gym every day I wont be able to counter act my diet lose fat and build muscle.......

Personally I have absolutely no hope of losing weight and keeping it off unless I'm exercising. It doesn't have to be vigorous, just being active every day. Sure I can change my diet but the mental side isn't strong enough alone with that because it's almost like it's too easy. I eat more junk knowing that I can just change up my habits the next day. But then I'll eat junk the next day with the same excuse.
If I'm exercising, there's that mental power behind everything saying that I don't want to be busting a sweat just to screw it all up.

But to answer diet vs. exercise: I'd have to say diet is what works but exercise is what keeps it off and makes you feel so much better about yourself. no flat jelly bellies.

UGH got my vote agianst jelly bellies, lol......agreed you gotta exercise to keep your body looking good and not all saggy and jiggily...

I haven't exercised, just counted calories and eaten healthier, and I've gone down from about 205 (my guess, as for a while I was afraid to weigh) to 193 today in about a month.

I intend to exercise as I want to tone up and look fabulous, but it's not my priority at the moment. During my previous experience with cardio and weights toned me up but I lost weight and inches very slowly.

I guess I'm different. My body is not a natural fat burner. I HAVE to work out to lose weight. If I ate a perfect clean diet for a month, I won't lose much weight at all. But, when I started working out hard for an hour a day 6 days a week, the weight started coming right off. Now, let me say, I eat fairly healthy 75% of the time. I don't count calories, and I don't "diet". I just finished eating 2 brownies and I usually eat whatever I want but in moderation. I started doing this at the beginning of the year and went from a size 12 to a size 8. Diet alone will not cut it. I have to force my body to burn.

I'm all diet, no exercise to lose weight. Working out makes me ferociously hungry, to the point where my eating becomes out of control and I actually gain weight. Now if I had better self-control, I could work out AND keep myself from overeating, but honestly, I've never been able to do it.

All the weight I have lost, I lost through diet. I do exercise, but I don't do it to burn calories, I do it to increase my cardiac ability and to have fun. This works out really well for me because I feel like I am getting more fit, I am able to get out and hike the most challenging trails in my area, and the work out doesn't make me want to eat everything in sight.

That said, once I lose most of the weight I want to, I plan on making it 50% diet, 50% exercise. I want to build lean muscle and get strong. I want to be able to maintain my weight loss while adding back in my favorite foods (slowly).

Chickapea - But you ARE getting exercise by hiking. Just because you're not doing it to hypothetically burn calories, you are still burning calories, just by increasing the distance you hike/walk/whatever physical activity you partake in.

I think it's a balance between diet and exercise. All diet will only work up to a certain point. All exercise will only work up to a certain point as well. I would say it's MORE diet than exercise, but the exercise is a big portion of it. However, you can take the extreme look from the exercise perspective (case in point: Michael Phelps and athletes). But I'd say for us normal folks, it's more diet since we aren't paid to exercise.

And, exercise doesn't mean gym. Exercise just means any form of physical activity. You can increase your exercise by going out for a walk (instead of watching that hour of TV). You can increase your exercise by gardening, by planting, by hiking (yay STELLA!), by lawn mowing, by cycling, by swimming, by surfing.

Definately diet, but that's for raw weight loss. Even in the scale reads a bit higher, I always feel sexier, healthier, more energetic when I am exercising, even if my diet is crap at the time.

lol I like the random hiking shout outs I get

But for hiking 30 miles, I didn't lose any weight (that's evident anyway). I think I'm still working on losing the water retention.

That's very true, lots of things we do constitute exercise. When I hike, or when I clean the house, or when I clean the pool I count that as exercise.

I guess I kind of count it as incidental exercise - more that I just happen to burn some extra calories while doing something normal, than doing something just to burn extra calories.

And hiking 30 miles? Eeek! I'd love to build up to that someday.

I have just buckets and buckets of respect for you girls that can workout and eat sensibly at the same time. That's my goal for this summer!

See, this is me! Everytime i exercise, I get really really hungry and all I do is munch. lol I lost about 20 pounds last year, mostly through dieting alone. I havent lost much yet so I started working out a little more to see how it goes.

loveLauren, have you tried doing longer periods of lower intensity workouts? I think I've pinpointed for myself, that the crazy hungries come in when I do intense cardio - even if only for 30 minutes.

I'm thinking when I do up my exercise, I will definitely be looking at some of the barre workout videos, like Physique 57 - in addition to more hiking, and maybe a yoga class. As much fun as I have doing TurboJam and as good as Jillian makes me feel about myself in 30DS, it just makes me so hungry that nothing satisfies me. I guess that's the problem, not so much the hunger, but that nothing makes the hunger go away!

Chickapea - How much water are you drinking? I'm not doubting that you know how to take care of your body. I'm just curious, because after a high intensity workout, I'm usually NOT hungry. There's been research showing that high intensity workouts actually inhibit certain hormones from being released that trigger hunger. A lot of times. dehydration and hunger can get mixed up. Just a thought And I like how you consider stuff "incidental" exercise. That's not giving yourself enough credit!

I drink so much water, that's definitely not the problem. I have minimum 64oz a day, usually twice that. And during a workout, I always have at least a full 16 ounces of water.

The hunger actually doesn't set in immediately - it's more like 3-4 hours later I feel like I haven't eaten in days. And then it feels like no matter what I eat, I'm still hungry. I've tried throwing all different kinds of food at it - high protein, high fiber, high fat, high carb. It's like a food monster that lives in me until 2-3 days later, when it goes back to sleep. But if I try to exercise regularly, then it never goes back to sleep.

On the other hand, I can do a five hour long hike once a week, and be hungry immediately afterwards, but it feels more like a normal hunger, and a double-double protein style makes it shut up but good.

ETA: Am I weird? I thought everyone got hungry like me! I wonder if I DO have a food monster living in me...

IMO you can't diet without doing both. Its like saying do you brush your teeth with only a tooth brush (no paste) or use your finger and paste. Neight is effective alone.