Of course your input is relevant and valued! Even if the study only included women, our discussion has ranged a lot further and your experiences are most appreciated.

As for your statement:

I totally agree that is the bottom line for all of us.

Keep posting! We're happy you've joined us here.

Thanks Meg Happy to be here!!!

I always feel depressed after reading one of these threads about how much everyone exercises. I mean really depressed and like giving up.

If I were advising a new client about diet and exercise, my main thrust would be that everyone is different...The client is just going to have to live with not knowing exactly how many minutes of exercise or how many calories are going to result in weight loss and later maintenance. That is the truth and that is the way life is. We just can't know all the answers ahead of time. We can sure learn the answers as we go along...make a committment, get started and discover what the answer is for us.

If you only had to eat the maggots and crawl over the broken glass ONCE to keep the weight off, there'd be a line, I'm thinking.


In addition to the multiple discussions on working up to longer periods of exercise and changing up the exercise, there's also the opportunity for interval exercising - alternating the intensity of exercise within a workout. This could burn the same number of calories in a shorter time, and also helps in building up to a higher intensity level for the "low intensity".

. . . exercise gets addictive.

I was a very determined couch potato (TV and reading were my two main pastimes) when I was a teen.

Then I got myself a big (Sheperd/Lab cross) strong working dog when I was 21 and started having to walk for at least an hour twice a day. It played havoc with my TV and social schedule.

But every time I wanted to not walk out that door at 5:30 a.m. my dog's eyes (sappy but true) would dim and her face would crumple . So I went. And, after a long stressful day at work I started being glad that I had the walk with Kaya to look forward to in the evening .

Then we started jogging to decrease the time we were out in the evening. Then I bought a stationary bike. Then a rowing machine. Then I discovered yoga.

I've been exercising now for 30 years. The few times I wasn't able to do so (last time I had a fractured wrist and had to wear a cast for 10 days) I felt weird

I've said it before and I still think it's true for just about everyone. Out bodies are made to move!

Dagmar

Hm. I haven't read the whole thread, and I'm not a maintainer anymore, since I've regained 1/3 of the weight I lost, but I did keep all the weight off for 5 years on an erratic exercise schedule. Erratic at best, I must say. And when I did regain 1/3 of the weight, it was because I ate like a cow, not because I stopped exercising (I'd stopped months before without gaining). That said, I wasn't obese to begin with (although I was borderline, at a BMI of 29), so maybe that helped. And even after I regained 1/3 of the weight lost, I managed to keep the rest off. I've been at my "new" weight for 7 years now. I even got pregnant and had an adorable baby 6 months ago and I managed to gain only 25 lbs, which I lost in 45 days.

I'm just sharing my story to encourage lurkers out there. It *is* possible to maintain weight loss without exercise for some people. Not ideal, but possible.