Could someone here provide some clarity for me in regards to exercise. Recently I have started an office job so sitting all day and coming home it's a tiring cycle. I did workout at the gym but it was for 30 mins everyday. I saw a little bit of results but thats because I was also active outside the gym.

Now that I am no longer active outside the gym and tied to work sitting down all day I need about 2 hours of exercise instead of 30 minuets to lose weight.

From what I heard that two hours of exercise produces cortisol so that means I will store fat even with exercise. Can someone clarify that please?

I've known athletes and contestants from the biggest loser to exercise more than two hours they are doing it for about 3-5 hours of it so how are they losing weight if they aren't producing cortisol? This doesn't make sense. This discourages me a little from doing two hours.

Also with two hours of exercise at the gym my friend has great results from that so I am doing that too. Please clarify if someone has exercise this amount of time with results. Thank you.

I've never heard of that before. And I know a lot of endurance athletes who consider 2 hours a short day.

Now the question of whether you want to work out 2 hours a day and have the time and energy to do so is a different matter. Perhaps you want to examine your food choices and see if you can trim a little from that as well so not ALL the activity level change has to come from exercise.

I am interested to hear if anyone knows the science behind the cortisol/exercise relationship. From what I read...exercise increases the production of cortisol from the adrenal gland and the movement of cortisol from the serum into tissues. I am not sure of the significance of cortisol in serum vs. tissue. It seems that cortisol might help your body during exercise (by increasing blood glucose and blood pressure for example).
I can't imagine that exercising for a long time would make you store fat. Even if it happens to have a small effect I don't think it would be enough to negate the benefits you got from the exercise. Also, think about distance runners...they exercise a long time and don't seem to store fat. I only exercise for about an hour 4-5 days a week but on the weekends I bike 14 miles and swim around 500-600 m (takes about 2 hours) and I haven't noticed this preventing any weight loss since I have been doing it. Sorry I am not of more help.

Well judging from the posts made it seems to make sense since athletes exercise more than two hours a day. i was reading somewhere too much exercise releases cortisol so it stores fat. It doesn't make sense since it's burning calories.

Two hours for me is plenty and a good amount since I am sitting for up to 10 hours a day so two hours is my maximum time and it should be. By the way I am a vegetarian so I do not take in alot of calories so I am not really losing or gaining just staying still. I will be eating more of course and exercising for two hours including weight training to help. I was just worried/concerned that maybe two hours will keep me fat not fit.

That's what I didnt understand as well maybe I will attempt to find an article that states that or the opposite something more in depth. But exercise is a de stress method no matter how many mins/hours you do it.

Well, I can kind of see how exercise is a physical stress. We are pushing our bodies. Inherently stressful. Emotionally, we may feel it relieves our stress. We feel the benefits of all those yummy endorphins.

I do think the whole, "Stress makes you fat," is one of those theories out there that has some scientific merit but, well, my guess is stress + eating too much + not exercising enough makes you fat. Kind of like how they say that not getting enough sleep "makes you fat." I haven't gotten enough sleep in seven years (age of my oldest child) and definitely not in the last 19 months (age of youngest child). And when I eat too much and don't exercise enough, I get fat. Then I blame it on the lack of sleep -- heck, all the magazine articles say so!

Be good to yourself -- sounds like a lot of work and exercise -- but then we don't succeed by napping all day, do we?

You may want to focus on your eating and get in 30 minutes to an hour of exercise daily instead of 2hrs. Unless you are an athlete (getting paid to stress your body) or a contestant on the Biggest Loser (hoping to get paid) then why do that to yourself. I speak from experience, too much exercise can really damage your body.