Hmm, well that makes me feel like losing heart. Someone told me that if I want to lose weight, more exercise is the key not dieting.

So I took a leaf out of their book, and started doing 30 minutes of exercise a day without making any changes to my diet. All I've done is maintained the same weight I had before starting this change of lifestyle. It's absolutely stagnant!

I think my friend is right though, cut out the original coke drinks for pepsi max, a can of coke is 140 calories each, I get through about 3 a day. Pepsi Max is 0 calories.

So I'll try that for a week and let you know what happens!

Tina,

30min of exercise can be exhausting, but it really doesn't burn many calories.
If I were you, I'd rather watch my food intake.
Exercise is a great plus - it makes you feel good and it's healthy. But it's not the key to weight loss in most cases. For example, a small chocolate bar is about 200kcals. That's also about half an hour of exercise (well, depending on what you do actually).
In my opinion, your friend was right about the coke though.
Do you know how many calories you eat per day?

I had a similar experience a while back: going to the gym didn't change my weight and starving myself temporarily dropped my weight down by a couple of pounds that then I gained back right away.

There's only ONE key to permanently lose weight -- exercise AND diet!

Good luck with your journey to weight loss!!

I have to respectfully disagree here. Exercise (a combination of both strength training and cardio) is KEY to weight loss success. "Dieting" (I really dislike that word as I feel that a healthy lifestyle is more sustainable) will only take off that initial lump of weight and only goes so far. Exercise promotes better sleep (imperative for weight loss is a good, regular sleeping pattern), improves your mood, gives you energy, decreases your blood pressure, increases muscle mass (THE factor in helping aid FAT loss - the more muscle you have the faster you will burn fat), increases the efficiency of your digestive system and can reduce feelings of depression.

Also, I would cut out diet drinks entirely and stick to water for a few weeks. Any type of soft drink is generally being used as a substitute for water and if you're not getting enough it can have an impact on your weight loss efforts.

Strictly doing cardio will do nothing for you after awhile, it has to be a combination of strength training and cardio. You do need to be honest about what you are consuming as far as calories go though as Poundsgetlost indicated. Figure out how much you're burning based on your regular activity level (your basal metabolic rate) and then deduct 500 calories from that today to get your deficit. Keeping a food journal (or there are plenty of apps for monitoring daily caloric consumption) and see where your diet needs help. If used properly, exercise WILL bump your metabolism!

Find lots of fun ways of working out without making it seem like work. If you have a video gaming system, buy a game called Just Dance 2, which has a "Sweat" feature. Shaking your groove thing is always a guaranteed way to have a blast. Go for walks, buy a set of hand weights and google some good exercises. Put together your own binder of workouts and menus so there's never an excuse for drifting away from it!

For me - calorie restriction gets the weight off, exercise improve my heart/lungs/muscles but it doesn't take the weight off. I was burning up to 5000 calories a week last summer under my old way of eating and not a pound was budging.

Joined WW 6 weeks ago and the weight is melting off with just a couple of days of moderate exercise per week.

The coke is the bad part here. 450 calories a day of Coke? If you are taking in 1400 calories per day, that means a third of it is empty, nutritionally void calories. Your poor body. No wonder it doesn't want to let go of the weight.

Get some good nutrition, start drinking water and keep up with the exercise.

It is physiologically impossible to burn 5000 calories more than you consume and not lose weight. You would have to have been consuming just as much as you were burning to not have dropped a single pound. This isn't simply my opinion, it is scientific fact.

Muscle is heavy, but it looks sooo good!!

You cannot out-train a bad diet.

3 cokes per day, which is full of sugar that also affects cravings and blood sugar levels is going to have to go

Your friend is incorrect that exercise, not diet, is the key to weight loss over diet. Yes, exercise is very important (not just for weight loss but for overall health), but diet is the critical factor.

Can you share with us a typical day's eating?

I am a big fan of exercise - I work out hard almost daily - but even I do not see any change unless I am careful with my diet. Cardio and strength training improves your energy levels, improves your endurance, provides you with numerous health benefits, and sets you up for a good night's sleep and a great feeling for the rest of the day.

Good luck!

I went to see the MD for my annual exam right around the time I had lost 50 lbs. The doc asked me how I had been losing weight. I said "Well, the very first thing that I did was cut out soda..." and he got this big grin on his face. He said that his wife - a nutritionist - would be thrilled to hear that because she always says the average American would lose 30 lbs. in one year if they did nothing else different but eliminate soda from their lives...

Lots of people lose weight with diet and no exercise. I don't know anyone who did the opposite. Exercise is important, but it is not going to make you lose weight without changing your consumption.

I am no expert but I knoew what is working for me... so it may help you...

My exercise of cardio is 45-1 hour and it is what my trainer calls "balls to the wall" I work at my max capacity and am dripping sweat. You shouldn't be able to read a book while you do your cardio.

Strength training: I did not seee results for at least 6 months after I started strength training. I almost regretted doing it. But my trainer said that pounds will just fall off after about 6 months... and they did for a while... then I had to start working the strength harder. Also, if I had stayed low calorie with no strength training I would have ended worse off... my body would have eaten away at my muscle. Plus a year later I actually have muscle defination. Also, I don't have as bad of sagging skin problems as I could (arms and legs look great) my sagging skin problem is just my belly.

BUT one thing you have right... do away with drinking your calories. What a waste!

It is a good balance of all 3, calorie reduction, cardio and weights.

I Will give you an exemple. In november I was 170 with a bmi of 40. I did a fit test althought my real age is 53 the results came back as a physical age of 62. Two months later controlling my calories, cardio and weight training I did a second fit test. I have to say I have a heart defect that is not helping me but my cardio improved but the machine cannot give me an accurate age on that part due to my heart beating at double speed at rest. This being said the results were amazing. Everything that was tested exception for cardio compared to a 15 year old but my heart being the way it is it gave me an average age of 46. My body is 16 years younger than what it was at the beginning, I feel younger and the best I look younger too.

I am a string believer in combining diet, cardio and strenght training.

Yes, I think you'll be making a great choice for your body if you can quit drinking the cokes. Good luck!

I didn't mean to say that exercise was not beneficial. But it's calories in, calories out at the end of the day.
All the exercise in the world won't make you lose a single pound if you still consume more calories than you burn.
If you need 2000calories to maintain your weight, but you eat 2500daily and then go and work off 500calories by exercising. Then your balance at the end of the day is 2000cal which makes you maintain but not lose.
And unfortunately it's very easy to eat 500cals... but it takes quite a while to burn that much.

You shouldn't drink coke at all, even in diet form because of all the revolting chemicals that are in it and also aspartame, which can give you cancer. Cut it out totally or switch to coffee if you have to have a caffeine shot, which at least is a teeny bit healthier.