Throughout my many attempts to drop weight and keep it off, there is one piece of advice that I will never forget: I was in a support group type setting, and the leader asked "if there was a magic pill that you could take once a day and it would enable you to maintain your ideal weight, who would take it?" Of course everyone raised their hand. "But there's one catch: what if the pill took an hour to swallow?" Still many hands raised. The pill? Exercise. Move one hour a day. I thought that was such a clever way to give that advice.

I agree!

People often overlook the "magic" that is so obvious...

Jay

Add to that taking the time to plan and prepare meals, because you can exercise all you want but if you still overeat then the "magic" won't work and this is coming from a hard core exerciser

Can't remember whose signature it is, but you can't exercise away bad eating habits.

That is a good way of putting it.

People tend to mystify weight loss in general when the answers are so obvious. And I did the same thing for years before I got serious about it. Intelligent rational people who have a good firm grasp on the facts that eating less than one burns will result in weight loss still search for a magic mystical way to lose weight. When people ask me how I did it and I reply with "diet and exercise," they look disappointed. It's as if they expected me to give them the treasure map to the magical fairy who will sprinkle them with weight loss dust.

Not to say the process is easy, but the facts of how it's done are straightforward. Move more, eat less. Consume less than you burn. And voila, weight loss.

My husband works with a woman who wants to lose weight. She knows that I have lost quite a bit and has told my husband over and over that she wishes I would tell her what my secret was. He has told her several times that my secret is I eat 1500 calories a day. She apparently doesn't believe him and continues to ask. One day last week he had had enough and said, presumably much louder and more sternly, "There is no secret! She eats 1500 calories a day!"

No one likes to hear that you have to try.

Good analogy except for those of us who never grew out of the literal stage. I would rather exercise an hour a day than try swallowing a pill for an hour...ouch, my throat muscles! LOL!

Each to their own. I'd have lost some weight too - the vomiting from being so appallingly patronised.

Exercise isn't a magic pill either if you aren't eating properly.

Some people eat more after a hard workout. It is tremendously easy to wipe out all of the calories burned via exercise by having a dunkin donuts muffin "treat" afterwards.

Exercise is one of the best things you can do for your overall health and happiness, but 90% of weight loss comes from making good food choices and staying under your calorie needs.

Matt, like we always read here, you can't out-exercise a bad diet. You are absolutely right.