Yes. Right now I am in the I want to be thinner, not build muscle category.

I didn't start so heavy so excersizing was crucial for me to become like I want to become.
I have no interest in becomming a weak thin stick figure. I love toned bodies and a tight butt. I don't want to be like my skinny friends that feel like fainting if they skip a meal or if they walk for too long. I want to be a smexy powerhouse.
So for me it was 90 minutes of excersize daily from the beginning. It makes weight loss slower actually, but toning and slimming faster.

Exercise is the most important factor for me. Like many others, it makes me eat healthier and be more in control of what/when/how much I eat.

But, in addition to weight loss, exercise completely changed my life and it made me a much happier person.
Also, I would like to mention that exercise has other benefits than just weight loss, especially as we get older and osteoporesis becomes a looming threat. Cardiovascular benefits are equally important, too.

Exercise is HUGE for me. Exercise is just easier for me to get into habit than dieting. I love getting sweaty, and knowing that I just burned a bunch of calories.

In the past, I would just exercise, and hope that would be enough. I would keep eating the same junk. This is the first time that I'm exercising AND eating healthy, so I think that, for me, they have to go together.

I haven't read all of the responses, but wanted to say:

Exercise has been great for my fitness, but I don't "count" the calorie burn or anything. One way that I KNOW it helps me with my weight loss is that on the days I exercise hard I am far less likely to go off plan. I don't want to screw up all the hard work I put in at the gym!

Exercise? causes premature aging?
~that has got to be the worst "myth" I've ever heard! (I'm not arguing with the poster who said this)

has anyone else ever heard that exercise can cause premature aging?

You read what?! No offense intended, but that's one of the silliest things I've ever heard. Pretty much everything written and every study done on the subject declares (fairly definitively) that exercise keeps you younger longer. It's good for your heart, your bones, your muscles and joints.. pretty much everything!

I'd love to know where you read that.

I want to know where she heard this too, because everything I've heard about exercise is the exact opposite! O_O

I hate exercise. I've always hated exercise. For 5 years, I walked my big German shepherd for 3 1/2 brisk miles every single day... it still never became a habit -- and I still hated it. Endorphins apparently elude me.

Every day I exercised, I bargained with myself after shameless self-whining: "How come I have to do this? It hurts!! I sweat!! I HATE it!! Ok, well, when you're finished, you can have a treat."

I've lost and gained a lot of weight without exercise.

However, I read about how keeping your heart strong while losing weight is important -- the heart is a muscle, after all, and if you're not losing fat, you're losing muscle -- including heart muscle. That scared me a little.

Then I read (from a link on this site) that when you're a big fatty like me, you already have a pretty well developed musculature and skeleton, because it takes a strong frame to pack all this tonnage around. That made sense to me. It also emphasized how, if you exercise throughout your weight loss program, you can maintain those strong muscles and bones. I liked the idea of that.

Then I went to my doctor for a routine exam, and she chided me about my weight. I moaned a bit how hard losing is, and how I hate to exercise, and she said, "Well, then, for you, it's medicine. Do you argue with yourself about having to take medicine?" And the penny dropped. Finally.

So now I exercise every single day for at least 20 minutes, which frequently turns into 30 minutes or more. I alternate resistance training with cardio. Every day. I still hate it, but I don't argue with myself anymore. I just do it.

It's making a difference, and I know eventually it's going to figure big in my maintenance phase. May as well "take my medicine" starting now.

It's also good for building muscle and toning (but I think that everyone knows this already). Excess skin can happen to anyone, but I've seen people who dropped a lot of weight with only diet. It's not pretty.

the scale doesn't move much unless i exercise.

it's finals week and my gym has been closed, and i've been the same weight on the scale this entire time. anytime i don't exercise, i seem to stall.

For me, exercise is a non-factor. I do it because it feels good, not for weight loss benefits. It does sometimes help if I know I am going out to eat and need some additional caloric leeway, but in general I don't exercise long enough or hard enough to burn any significant calories. I move around a lot of do my exercise bike on weekdays, for fun, and that's about it.

I am looking to add back in strength training for the health benefits, but that wouldn't be for weight purposes either!

For me it is more about the food I eat than exercising. I think this if for two major reasons: one, I know that I can go to the gym and work out for two hours, come back home and eat a couple of bad things and that two hours has, in essence, been wasted. Two, I detest going to the gym. I have been looking for something else to do for exercise instead and have not found it. I've tried swimming, zumba, yoga, biking - apparently I just don't like to move (in other words, lazy).

That being said, I recently joined a gym mainly because I was sitting at home all evening in front of the tv eating and I figured I had better find something else to do besides eat. I have noticed that it SEEMS like I am eating better since I started going back to the gym. Most likely because I don't want to "waste" all that time I spent doing something I detest for a cookie or something else fattening.

When I started, I got on the treadmill at the gym, and quickly started hating it. It was torture. I didn't want to give up exercise. Then my mother bought me a dance video, because she knew that I wanted to learn to dance. I think you just have to find something you like.

I'm exercising everyday or at least trying to.

I do want to find alternatives to going to the gym however, so I don't get burnt out by doing the same thing over and over. The poster above me (shakespearestoe) mentioned dance DVDs...

I don't know how to dance, plain and simple. Never been to a dance in my life, but I do want to learn. What are some dance DVDs out there that are fun, easy to learn and actually help you lose weight?