I didn't read any of the prior responses due to lack of time but the reason you lose faster when you're not exercising is you're losing muscle too.

Thus, if you're happy with how you look now but you just want to be smaller than don't exercise.

If you're not concerned with your health than don't exercise.

If you want to look better and have better health than exercise and learn the difference between fat loss and weight loss so the short term results you see on the scale are not frustrating.

Finally, since you have a goal to lose 100 lbs. You may want to consider doing a type of PSMF diet for a while to speed things up. Definately consult a doctor before doing so.

I'll go straight to the point. At your weight, I would expect exercise to generally accelerate your weight loss. So just go for it!!!

There will come a point, however, when exercise will play with the scale badly. For me this came at 170lbs. I was losing inches but the scale kept gaining and stalling for a month (see my graph). But by then I was feeling and looking great so just kept going with exercise. I am down to 166lbs now but I still get crazy fluctuations with the scale, in part due to exercise. But who gives a sh!t?

Exercise is awesome. Without it, you just lose muscle as well as fat with weightloss. So it helps to give you that toned look and avoid looking "gaunt". It feels nice afterwards too!

Exercise tells your body to lose the fat but *please* keep the muscle. I try to help that by eating a lot of low-calorie, high protein food. And I am talking canned fish people.

Canned fish saved my fricking life. (Fresh fish isn't half bad either!)

Agree with JohnP and Ian. Exercise makes you healthier and stronger. Fitter. I can't believe I am running now but I am. BTW running is awesome for weight loss at least it is for me.

It has done amazing things for my resting heart rate and blood pressure. My pulse is down about 20-30 beats a minute, blood pressure is excellent now. Obviously I am very overweight still. I am 5'9" need to include that.

That is not good for my heart. But I feel awesome. I feel strong. Weight loss is happening AS I get fitter and stronger. No other way I would want to do it.

My problem is that the more I exercise the hungrier I am. Exercise can indeed affect your weight loss if you're eating more so watch out for that. Athletes tend to eat a lot. I have friends now that are training for the NYC marathon and the amount of food they can consume is frightening.

If you are able-bodied enough to exercise you should do it. Get that metabolism up, if you're lucky you will find you can eat like a slob and maintain if you balance it out with the right kind of training. And if you're less fortunate, you will be able to do lots of stuff with your body that you couldn't before but will still have to watch what you eat.

I have found that it depends on the kind of exercise I do. Cardio is a major driver of hunger for me and anything more than 45 minutes is going to make me very hungry. HIIT kept to 20-25 minutes or weight lifting makes me hungry but there is a very delayed effect where it doesn't hit me for 2-3 hours and so long as I've had a good sized meal in that 2-3 hour window I'm fine.

On the other hand I've read that for many people exercise helps lower their appetite.

I'm one of those people. I find I need to exercise in the late afternoon/early evening and make sure to eat prior to exercise to make sure I get my needed calories in every day because once I exercise, game over the rest of the day, regardless of what time I worked out and regardless of what I did and for how long. I simply can't get hungry enough to eat a bite and I refuse to force myself as I work to overcome years of a food addiction.

i got very very hungry after a morning run and tended to stay hungry all day regardless of what i ate, when i ate it, or how much i ate

weight training gives me a different kind of hunger....within an hour of weight training i get this very primal urge to feed, i'm not sure how else to explain it...like my stomach is NOT rumbly or hungry and i don't feel mentally like i need to eat...but something in my body tells me that I NEED TO EAT...i find that if i have a protein bar shortly after a workout, that i make better eating choices throughout the day

Probably one of those times when you should do whatever you can to keep yourself from stepping on the scale.

I haven't started gym-ing it yet but it's getting close because I want to go before I start plateauing. So I don't like hearing this -- because I don't plan on measuring either. There are enough numbers involved as it is -- but I know it's necessary.

I have always been very fat and have always loved swimming, but I would get so hungry afterwards, it was ridiculous.

It got to the point, when I was maybe ten or eleven that my mother even threatened to not let me go swimming unless I was able to resist eating like a steam shovel afterward. She suggested a nap instead.

Her recommendation enraged me at the time, but I've found that it does work. I'm still hungry when I wake up, but it's not the crazy "must eat everything in sight" hunger (the kind of hunger I call rabid hunger) that I have right after swimming or other heart-pumping exercise.

Kaplods - I am the same when it comes to swimming. We got an underground pool put in when I was 5, and from that moment forward, I stayed water logged all summer LOL. I don't know what it is about swimming that makes me ravenous, but boy howdy. I could scarf down a whole plate of hot dogs afterwards. The sleep thing is a good idea! Wish my parents had thought of that.

Just to put things into perspective. I am on day 4 of a new episode of dieting after I had to go on a diet vacation. My reward for 4 days on 1000 calories: a gain of 4 lbs. I guess I started this the wrong time of the month and I also just reached phase 3 of Jillian Michaels Body Revolution where she managed to convince me that the muscles I clearly put on are just useless decoration. It is all just water weight and to be ignored.

I look at it this way.

Losing and maintaining a healthy weight,keeping nutrition in mind is done in the kitchen.

Exercise, working out, or whatever you want to call it is done for different reasons, but in the end, is beneficial to a healthy, happy body and mind!:carrot:

The tough thing, is learning how to balance both, and have the patience, to do both. Tracking and patience and learning your body and mind are key!

There is no failure, only feedback!:carrot::hug:

This thread is just what I needed tonight. I have been so good with my eating, and the scale is not moving...I am strength training 3-5 hours a week though.

I agree with other responses that activity is positive, even if it is not reflected 100% on the scale. Weight loss is complicated - more than calories in vs. calories out, but when looking at overall health physical activity has proven to decrease risk for so many lifestyle diseases, that it is worth it at any cost. Hang in there. One of my favorite sayings is "let your faith be bigger than your fears" - easier said than done, right?