The conventional wisdom that exercise is essential for shedding pounds is actually fairly new. As recently as the 1960s, doctors routinely advised against rigorous exercise, particularly for older adults who could injure themselves. Today doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, which is sound advice for many reasons: People who regularly exercise are at significantly lower risk for all manner of diseases — those of the heart in particular. They less often develop cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses. But the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated.

the whole article at the link...

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857,00.html?xid=newsletter...

Mercola...

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/24/More-Misleading...

Mercola has some valid points in his comments, and I agree with them, as I do believe that movement/exercise has a very positive effect on health, well being and genetic change for the better... to a point, however also understand that he is coming from a position as a lifelong exercise junkie.

My point - you can certainly over do the exercise. A little is good, and depending upon your needs, more may not be better and may actually be harmful.

As an aside, I have read story after story of individuals needing to lose 20, 30 or more pounds who exercised like mad... addictively so, only to never realize the weight loss...

Then, when they backed off to more moderate, and enjoyable forms of exercise such as dance, yoga, T'ai chi, a few times a week, the weight started falling off.

The idea here is that we are all different... do not misunderstand here. Like diet, exercise is absolutely essential/ paramount to our health and well being, however, unless you are a competitive athlete, AND understand your nutritional needs, you must be careful not to over do it.

For myself, a long while back, I quit working out so hard and realized fat loss as well... Most of the exercise coming in the form of two 1.5 - 3 hour martial arts sessions a week, body resistance exercises, walking and MANUAL yard work - I am trying to eliminate the gas and electric "machines".

AND a very high, nutrient dense, natural, whole food diet, while avoiding ALL endocrine/hormonal disrupting household chemicals, including non-stick pans, pesticides, herbicides and the like - this part being ABSOLUTELY essential.

That is all it seems to have been needed for me.

grz-