OK, I have heard the whole debate on if exercise increases your weight loss or not..Here is how it is working for me.

(silent conversation with myself)

Yea, I am so proud of myself, I just got home from riding the stationary bike for an hour at the Gym, which of course I logged in my lose it! program, oh cool, 300 calories burned, thats great, I'm hungry now, oh look its 3:30 time for my afternoon snack anyway, lets see what I have to eat that is healthy, oh good, left over fillet Mignon, I love steak, I better log this before I eat it, HOLY CRAP!, what do you mean 213 calories for 4 oz of steak!, thats 45 minutes on the bike, wasted, I'm not eating that for a snack!, I don't care how good it tastes, I'm going to find something that is better for me, Oh look, see my old standby, Protein shake by EAS, 110 calories, 17g of protein, OK that I can live with.....

So everything I think about eating is judged by its relation to the bike, "If I eat this I would have to spend XX minutes on the bike to burn it off, is it worth it?" Most of the time the answer is no. Brings a whole new perspective to "oh its only 300 calories" So my answer is even if the exercising isn't helping directly by burning off fat, it is helping in my eating.

I do exactly the same thing! So many things have become totally un-pouchworthy.

I was doing just the opposite. Instead of passing up something, I would exercise extra to make up for it.

Both methods seem to make sense. The end justifies the means I guess.

Ah, but when they say half an hour of something burns 250 calories, you have to subtract the energy you would burn anyway if you were sitting on your ass watching television instead. So no exercise TRULY burns what the charts say it does, because you wouldnt be burning nothing if you didnt do it.

So the logic of I can run for half an hour so that I can eat this donut should really be I can run for half an hour so I can eat HALF this donut.

Nonetheless thinking "is this donut worth a long run" is a great way to talk yourself out of a donut.

Well, that's just the thing, Jacqui---you do have to make allowances for that. AND you have to take any calculation of how many calories an exercise burns with a ginormous grain of salt. If I enter walking @ 4 mph for 50 minutes into fitday, it tells me I've used 207 calories, based on my weight. If I enter the same information into realizemysuccess, it tells me I've used 388.

Do I believe either? No. I figure I've burned a handful of calories my body needed to burn. But I never believe what a machine or online calculator tells me, in terms of calorie burn.

Exercising does permit me to eat more---but at this point, with so much left to lose, I am choosing not to make use of the leeway most of the time. When I hit maintenance, I know it will be what allows me far greater flexibility in terms of food vigilance.

Plus, it makes me feel a whole boatload better, both physically and emotionally. The latter may be more important to me than just about any other aspect.