# How does exercise help you lose weight?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-exercise-help-you-lose-weight/612003>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 6, 2012, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-exercise-help-you-lose-weight/612003 "2012-02-06T19:58:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-exercise-help-you-lose-weight/612003/41 "2012-02-08T23:34:51Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> To lose weight and keep it off, a person must permanently change their style of eating.

Well, you must permanently change _something_, at least. Which something is easier might vary from person to person. And it’s pretty easy to fit exercise into your daily routine if you don’t schedule it as “exercise”: Biking to work instead of driving, for instance, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

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**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-exercise-help-you-lose-weight/612003/42 "2012-02-09T00:05:59Z")

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> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Exercise really does not result in much weight loss directly. Some gain weight when they exercise because psychologically they excuse the 400 kCal muffin or 500 kCal Starbucks Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino with the maybe 300 kCal they burned jogging for half an hour. Train for a marathon running many hours a week, cycle a hundred miles a week, and the calories burned become significant (if not replaced).

For a lot of us exercise goes the other way psychologically too. I do not enjoy exercise, but I do it every day anyway because of the options of a. getting fat b. giving up sweets or c. exercising, c is the least unpalatable. But I don’t exercise for very long most days because I don’t have time to. When I _do_ get in a long work out, and spend a couple of hours burning several hundred calories (up to 1200 if DDR’s calorie count is to be believed) you’d think that I’d feel even more justified than usual eating something yummy. But I don’t. Those calories were damn hard work burning, so I find that I’m better able to resist temptation once I’m sitting there sore and tired, than I am when I do my usual work out that only burns a hundred or two hundred calories.

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