oh, that's so disappointing!

My experience is that diet and exercise are always the most beneficial when they are used in conjunction with one another. If I am consistently exercising then I am more likely to want to eat healtheir meals because I want to have the energy to exercise and coming home after a long workout and eating high fat foods just isnt appealing.

If people are of the mindset that if they can exercise they can eat whatever they want, they were always fighting a losing battle. The problem is studies like this come out with a catchy headline, people read the first few setences or exerpts of the article and dont really read it to understand what it means. For this study it appears from the article that they only used low intensity and high intensity cycling as their form of exercise. They don't seem to mention weight lifting at all which builds more muscle than any cardio will, which could change their results. Data can be manipulated pretty easily to make it more appealing to the media so I am always pretty skeptical of headlines like this.

Bottom line burn more calories than you consume and you will acheive your goals.

There goes my formula for running then tons of peanut butter comsumption. Out the window.

I'm with kclulu...you can't eat whatever you want just because you work out. I work out a lot and I make sure to eat enough to fuel my workouts, but I don't entitle myself to eat anything and everything just because I work out. I have friends who work out for 45 minutes on the treadmill and then go out and have a few beers and some pizza...and PRESTO! Your workout just went out the window, lol.

One rarely works without the other! I feel much better about indulging every now and then knowing I work out regularly. Some days I may brake even, that's OK too. The benefits of exercise are so huge and go so far beyond looking hot. From thyroid function to preventing Alzheimer's...

This is a really discouraging article. I think it is important to point out that diet and exercise together work, because exercise suppresses appetite, and while you are reducing your calories in, exercise raises your metabolism so you are able to actually burn the calories instead of the normal "starvation mode" conservation of calories.

The article says, "The new paper offers additional evidence that exercise does not boost metabolism as much as widely believed".

The whole point of this article is basically you can't work out and eat like crap and expect to lose weight, NOT that exercise is pointless!

Fit, I'm disappointed. You should have focused more on the benefits of exercise rather than making a blanket statement based on one survery. I think too many people will just go "oh, wait, I don't have to work at it anymore" and go sit on the couch. Exercise does so many other wonderful things - including keeping you from being "fat skinny," if you want to talk about weight loss. Also, a pound of muscle burns considerably more than a pound of fat, and things like HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and weight lifting are proven to provide an afterburn. So yes, I think that exercise has a major impact on fat-burning and weight loss.

My guess is that the study was simply over steady-state, run-at-6mph-for-an-hour exercise.

I hate generalizations.

Kclulu you are completely right

I feel cheated!! I diet and I workout a lot thinking that this is helping me to burn more fat and calories.

This was a good reminder, but was also hoping for something a little more in-depth and enlightening. I think it's a great thing to point out that exercise (some forms of cardio, plus weight lifting, yoga, spinning, etc) build muscle, which burns more calories overall. So two 150-pound people with totally different fat/muscle ratios, the muscular person could eat more and gain less.

What?! Well no wonder I can't lose any more weight, even though I've worked up from walking to half-jogging in my cardio workout. I knew something was fishy about this "you only need diet/exercise" to lose weight. I don't eat badly or a lot, and I work out, and I still can't lose weight. Guess that means sugery's the only way to actually get it done - most of the people that I know that have had significant weight loss [like more than 50 lbs] had to get gastric surgeries to get there...maybe they're right.

This really is disappointing.

There's also no one size fits all, we're entering the days of personal genomics.
No matter how much excercise i do, weights/spin etc it doesn't affect my weight at all, I now have to semi starve to stay slim but I do carry the obesity gene and used to be 45lbs heavier so for now, I'll keep up the good fight, but it's getting tougher and tougher.

is there anything new in this? what you're saying is that you burn extra fat during excercise and not when you're not excercising - did anyone ever think differently?
lets not get so excited! Eat healthy , move daily and we'll all be fine

This article needs to be more carefully written! Exercise still burns plenty of calories while you do it. As nia0nia said, this study only suggests that exercise doesn't make you burn extra fat while you're sitting on the couch. Also, I highly suggest that people take a look at the actual study. It only looks at cycling, and everyone is on the same controlled diet. Finally, the researchers do state that building muscle does burn more calories all the time, but it's not a big effect.

This article is about burning fat. Fat is stored excess calories.

Naturally, if a person wants to lose fat, he or she has to burn more calories than what's consumed so that the body would tap the fat reserves. Calories consumption is an important factor here (as well as the burning of them). Specifically, calorie consumption must be less than calories burned.

Also, I agree -- building muscle will help with the burning of calories.

Once the desired weight (or fat ratio) is achieved, the eating and exercise routines should be changed for maintenance.

This is an interesting article. For me, I notice a more of a difference if I'm exercising regularly vs. watching my diet (if it's one or the other). But I agree, the combination of the two really works best for weight loss.

I agree with not being a well-written article. The study and/or article needed to explain the difference between fat burning and different types calorie burning. I think this article represents how important it is for those who are seeking a healthier life style to think out their goals and talk to a health professional. Articles like these can throw someone off his/her goals.

Anyone can do a 'study' and skew it to how they want it to turn out. The benefits of exercise are greater than just fat burning. An article like this doesn't give enough details of the study and is discouraging.

yes, i agree chatnoir and everyone else who found this article misleading, inaccurate and discouraging. were you having a mean-spirited day Fit? It just doesn't seem like you at all. How about a new article on this study?

Weren't we told (on this site) a while ago that post-exercise calorie burn is only something like 20 calories per hour of exercise ANYWAY?!

I mean, this isn't exactly new news.

This article isn't saying SIT ON THE COUCH it is saying don't pig out in the hour following your workout because your fat-burning basically stops right after you finish exercising. I bet some people go home and pig out thinking they are still burning fat when they really aren't.

I mean, yeah, doing cardio for 30 minutes isn't going to have the afterburn like lifting weights for 30 minutes would. That is old news. But if you're hungry after a workout, so what? Eat a carb with some fat (good fat!)/protein. You will not turn into a fat ass because you ate after you worked out. I mean, if you're looking to lose fat, adjust your cals, and do exercise to help your metabolism, which will help melt the fat off.

...in some cases, some people need to eat their calories back to stop their bodies from shutting down. It depends on the person. The benefit is not lost because you eat your calories back. In some cases, if you are under what you need to eat because exercise put you at a larger deficit, that is still unhealthy, and you still need the calories as fuel.

Everyone is different.

it's always been 80% diet and 20% exercise in my mind! i work out daily but also eat an extremely clean diet - doing both is key for sure!

people need to read it correctly, it didn't say exercise won't help but the afterburn is inefficient to weight, and one should never use exercise to justify eating more or eating junk foods.

I'm also curious why they didn't mention weight training!

What this study should say is that random people told to exercise more don't get skinny. By combining exercise WITH better food choices (more fiber, more protein, and less processed carbs) you of course get much thinner and lower your body fat.

This study is shameful as it will convince millions of americans not to exercise...as they now think its their "genes" that don't let them 'respond" to exercise right..