Exercise does not equal weight loss, but it does help keep it off

Some pretty neat articles here on the New York Times website about exercise and weight loss.  Many people I know find that exercise makes them so hungry they eat more afterwards, ruining the calorie deficit required to actually lose weight.  It seems that this holds up in scientific studies, primarily for women.  Women seem to get especially hosed because the mechanism that wants to maintain the body’s weight works especially well for them, while for men it seems to not be as effective.  The guess is that women naturally retain more calories for reproduction.  Either way, women are getting the crappy end of this stick, as far as weight loss goes.

The other neat part is there is some evidence that the amount of exercise required to actually do some good might be a lot less than originally thought.  In one study they just prevented people from sitting down at all during the day and saw that while hundreds of extra calories were burned, there was no associated appetite increase.  Kinda neat stuff.

Go and check it out.

A really cool read, saw it on Metafilter.