Exercise doesn't necessarily lead to weight loss. It does burn calories, but it also makes you hungrier, which makes you eat more calories. So things tend to even out.

However, exercise does make everything in your body and brain work better. It is definitely worth doing. It will also probably improve your mood and make you look better.

If you've never done exercise before, you are probably thinking that exercise means jogging or cycling (i.e. cardio). You should probably avoid those. (Unless you really enjoy them of course, but honestly, I don't think that many people do.)

Cardio is very stressful on the body. You should do resistance training instead (weight training). It's more paleo :) If you think that resistance training is only for body builders, you would be wrong. Everyone would benefit from resistance training: regular people, fat people, old people, frail people, etc.

And keep up the walking. Just moving your body around is beneficial.

I love rock climbing. It is so much fun, you don't notice that you are exercising.

I can't imagine not exercising. Researchers have studied people who are naturally thin and those who are more endomorphic, and found that if you feed them exactly the same, the thin people don't gain as much weight - why? They're moving all the time. They're fidgeting, wandering around, getting up and down, etc.

I'm one of those naturally thin ones, with naturally thin parents. My mom can't sit still for more than like a half an hour at a time. I have trouble sitting through a concert. Even watching TV I have to stretch my legs and change position all the time to stay comfortable. I wake up in the middle of the night with twitchy legs and I have to do 10-15 minutes of yoga before I can sleep again. If I go more than a day or so without walking or running outside I feel like s*&t.

SO my hunch is that if you don't have this (sometimes annoying) internal motivation to move, it's probably a good thing to give it a little push in order to create a new habit. You can't really make yourself fidget, but you can increase your "body in motion" factor. It doesn't have to be associated with your weight loss but just a new set of habits - like getting up several times an hour to stretch, or going for short walks a couple times a day, nothing extreme - you slowly ingrain to be part of the way you are. There's all kinds of research out there showing that regular exercise is beneficial to your brain as you age - you regenerate neurons and hold off dementia, among other things. I would think now is a good time to make movement a permanent part of your life - to the point where you just do it automatically.

Since you're still walking and not being a total couch potato, I'd recommend simply doing what you're doing until you stop making progress. Then you can add exercise to break through your plateau.

It can sometimes be best not to throw the kitchen sink at your weight loss efforts right away. Our bodies only adapt to change...and if you're already doing everything you know how to do, you don't have anything left to change when you finally do hit a plateau. Since you've trained combat sports before, you'll know what to do when that happens.

JS

I'm in the same boat, losing without exercise. I was going to wait until I got stuck to add it in but I am getting bored. I find myself moving more the less I weigh. I think it has to do with my favorite pass-time of boredom eating no longer being in the picture. Now when I'm bored I hop on the mini trampoline. I'll graduate to something else when my body says so.

First of all, I love your avatar <3

Second of all, I got so sick I could not exercise (All I did was walking). And I still lost weight. I am going to start my regular routine whenever I feel better. I think it will probably take me another month or so.

I used to exercise for about 2 hours per day prior to getting sick. I guess my body asked me not to overexert myself while it is healing, so I respect my body's request.

I miss exercise.

Exercise isn't necessary for weight-loss, but I think it is necessary for optimal health.

I like to think of exercise as icing on the cake that no one here eats.

Absolutely exercise. I am with the above poster^, I can't imagine not exercising in some form or fashion. I've been down with a head cold for the last 3 days and I am itching to get out there and do SOMETHING besides my regular farm chores (which have to be done no matter what)

I understand what you are asking here, and I see that you are coming at this from a perspective of someone who already knows how to train. It really is kind of fascinating to watch one's own body change from the perspective of a semi-objective observer, isn't it?

It is quicker to lose fat in amounts that are visible than it is to gain muscle that is visible. People who exercise and gain weight (while wanting to lose weight), and attribute those gains to "putting on muscle" are frequently overeating for the amount of exercise ("you can't outexercise your mouth").

In addition, as you I'm sure you know already, it's very difficult to limit weight loss to fat loss only. This isn't necessarily totally insidious, because you need less skeletal muscle to move around a lighter body. But you actually can end up "skinny fat" at the end of the day if you were sedentary before losing weight, and remain sedentary while weight. You can't just unzip your fat suit to reveal the god or goddess within (sadly, I speak from personal experience here). You're walking, so you're not totally sedentary, but that's not an activity that will build muscle in places other than your legs.

When you combine these two factors, when you reach the end of the weight loss road, as it were, you may not like what you see as much as you would expect, absent starting in on the strength training now.

I'm usually in the "let your body tell you what to do" camp but because the muscle-building process is SO time-consuming, I'd be inclined to get started on it now and gently set the desire for bragging rights aside.

For me, the weight loss came first and then i started exercising naturally with the new found energy and then i lost some more weight. I just hope i would have started strenght training so much earlier.

I would absolutely exercise now (and in fact, I am). I do not believe in exercise for calories in/out reasons, but I absolutely believe in it for health and for weight loss support. The jury is still out, but some exercise (not Biggest Loser style chronic cardio) likely helps with all sorts of things including mood ... and I've been intrigued with the idea that exercise (or at least moderate physical activity) helps our body weight regulatory systems. And given its role in health (see 23 1/2 hours), why not get started sooner rather than later?

I sound like a broken record, but j'adore Mark Sisson's fitness pyramid. Lots of low and slow, a little resistance, and a little sprinting.

I would start training immediately. The goal would be to get the metabolism to rise by stressing the body, and build more active muscle mass.

Yet another reason to exercise is that muscle mass is an important part of the body's own way to avoid diabetes.

I would strength train with exercises that strain the body's largest muscles, and any exercises that require collaboration with more muscle would be prefered.

The strength training should be done with high intensity, two or three times a week for 15 to 30 minutes each time.

You can try. Various things. See how you like exerting yourself. See what you could do. Feel your muscles. Look at your body and imagine things. There is no obligation to continue. Enjoy the freedom to move.

Start Today. Start by walking 5 times a week for 30 minutes. After that add weight lifting or body weight exercises...