increase weight loss when excercise less?

Very much so I drop more weight 3-5lbs a week with diet alone and when I add exercise it drops to 1-2lbs. My little theory is there is muscle fiber tearing which holds onto more water to repair. No proof but I've noticed a correlation.

There's an interesting article here on why exercising 4 times a week may be better than 6: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/why-four-workouts-a-week-may-be-better-than-six/


Exercising too much can put stress on the body. It can also lead to more water retention in the muscles so losing more scale weight is not unusual when taking a break from exercise.

I noticed this as well. It took me a while to figure it out but I bought a program called 6 week body makeover and they encourage you to workout less (walking and 18 minutes of strength training 2x a week). There response was when people need to lose 'weight' they more than likely need to lose 'fat' and to lose fat you need to be in the fat burning zone. Most high intense workouts take you above fat burning zone and push you to muscle building zone. So when you workout to much or to long you are making changes to your body but more in muscle not fat. Again most people need to lose fat first. I personally dont work out at all because it confuses my body to much. I struggle and plateau way to fast when I work out. So this time around I am focusing on food until I get down to a weight that I am happy with and then start to do exercise to lift and tone. First time I did weight watchers I lost 55 pounds with just eating properly. So go with what works right? I am!

Jillian Michaels has said that your body changes after the workouts and the time in between. I have been incorporating 2 rest days a week and I am seeing changes I think because I give my body time to repair and respond to the workouts.

this is an interesting phenomenon that often occurs when you are consuming too few calories to fuel your workouts over an extended period of time.

for example: eat 1500 calories + exercise 400 = net 1100 calories. body has a "brownout", so to speak; can't fully function so slows down a bit. You may be a bit tired, under the weather, cranky, etc. May or may not experience stall in weight loss.

take a break: eat 1500 calories + exercise 0 = net 1500. body has increased energy, increased metabolism, may result in increased weight loss.