The most common use of exercise isn’t weight loss, but weight maintenance. One of the largest weight loss and exercise studies ever done, found that exercise is the most significant factor in maintaining weight loss. Regular exercise will help you keep weight off that you’ve lost. The problem is that exercise is not going to help you lose weight. Exercise decreases your metabolic rate. After exercise, where you’ve just burned a bunch of calories, your metabolism slows down. This evolutionary mechanism allowed cavemen to stay alive, after they exerted energy looking for food. Exercise will make you feel better and increase your energy. But unless you limit your exercise to four 3 minute intervals, every other day, prolonged exercise will slow down your weight loss.