Research
Energy balance
Exercise interventions result in small but significant weight loss in adults with overweight or obesity, with greater reductions achieved when exercise is combined with dietary changes or when exercise intensity is increased.
To lose weight, you must exercise consistently (3-5 days/week for 15-60 minutes). However, exercise alone yields small results. For meaningful weight loss, combine exercise with dietary changes. Increasing the intensity of your exercise will further increase the amount of weight you lose.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
When compared with no treatment, exercise resulted in small weight losses across studies. Exercise combined with diet resulted in a greater weight reduction than diet alone (WMD - 1.0 kg; 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.3 to -0.7). Increasing exercise intensity increased the magnitude of weight loss (WMD - 1.5 kg; 95% CI -2.3 to -0.7).
Why this rating
Based on a Cochrane systematic review of 43 randomized controlled trials involving 3476 participants, though heterogeneity was noted.
Source
Exercise for overweight or obesity
Kelly Shaw et al. · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · 2006
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd003817.pub3
Meta-analysis · 43 studiesCited 945×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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