Generally humans are very efficient machines, even ignoring the effect discussed here. Just look up the numbers, very generally, an hour of intense exercise ten

Generally humans are very efficient machines, even ignoring the effect discussed here. Just look up the numbers, very generally, an hour of intense exercise tends to burn the same amount as quite a frugal lunch. I find that it is much easier to reduce say 500 calories of daily intake than to burn the same amount. Obviously, this is not a wise attitude to have, exercise has a lot of other benefits and it is critical to maintain good health. But yeah, if it's just about loosing weight the cost (time, willpower, money, fatigue...) to benefit ratio is surprisingly low.