Here's a pretty eye-opening fact: To lose a pound, you need to burn 3,500 calories. How can you burn 3,500 calories? Well, you can run ... for five hours. You can also do aerobics for seven hours, play the guitar for 14 hours or dance for eight hours. But who has the time -- or energy -- to do all that?

My point is this: exercise is great but it takes a lot of work to lose weight. And unless you have an abundance of free time, you'll have to tweak your diet too. If you do the math, you'll realize that by reducing your caloric intake by 500 calories a day, you'll be consuming 3,500 calories less a week, which--if your current diet allows you to maintain your weight -- should result in a weight loss of one pound a week. But it can be done -- with a little dedication.

Thanks for the info, Fitsugar!