Hi Koffee,
I'm not trying to bust your chops here, no doubt you are a fitness expert. But I'm not entirely sure I agree with your statement, I know I use to, but now I'm not so sure.
The reason is because my wife lost 105 pounds (my God she has some fine booty on her now!) and I've learned a few things by watching her go through this weight loss.
If she exercise too much she gained weight (muscle maybe, but she didn't like it). It was uncanny but anything over 1 hour sessions 3x per week on the treadmill she would gain weight. It was so strange, as I was always telling her the more you exercise the more weight you'd loose. That didn't seem to be the case. But before you reply, please read on.
Like I said, if she didn't eat enough, she would gain weight. She was on the weightwatches point system, I'm sure you know about it, based on age, height, weight, gender, etc your given a certain number of points to eat everyday. If you exercise you gain points, BUT if you do gain points you have to eat back those with no more than 4 remaining. I.e. if she gained 10 exercise points, she had to eat back 6, or she would gain weight. She tried not doing that a few times - exercise but NOT eat back those points (hopin gto loose mor efaster), and sure enough on her next weigh in she was up. So each time she exercised, she made sure that she always ate back those points to within 4. It was weird, you think the more calories you burn in a day the more weight you'd loose, that didn't seem to be the case.
One other thing I noticed with her (somewhat unrelated to my point) is if she didn't drink enough water she would gain weight. Which is not surprising, the body needs it.
What I have learned is that exercise is NOT the best way to lose weight. Oh, yes, your body is designed to move and exercise is important, but 90 minutes per day!! Ugh, I regularly ride 100km or more and i can't imagine doing a 40km ride everyday (BURN OUT!). What I have learned from watching my wife, it is not so much the AMOUNT exercise or the AMOUNT of food one eats, but rather the the TYPE of food you eat - making better food choices. She had to learn how to.....well.....eat. Too make better choices so she wouldn't be hungry all the time but yet take in enough nutrients to fuel her body. Exercise burnt off those nutrients her body needed, hence the body stored fat for reserves. So if she took in those reserves by eating more her body did not store the fat. As well, over-exercising caused her to burn more of those nutrients hence her body stored the fat. Now having said that, I think that over time if she increased her exercise routine slowly so her body got use to the amount of exercise, then I think that she could exercise more and more and not gain the weight, but that is not her goal (she hates exercise).
Again, yes, some of it MAY be muscle but I can't see that doing 4-5x per week rather than 3x or less on the treadmill added 2 pounds of muscle on her next weigh in.
Anyway, its just a point of view, and something I have come to notice with her weight loss. She tells me that she is NEVER going back to the weight she was before. Her balance is better, her asthma is gone, her feet do not hurt anymore, better stamina during the day, not tired all the time, she actually likes shopping for clothes now (my poor Visa!).
She just feels better. I've gotta loose about 10 pounds myself....things are starting to jiggle.
Digger