We are constantly bombarded with messages about what’s good for us, only to turn around and be told it’s actually bad for us. Eggs are good. Now they’re not. High protein, low-carb diets are good. No wait, they’re not. Plastic water bottles will bring an early death. Or not.

TIME magazine’s recent cover story was called, “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin,” and the headline alone was enough to make dieters cry. All that work for nothing? Really? It didn’t take long before I started receiving emails claiming this info isn’t true. So which is it? Will exercise make me thin or not? In the TIME article, John Cloud writes of his own struggles with exercise and losing (or not losing) weight.

“I have exercised like this — obsessively, a bit grimly — for years, but recently I began to wonder: Why am I doing this? Except for a two-year period at the end of an unhappy relationship — a period when I self-medicated with lots of Italian desserts — I have never been overweight. One of the most widely accepted, commonly repeated assumptions in our culture is that if you exercise, you will lose weight. But I exercise all the time, and since I ended that relationship and cut most of those desserts, my weight has returned to the same 163 lb. it has been most of my adult life. I still have gut fat that hangs over my belt when I sit. Why isn't all the exercise wiping it out?”

Okay, I can relate. I’ll admit that I’m inconsistent when it comes to exercising, but during the time I’m really working out and giving it my all (training for a marathon for example), I don’t end up losing weight. How did I run 26.2 miles (plus more during training) and not lose weight? It’s preposterous

The article goes on to explain that exercise has plenty of benefits—a lower risk for heart problems, cancer, diabetes and other diseases. It also helps improve mental health cognitive skills. But apparently exercise serves no purpose in weight loss, mostly because it increases our hunger, which in turn makes us eat more.

“If you force yourself to jog for an hour, your self-regulatory capacity is proportionately enfeebled. Rather than lunching on a salad, you'll be more likely to opt for pizza. Some of us can will ourselves to overcome our basic psychology, but most of us won't be very successful.”

The article cited many studies and health reports, along with advice from doctors that all pointed to one thing: It’s what you eat that makes the biggest difference in weight loss. Not how hard you work out. In fact, the more you work out, the more likely you are to gain weight. Sigh. Upon further reflection of my recent eating habits, I can see why my 3-mile runs on the treadmill aren’t doing anything.

This week my favorite healthy lifestyle website, SparkPeople.com, emailed me to say that TIME had it wrong. Exercise does, in fact, help with weight loss. Personal trainer Dean Anderson agrees that exercise alone won’t make you lose weight. It must be combined with a healthy diet. But he disagrees with the theory that exercise will make you overeat. He believes we are stronger than that and don’t have to give in so easily.

The Spark People article then dives into the science behind exercise and appetite, giving attention to the importance of lower intensity exercise like walking or taking the stairs. Anderson says you’ll end up burning more fat if you increase lower intensity activities in your free time, rather than pushing yourself to do higher intensity workouts. The TIME article made a similar point, and really, I felt both articles agree with each other more than they realized. Except for one point.

In regards to the theory that exercise will make you gain weight, Anderson writes, “There’s not much doubt that these problems can happen, or even that they do happen for lots of people. But are they inevitable or unavoidable? Do they inevitably have to interfere with your weight loss efforts as much as this article seems to suggest? I suppose they could—IF you were a slave to your appetites, and incapable of figuring out how to feed yourself what you actually need.”

I think that settles the exercise debate for me. While it’s probably easier to just throw in the towel and forget diet and exercise altogether, that doesn’t mean we can’t try. It’s certainly possible to gain weight while exercising, but that doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. Our mind may play a bigger role in the exercise/weight loss debate that we realize.

To exercise or not to exercise? Where do you stand?