The causality between exercise and successful weight maintenance is difficult to infer, as people who maintain weight loss may be more likely to exercise, rather than exercise being the sole driver of maintenance.

“When I look at the the data from Jim Hill that you've just cited um I've always found it difficult to infer the direction of causality and it so so you're you're correct that the people who are most successful in maintaining weight loss are going to be on balance far more likely to be people who do a lot of exercise than those who don't um and so of course it could be that doing a lot of exercise is a valuable tool to drive weight maintenance I.E maintenance of energy balance alternatively it could be the people who metabolically get fix fixed through weight loss are the ones that have an easier time exercising”