Continued from How Not To Cheat On a Diet.

Yo-yo dieters tend to avoid exercise like the plague, and when they do work out, the habit rarely lasts.

In the Nurses’ Health Study, weight cyclers were 60 percent more likely than noncyclers to report that they rarely stuck to an exercise program.

This is no surprise, says Judith Matz, author of The Diet Survivor’s Handbook. “They turn exercise into another diet. One day they don’t feel like exercising, so they feel guilty. Once they’ve blown it and been ‘bad,’ they quit altogether. It’s the same cycle.”

Exercise doesn’t shed pounds quickly, but every major weight-control study notes that regular physical activity is crucial to successful and permanent weight loss. Some experts suggest making exercise routine, like brushing your teeth, so you don’t even give yourself the option of wiggling out of it.

Joining a gym isn’t necessary. You could walk in your neighborhood, do exercise videos at home, hike every Saturday, climb your office stairs twice a day, walk laps around the mall on Sundays with a friend.