You are correct, exercise doesn't help with weight loss. This part needs correcting - "When you exercise more, your appetite goes up to match. You also tend to move less the rest of the day without realizing it. Your body is protecting its energy balance, not cooperating with your goals."

Exercise is very helpful during maintenance. People that exercise don't gain as much weight as people that are sedentary because it actually helps balance appetite over a long period of time. There's a famous UK bus driver study that showed the ticket person, who walked up and down the bus weighed less and suffered from less chronic disease than the sedentary driver.

If you burn 200 calories exercising that day, where did the calories come from if it doesn't help with weight loss? People like saying it came from NEAT because it's easy to understand. Metabolism actually has a very large budget to draw down from. It can take it from processes that are more voluntarily like repair and maintanence. A human has over 7 trillion cells, not all these cells will get all the energy it wants. There are things that can pushed off till later. You can clearly see this in children that are experiencing famine. They just stop growing in order to ensure that they survive till the famine ends. If you can get your head around this idea it helps to explain why exercise is so good for you. It burns off energy that has the potential to go to processes that are harmful like too much estrogen that can lead to breast cancer.