While many rat studies have examined the metabolic and behavioral impairments produced by excessive consumption of sugar solutions, few have focused on factors such as exercise that could influence recovery when access to such solutions is withdrawn. This issue is important, since excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages makes a major contribution to the current obesity epidemic. In the first stage of four experiments rats were given unrestricted access to 10% sucrose solution for six weeks and in the second stage various factors including voluntary wheel running were manipulated to assess their impact on metabolic and behavioral measures. In Experiment 1 the second stage compared the effects of sugar withdrawal, sugar withdrawal plus food restriction, and sugar withdrawal combined with both food restriction and exercise. In Experiments 2 and 3 the second stage consisted of removing sucrose and restricting food access for all rats, while access to exercise varied across groups. In Experiment 4 the amount of exercise was manipulated during Stage 2. In all four experiments food restriction reduced body weight gain and fat pads relative to groups maintained on sucrose and in Experiments 3 and 4 improvements in performance on a spatial memory task were found. However, no additional benefits from wheel running were detected in any of the experiments. Paradoxically, in Experiment 2 the group given low exercise exhibited larger visceral fat pads than non-exercised rats. These experiments suggest that the most effective factor promoting recovery from the deleterious effects of excessive sugar consumption is restriction of energy intake and that voluntary wheel running has little or no additional impact.