How Much Exercise is Too Much?

themissymoo

Anybody know at what stage you're exercising "too much?" I read somewhere once that once you're burning over 4k calories a week, it becomes bad for you. I'm looking to lose around 20-30lbs by the time college starts back, so I don't want to overdo it if it means I'm damaging myself in the long-term and stopping myself losing weight.

I don't know how many calories I'd be burning, but my plan was to do 60mins dancing, 30 day shred and 30 day ab challenge (meaning sixty minutes of exercise videos) and 30-60 minutes of cycling/walking/running three days a week now, but obviously I'd increase the cycling and running time over the summer to make sure I'm improving stamina and whatnot. So, roughly two to three hours exercise each day for the first while, meaning around eight hours a week.

I dance most days so I'd do at least twenty minutes but usually I'll go for a couple of hours of non-intense dancing (learning and practicing routines) on my "rest days" as well. I'd often break a sweat, but never push myself to be out of breath. Not sure if this counts as exercise.

Would this be too much or pushing it, bearing in mind this isn't interfering with the rest of my life (I'd be on the couch otherwise) and I just want to be fitter, healthier and skinnier for the next college year? I'm changing my diet too, if that makes a difference.

TLDR; What's the limit where you have to go "that's too much exercise?"

Celly Smunt

Push yourself as hard as you can during exercise and if you feel you're dropping too many calories while doing this then just eat a little more to compensate. This way you're getting the most from your cardio without dropping weight too fast.

It is vital to take rest days however, doing intense training everyday is going to lead straight to injury. 2-3 hours everyday does seem excessive though it all comes down to the intensity of the workouts.

Either way if you're moving more than usual you're going to drop weight.

Download myfitnesspal if you have a smartphone. You can log your current weight, your goal, when you'd like to achieve it by ideally, and it will tell you how many calories you'd need to consume daily to achieve your goal.

Additionally you can log the exercise you do and it tells you how many calories you would have burned, if it is registered in their open source directory, meaning anyone can input them.

Also check out eatthismuch.com, which will generate food plans based on how many calories you want to consume.

colossus-x

When you exercise you damage your muscle cells forcing them to grow when your at rest which results in your body growing and getting bigger/stronger. Over-training is when your not giving your body enough rest to do that growing. Those cut-off points are specific to each person. Over-training symptoms are feeling tired in the morning after a nights sleep and/or feeling tired through the day. Not being able to progress in your training is another sign. I used to weight train 6 days a week but cut it back to every other day and I got better results. Less mental fatigue too. So if your not feeling any over-training symptoms you've no problem. Looking at it as a question of how much calories you've burned is not really a good way to access your training.

Transform

themissymoo wrote: »

Anybody know at what stage you're exercising "too much?" I read somewhere once that once you're burning over 4k calories a week, it becomes bad for you. I'm looking to lose around 20-30lbs by the time college starts back, so I don't want to overdo it if it means I'm damaging myself in the long-term and stopping myself losing weight.

I don't know how many calories I'd be burning, but my plan was to do 60mins dancing, 30 day shred and 30 day ab challenge (meaning sixty minutes of exercise videos) and 30-60 minutes of cycling/walking/running three days a week now, but obviously I'd increase the cycling and running time over the summer to make sure I'm improving stamina and whatnot. So, roughly two to three hours exercise each day for the first while, meaning around eight hours a week.

I dance most days so I'd do at least twenty minutes but usually I'll go for a couple of hours of non-intense dancing (learning and practicing routines) on my "rest days" as well. I'd often break a sweat, but never push myself to be out of breath. Not sure if this counts as exercise.

Would this be too much or pushing it, bearing in mind this isn't interfering with the rest of my life (I'd be on the couch otherwise) and I just want to be fitter, healthier and skinnier for the next college year? I'm changing my diet too, if that makes a difference.

TLDR; What's the limit where you have to go "that's too much exercise?"

current height/weight? Goals?