How much exercise is enough?

sophz97

I have been eating 1500 calories and running for 30 minutes in the morning on the treadmill (I was a competitive runner so I know how to run hard) and doing 30-40 minutes of power/vinyasa yoga every night. I feel like I should be losing but I am pretty much maintaining and getting discouraged. Is this amount of exercise enough?

singingflutelady

How are you measuring your food intake? Are you weighing everything with a food scale?

BrianSharpe

Are you actually logging everything you eat to make sure that you're really only eating what you think you are? How much weight do you have to lose? (height? weight?) How long have you been working at it? (weight loss isn't linear)

Interestingly studies have shown that exercise in itself does little to help with weight loss, it's a matter of eating fewer calories than you're expending and step # 1 is accurately recording what you eat.

kimny72

sophz97 wrote: »

I have been eating 1500 calories and running for 30 minutes in the morning on the treadmill (I was a competitive runner so I know how to run hard) and doing 30-40 minutes of power/vinyasa yoga every night. I feel like I should be losing but I am pretty much maintaining and getting discouraged. Is this amount of exercise enough?

You don't need to do any exercise to lose weight, though it can help. If you aren't losing you are not in a deficit.

Get a kitchen scale, start double-checking the database entries you are using (lots of them are wrong), and commit to logging super accurately for a couple of weeks to be sure of how much you are really eating. It is really common for people new to logging to be using bad entries and estimating portions wrong and be eating more than they think.

Good luck!

DX2JX2

How long do you think you've been maintaining? Could just be a temporary thing if not longer than a couple of weeks. Make sure your calorie logs are consistent and accurate but assuming they are just keep doing what you're doing and the weight will come off eventually.

How are you handling exercise calories? If eating back, are you comfortable that you haven't overestimated your burns?

As stated by other posters above, exercise doesn't do a ton for weight loss in the grand scheme of things. Calorie totals are much more important.

sophz97

Thanks for the replies, I am 5'2" and around 140 pounds so I have a good amount to lose. I try to log accurately and measure quantities with measuring cups and such but have not yet invested in a food scale. I eat 1500 calories and don't log my exercise since I can never trust the calorie estimates for it

ew_david

sophz97 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, I am 5'2" and around 140 pounds so I have a good amount to lose. I try to log accurately and measure quantities with measuring cups and such but have not yet invested in a food scale. I eat 1500 calories and don't log my exercise since I can never trust the calorie estimates for it

You can't really trust your estimated food calories either.

JeromeBarry1

The common wisdom of longtime users here seems to promote distrust of the MFP exercise database.
Even the wider fitness industry has published rigorous studies of cardio equipment and fitness trackers and found wide divergence in estimated to actual calories burned.

However, by never logging your exercise, you choose a 100% error rate when the worst you can get from using the worst machine estimate is an error rate of 40%. Do you often cut your nose to spite your face?

And do get a scale. They are cheap and effective at telling you the truth of what you eat. Cups and spoons for powders, solids, and irregularly shaped stuff is worse than useless.

HeliumIsNoble

sophz97 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, I am 5'2" and around 140 pounds so I have a good amount to lose. I try to log accurately and measure quantities with measuring cups and such but have not yet invested in a food scale. I eat 1500 calories and don't log my exercise since I can never trust the calorie estimates for it

You don't actually have a good amount to lose.

The BMI healthy weight range for our height is 101 to 137 pounds, and it should be noted that only very small-framed women come in at that bottom end. (The BMI healthy weight range was widened from 20-25 to 18.5-25 to avoid pathologicalising women with naturally light builds. It's not a green light for everyone to aim for a BMI of under 20.)

Get a measuring scale for the kitchen, and be prepared for it to take a while.

kimny72

sophz97 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, I am 5'2" and around 140 pounds so I have a good amount to lose. I try to log accurately and measure quantities with measuring cups and such but have not yet invested in a food scale. I eat 1500 calories and don't log my exercise since I can never trust the calorie estimates for it

You can get a digital food scale from Amazon or Walmart for $15-$20. Get one and use it for all solid and semisolid food - whole food, scanned food, peanut butter, fruit, everything. Double check the entries you are using to the package or the USDA. When I went through that process, I found I was eating 200-400 extra calories every day!

TavistockToad

sophz97 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, I am 5'2" and around 140 pounds so I have a good amount to lose. I try to log accurately and measure quantities with measuring cups and such but have not yet invested in a food scale. I eat 1500 calories and don't log my exercise since I can never trust the calorie estimates for it

Buy a food scale.

Running calories can be calculated using bodyweight in lbs × 0.63 x distance in miles.

DX2JX2

TavistockToad wrote: »

Buy a food scale.

Running calories can be calculated using bodyweight in lbs × 0.63 x distance in miles.

Or steal a scale. How you get it doesn't concern us. Just get a scale.

rsclause

Always seek out the highest calorie estimate in the database. I actually got pretty good at estimating calories on a plate but if I thought it was about 400 I would log 550 or 600. The only exercise calorie counting I ever trusted was my GPS running app. It knows my weight, age, height, speed and distance traveled.

kimny72

rsclause wrote: »

Always seek out the highest calorie estimate in the database. I actually got pretty good at estimating calories on a plate but if I thought it was about 400 I would log 550 or 600. The only exercise calorie counting I ever trusted was my GPS running app. It knows my weight, age, height, speed and distance traveled.

I'm sure the bolded would work for a lot of people, especially active men, but in this instance I would respectfully disagree. OP is a relatively small, lightly-active female who doesn't have many calories to play with. Over-estimating every meal by 100 cals could take her from over-eating to undereating really fast. Us smaller women have a very small window we have to hit calorie-wise, and there's no reason not to be as precise as you can, especially in the beginning when you are still learning what the correct amount of food is.

tomorrowistoday0000

I was in the same boat as you, same height, slightly less starting weight at 133-135 and was running between 3-5 miles a day 4xs/week (and one gym cardio day a week), eating around 1500 calories. I was able to lose a good 10 lbs doing this routine but at some point it stopped working (stall for 6 months). I weighed my foods, counted my calorie and still wasn't seeing anymore progress. I needed a change and decided to give strength training a try. I hired a PT and have been doing weights 4-5xs/wk with cardio for 30 mins at high intensity 1-2x and resting 2 days. My diet also changed, I started to consume more healthy fats and that helped a lot surprisingly.

I'm currently between 114-116 and have built a lot of strength in my legs that has enabled me to run much faster now. I went from being able to run a mile in 11 mins to now 8 1/2 mins. My body overall now look and feel sooo much better than it did before with just the running.

Last, we all carry our weight differently so I say only you can judge what weight range is appropriate for yourself. I have people tell me my weight is way too light but I know this is not so for me. For me, at 140 I have rolls on my back, a double chin, pregnant belly and etc. so 140 would be too heavy for me and I'm speaking from being there before. Don't be afraid to explore, it's a learning, trial and error process.

MostlyWater

I started having knee pain so I'm going a little less hard. Your body will tell you if you're abusing it.